When Alexander was the Prince of Paris, Salianna had sent her own childe, the beautiful Lorraine, to act as his consort. His insistence that she love him, and his foul murder of her and her lover Tristan had driven a wedge between the Grand Court and the Courts of Love that no diplomacy, no matter how skillful, had managed to remove, and permanently damaged an alliance that had shown every sign of enduring for ages to come. There was considerable bitterness on all sides of the equation.