The spirits were gone.

Fled.

He was alone. He was empty.

Reeling back, falling into his throne.

He saw one of his sergeants ride out, drawing closer to the giant, who now stood leaning on his sword. The screams of the slaves sank away and those sud-denly free of their bindings staggered to either side, some falling to their knees as if subjecting themselves before a new king, a usurper. The sergeant reined in and, eyes level with the giant’s own, began speaking.

The Captain was too far away. He could not hear, and he needed to-sweat poured from him, soaking his fine silks. He shivered as fever rose through him. He looked down at his hands and saw blood welling from the old wounds-opened once more-and from his feet as well, pooling in the soft padded slippers. He remembered, suddenly, what it was like to think about dying, letting go, sur-rendering. There, yes, beneath the shade of the cottonwoods-

The sergeant collected his reins and rode at the canter for the palace.

He drew up, dismounted in a clatter of armour and reached up to remove his visored helm. Then he ascended the steps.

‘Captain, sir. The fool claims that the slaves are now free.’

Staring into the soldier’s blue eyes, the grizzled expression now widened by dis-belief, by utter amazement, the Captain felt a pang of pity. ‘He is the one, isn’t he?’

‘Sir?’

‘The enemy. The slayer of my subjects. I feel it. The truth I see it, I feel it. I taste it!’

The sergeant said nothing.

‘He wants my throne,’ the Captain whispered, holding up his bleeding hands. ‘Was that all this was for, do you think? All I’ve done, just for him?’

‘Captain,’ the sergeant said in a harsh growl. ‘He has ensorcelled you. We will cut him down.’

‘No. You do not understand. They’re gone!’

‘Sir-’

‘Make camp, Sergeant. Tell him-tell him he is to be my guest at dinner. My guest. Tell him… tell him… my guest, yes, just that.’

The sergeant, a fine soldier indeed, saluted and set off.

Another gesture with one stained, dripping, mangled hand. Two maids crept out to help him to his feet. He looked down at one. A Kindaru, round and plump and snouted like a fox-he saw her eyes fix upon the bleeding appendage at the end of the arm she supported, and she licked her lips.

I am dying.

Not centuries. Before this day is done. Before this day is done, I will be dead, ‘Make me presentable,’ he gasped. ‘There shall be no shame upon him, do you see? I want no pity. He is my heir. He has come. At last, he has come.’

The maids, both wide-eyed with fear now, helped him inside.

And still the ants swarmed.

The horses stood in a circle facing inward, tails flicking at flies, heads lowered as they cropped grass. The oxen stood nearby, still yoked, and watched them. Kede-viss, who leaned with crossed arms against one of the wagon’s wheels, seemed to be watching the grey-haired foreigner with the same placid, empty regard.

Nimander knew just how deceptive that look could be. Of them all-these pal-try few left-she saw the clearest, with acuity so sharp it intimidated almost everyone subject to it. The emptiness-if the one being watched finally turned to meet those eyes-would slowly fade, and something hard, unyielding and im-mune to obfuscation would slowly rise in its place. Unwavering, ever sharpening until it seemed to pierce the victim like nails being hammered into wood. And then she’d casually look away, unmindful of the thumping heart, the pale face and the beads of sweat on the brow, and the one so assailed was left with but one of two choices: to fear this woman, or to love her with such savage, demanding desire that it could crush the heart.

Nimander feared Kedeviss. And loved her as well. He was never good with choices.

If Kallor sensed that regard-and Nimander was certain he did-he was indif-ferent to it, preferring to divide his attention between the empty sky and the empty landscape surrounding them. When he wasn’t sleeping or eating. An un-pleasant guest, peremptory and imperious. He would not cook, nor bother cleans-ing his plate afterwards. He was a man with six servants.

Nenanda was all for banishing the old man, driving him away with stones and pieces of dung, but Nimander found something incongruous in that image, as if it was such an absurd impossibility that it had no place even in his imagination.

‘He’s weakening,’ Desra said at his side.

‘We’re soon there, I think,’ Nimander replied. They were just south of Sarn, which had once been a sizeable city. The road leading to it had been settled all along its length, ribbon farms behind stalls, shops and taverns. The few residents left were an impoverished lot,, skittish as whipped dogs, hacking at hard ground that had been fallow too long-at least until they saw the travellers on the main road, whereupon they dropped their hoes and hurried away.

The supplies left at the T-intersection had been meticulously packed into wooden crates, the entire pile covered in a tarp with its corners staked. Ripe fruits, candied sugar-rock dusted in salt, heavy loads of dark bread, strips of dried eel, watered wine and three kinds of cheese-where, all this had come from, given the wretched state of the forms they’d passed, was a mystery.

‘He would kill us as soon as look at us,’ Desra said, her eyes now on Kallor.

‘Skintick agrees.’

‘What manner of man is he?’

Nimander shrugged. ‘An unhappy one. We should get going.’

‘Wait,’ said Desra. ‘I think we should get Aranatha to look at Clip.’

‘Aranatha?’ He looked round, found the woman sitting, legs folded under her like a fawn’s, plucking flowers from the sloped bank of the road. ‘Why? What can she do?’

Desra shook her head, as if unable to give her reasons. Or unwilling.

Sighing, Nimander said, ‘Go ahead, ask her, then.’

‘It needs to come from you.’

Why? ‘Very well.’ He set out, a dozen strides taking him to where Aranatha sat. As his shadow slipped over her she glanced up and smiled.

Smiles so lacking in caution, in diffidence or wry reluctance, always struck him as a sign of madness. But the eyes above it, this time, were not at all vacuous. ‘Do you feel me, Nimander?’

‘I don’t know what you mean by that, Aranatha. Desra would like you to ex-amine Clip. I don’t know why,’ he added, ‘since I don’t recall you possessing any specific skills in healing.’

‘Perhaps she wants company,’ Aranatha said, rising gracefully to her feet.

And he was struck, as if slapped across the face, by her beauty. Standing now so close, her breath so warm and so strangely dark. What is happening to me? Kedeviss and now Amnatha.

‘Are you all right, Nimander?’

‘Yes.’ No. ‘I’m fine.’ What awakens in met To deliver both anguish and exal-tation!

She placed a half-dozen white flowers in his hand, smiled again, then walked over to the wagon. A soft laugh from Skintick brought him round.

‘There’s more of that these days,’ his brother said, gazing after Aranatha. ‘If we are to be an incongruous lot, and it seems we are, then it follows that we con-found each other at every turn.’

‘You are speaking nonsense, Skintick.’

‘That is my task, isn’t it? I have no sense of where it is we’re heading-no, I don’t mean Bastion, nor even the confrontation that I think is coming. I mean us, Nimander. Especially you. The less control you have, the greater your talent for leadership seems to become, the qualities demanded of such a person-like those flowers in your hand, petals unfolding.’

Nimander grimaced at this and scowled down at the blossoms. ‘They’ll be dead shortly.’

‘So may we all,’ Skintick responded. ‘But… pretty while it lasts.’

Kallor joined them as they prepared to resume the journey. His weathered face was strangely colourless, as if drained of blood by the incessant wind. Or whatever memories haunted him. The flatness in his eyes suggested to Nimander that the man was without humour, that the notion was as alien to him as mending the rips in his own clothes. ‘Are you all finally done with your rest?’ Kallor asked, noting the flowers still in Nimander’s hand with a faint sneer.