As they drew near to the barracks, one of Taim’s men, looking a little harassed, intercepted them.

“There was a messenger searching for you, sire. The, er, the guest in the Tower of Thrones wanted to see you. Urgent, I think.”

“Yvane, you mean? Is that who you mean?” The guard nodded, and Orisian frowned. “Well, call her by her name, then. There’s no one to eavesdrop on us here.”

A faint blush of colour spread in the guard’s cheeks. Orisian at once regretted his sharp tone.

“What was it about, then?” he asked, calm this time. “I’ve other things to be doing at the moment.”

“Don’t know, sire. Seemed pressing, though. The messenger was.. . anxious.”

“All right,” Orisian said, struggling to conceal his disappointment. What he wanted to do now was see Ess’yr, and Varryn too. He wanted to see their pleasure at being given the chance to leave this place; reassure himself that Ess’yr – that both of them – would come with him. “Taim, we’ll talk more later. Rothe and I will see what Yvane wants.”

The na’kyrim was alone in her chambers, standing with her back to the window and her hands clasped behind her. As he entered, Orisian blinked. Some shadow or mote had passed across his right eye for a moment: a momentary blurring of his vision as if some invisible fingertip had pressed gently against his eyeball. It cleared.

“I don’t have much time, Yvane. There’s a lot happening now.”

“Just you, Orisian, if you’d be so kind. This is only for you.”

Orisian nodded to Rothe, whose indignation was undisguised. The shieldman opened his mouth to protest.

“It’s fine, Rothe,” Orisian said. “This won’t take long.”

Rothe went, closing the door behind him a little more firmly than was necessary.

“I don’t think there’s anything you could say to me that should be kept from Rothe,” Orisian said, turning back to Yvane. Again, that irritation in his eye like the scratch of a wayward dust grain. He twitched his head, as if that might clear it. “He deserves better from you than…”

“It’s my privacy that Yvane protects, not her own.”

Orisian jumped sideways, almost exclaiming in surprise. Seated there, in a chair that a moment ago had been empty, was a na’kyrim: a short young man with his hands resting on his knees. His voice was soft, fluty.

“Don’t worry,” said Yvane before Orisian could speak, or call for Rothe. “He’s no threat. This is Bannain, from Highfast.”

Orisian took another step backwards, still unsettled. The man, he was sure, had not been there when he entered the room.

“How…” he began, but was not sure how to complete the question.

Bannain smiled in a detached kind of way, and flourished his long fingers.

“Mere trickery. I apologise if I startled you.”

“Of course you startled me,” snapped Orisian.

Yvane laid a hand on his arm, all the while frowning at Bannain as if in reprimand.

“He might be a little full of himself, Orisian, but he means no harm. Bannain has the knack of using the Shared in a very potent, but very narrow” – she emphasised that word – “way. It makes him well suited to certain tasks. He’s been serving the Elect as a messenger for quite a few years.”

Bannain folded his arms across his chest and stretched his legs out, resting the heel of one foot on the toe of the other.

“It’s nothing too sinister,” Yvane continued. “He just makes the eye… slide over him, if you like. He can only keep it up for a few moments, so he’s not as clever as he thinks he is.”

The younger na’kyrim smiled again. “All true. Again, I am sorry. I only wished to avoid the attention of anyone who came with you. Normally, none but Lheanor and one or two others know of my visits to Kolkyre. Of course, once I found out Yvane was here with news from the north I had to come and speak with her; and she in turn insists I tell my story to you as well.”

“Your story?” Orisian asked warily.

“Bannain was sent here by the Council at Highfast to warn Lheanor,” Yvane explained. “I think you might want to hear what he has to say.”

“All right, then. Tell me.” Orisian could not quite shed his caution and mistrust. If Yvane said this man was safe, and had something useful to say, he believed her, but it did not mean he had to like Bannain’s manner.

“Hard to explain, to one who is not na’kyrim,” the young man said, “but Yvane claims you’re more likely to grasp it than most. She’s told you already about the canker that’s appeared in the Shared?” His nose wrinkled in distaste as he asked the question.

“She has. And about its cause.”

“Its cause. Indeed. You’ve met this man Aeglyss, I’m told.”

“Not met. I’ve seen him, once. My sister was unlucky enough to spend more time in his company than me.”

“Unlucky indeed, I imagine. We have one at Highfast – a woman from Dyrkyrnon – who knows Aeglyss of old, from when he was young. She has nothing good to say of him. She is certain that he is the source of the disturbances that now torment all waking na’kyrim. I gather Yvane here shares that certainty. But the real question is how did this happen? What does it signify?”

Bannain looked from Orisian to Yvane, his eyebrows raised like a tale-teller teasing his audience.

“Don’t overdo it,” growled Yvane. “Orisian is as much a Thane as Lheanor is, don’t forget.”

Bannain gave no sign of being abashed by the scolding.

“The Council at Highfast has given much thought to these matters,” he continued, now setting his elbows on the arms of the chair and making a tent of his fingers. “This is as close to understanding as they have come: on that night, the night none of us – none amongst the waking – is likely to forget, something happened to this Aeglyss. Something that broke the barriers between his mind and the Shared.

“Precisely what it was hardly matters. The nub of things is this: Aeglyss has become something… new. Or very old, depending on how you look at it. There’s been no na’kyrim who could cast such a long shadow in hundreds of years. The Shared has poured into him – and a little of him has leaked back into the Shared. He may be capable of remarkable things now.

“And thus the essence of the message Cerys had me bring to Lheanor: be careful. Be cautious. However things may seem to be now, it is the judgement of Highfast that the armies of the Black Road are not the most dangerous thing in the Glas valley.”

Orisian stared at the young na’kyrim. “That much we already suspected.”

“There’s a little more,” Yvane said, and looked pointedly at Bannain.

“A little, yes,” he agreed. “Harder, though, to read its significance. There is a man at Highfast we call the Dreamer. He sleeps and speaks, now and again, of the currents flowing in the deepest Shared. Little of what he has said makes any sense, but some of it, some of it is very dark. It seems that the changes in the Shared have caught the attention of those best left undisturbed. The Dreamer whispers that the Anain are stirring.”

“Well, that…” Orisian shut his mouth. He had no idea what he could sensibly say in response. The Anain – the race unlike any other, implacable, unknowable – were as far beyond his experience as anything could possibly be. To him, they were little more than creatures out of strange, usually fearful, stories; hardly more real than the wolfenkind who had disappeared from the world over a thousand years ago. He knew, having seen it with his own eyes and heard of it from Ess’yr, that they were more than that to the Kyrinin, but the knowledge had done nothing to blunt his own ignorance.

“The Anain have not roused themselves in a long time,” Yvane murmured. “Not since they raised the Deep Rove, in fact: better than three centuries. All that time, they’ve taken no interest in what’s happening. If they’ve shaken off their indifference now, there will be trouble.”

Orisian raised his hands in exasperated helplessness.