‘You do not understand. The Emperor is nothing. The Emperor, Samar Dev, is not the one he wants.’

Who? Icarium? No-‘Karsa Orlong, what secret do you hold? What do you know about the Crippled God?’

The Toblakai rose. ‘It is nearly dawn,’ he said. ‘Nearly time.’

‘Karsa, please-’

‘Will you witness?’

‘Do I have to?’

He studied her for a moment, and then his next words shocked her to the core of her soul: ‘I need you, woman.’

Why?’ she demanded, suddenly close to tears.

‘To witness. To do what needs doing when the time comes.’ He drew a deep, satisfied breath, looking away, his chest swelling until she thought his ribs would creak. ‘I live for days like these,’ he said.

And now she did weep.

Grandness, promise, potential. Fallen One, must you so share out your pain?

‘Women always get weak once a month, don’t they?’

‘Go to Hood, bastard.’

‘And quick to anger, too.’

She was on her feet. Pounding a fist into his solid chest.

Five times, six-he caught her wrist, not hard enough to hurt, but stopping those swings as if a manacle had snapped tight.

She glared up at him.

And he was, for his sake, not smiling.

Her fist opened and she found herself almost physically pulled up and into his eyes-seeing them, it seemed, for the first time. Their immeasurable depth, their bright ferocity and joy.

Karsa Orlong nodded. ‘Better, Samar Dev.’

‘You patronizing shit.’

He released her arm. ‘I learn more each day about women. Because of you.’

‘You still have a lot to learn, Karsa Orlong,’ she said, turning away and wiping at her cheeks.

‘Yes, and that is a journey I will enjoy.’

‘I really should hate you,’ she said. ‘I’m sure most people who meet you hate you, eventually.’

The Toblakai snorted. ‘The Emperor will.’

‘So now I must walk with you. Now I must watch you die.’

From outside there came shouts.

‘They have discovered the escape,’ Karsa Orlong said, collecting his sword. ‘Soon they will come for us. Are you ready, Samar Dev?’

‘No.’

The water had rotted her feet, he saw. White as the skin of a corpse, shreds hanging loose to reveal gaping red wounds, and as she drew them onto the altar top and tucked them under her, the Errant suddenly understood something. About humanity, about the seething horde in its cruel avalanche through history.

The taste of ashes filling his mouth, he looked away, studied the runnels of water streaming down the stone walls of the chamber. ‘It rises,’ he said, looking back at her.

‘He was never as lost as he thought he was,’ Feather Witch said, reaching up distractedly to twirl the filthy strands of her once-golden hair. ‘Are you not eager, dear god of mine? This empire is about to kneel at your feet. And,’ she suddenly smiled, revealing brown teeth, ‘at mine.’

Yes, at yours, Feather Witch. Those rotting, half-dead appendages that you could have used to run. Long ago. The empire kneels, and lips quiver forth. A blossom kiss. So cold, so like paste, and the smell, oh, the smell…

‘Is it not time?’ she asked, with an oddly coy glance.

‘For what?’

‘You were a consort. You know the ways of love. Teach me now.’

‘Teach you?’

‘I am unbroken. I have never lain with man or woman.’

‘A lie,’ the Errant replied. ‘Gribna, the lame slave in the Hiroth village. You were very young. He used you. Often and badly. It is what has made you what you now are, Feather Witch.’

And he saw her eyes shy away, saw the frown upon her brow, and realized the awful truth that she had not remembered. Too young, too wide-eyed. And then, every moment buried in a deep hole at the pit of her soul. She, by the Abyss, did not remember. ‘Feather Witch-’

.’Go away,’ she said. ‘I don’t need anything from you right now. I have Udinaas.’

‘You have lost Udinaas. You never had him. Listen, please-’

‘He’s alive! Yes he is! And all the ones who wanted him are dead-the sisters, all dead! Could you have imagined that?’

‘You fool. Silchas Ruin is coming here. To lay this city to waste. To destroy it utterly-’

‘He cannot defeat Rhulad Sengar,’ she retorted. ‘Not even Silchas Ruin can do that!’

The Errant said nothing to that bold claim. Then he turned away. ‘I saw gangrene at your feet, Feather Witch. My temple, as you like to call it, reeks of rotting flesh.’

‘Then heal me.’

‘The water rises,’ he said, and this time the statement seemed to burgeon within him, filling his entire being. The water rises. Why? ‘Hannan Mosag seeks the demon god, the one trapped in the ice. That ice, Feather Witch, is melting. Water… everywhere. Water…’

By the Holds, was it possible? Even this? But no, I trapped the bastard. I trapped him!

‘He took the finger,’ Feather Witch said behind him. ‘He took it and thought that was enough, to just take it. But how could I go where he has gone? I couldn’t. So I needed him, yes. I needed him, and he was never as lost as he thought he was.’

And what of the other one?’ the Errant asked, still with his back to her.

‘Never found-’

The Elder God whirled round. ‘Where is the other finger?’

He saw her eyes widen.

Is it possible? Is it-

He found himself in the corridor, the water at his hips, though he passed through it effortlessly. We have come to the moment-Icarium walks ~ where? A foreign army and a horrifying mage approaches. Silchas Ruin wings down from the north with eyes of fire. Hannan Mosag ~ the fool-crawls his way to Settle Lake even as the demon god stirs-and she says he was never as lost as he thought he was.

Almost dawn, somewhere beyond these sagging, weeping walls.

An empire on its knees.

The blossom kiss, but moments away.

The word came to Varat Taun, newly appointed Finadd in the Palace Guard, that Icarium, along with Taralack Veed and Senior Assessor, had escaped. At that statement his knees had weakened, a flood rushing through him, but it was a murky, confused flood. Relief, yes, at what had been averted-at least for the moment, for might Icarium not return?-relief that was quickly engulfed by his growing dread for this invading army encamped barely two leagues away.

There would be a siege, and with virtually no-one left to hold the walls it would be a short one. And then the Eternal Domicile itself would be assailed, and by the time all was done, Emperor Rhulad Sengar would likely be standing alone, surrounded by the enemy.

An Emperor without an empire.

Five Letherii armies on the Bolkando borderlands far to the east had seemingly vanished. Not a word from a single mage among those forces. They had set out, under a competent if not brilliant commander, to crush the Bolkando and their allies. That should have been well within the woman’s capabilities. The last report had come half a day before the armies clashed.

What else could anyone conclude? Those five armies were shattered. The enemy marches on, into the empire’s very heart. And what has happened east of Drene? More silence, and Atri-Preda Bivatt was considered by most as the next Freda of the Imperial Armies.

Rebellion in Bluerose, riots in every city. Wholesale desertion of entire units and garrisons. The Tiste Edur vanishing like ghosts, fleeing back to their homeland, no doubt. By the Errant, why did I not ride with Yan Tovis? Return to my wife-I am a fool, who will die here, in this damned palace. Die for nothing.

He stood, positioned beside the throne room’s entrance-way, and watched from under the rim of his helm the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths pace in front of the throne. Filthy with blood and spilled fluids from a dozen dead challengers, a dozen cut through in a whirlwind frenzy, Rhulad shrieking as his sword whirled and chopped and severed and seemed to drink in the pain and blood of its victims.

And now, dawn was beginning on this day, and the sleepless Emperor paced. Blackened coins shifting on his ravaged face as emotions worked his features in endless cycles of disbelief, distress and fear.