Dull and distant, without thought, Orisian reached for his own blade and rose to his feet.

For two days they waited. Guards stood outside the door behind which the monster lurked. Or possibly lurked. Cerys and others went back and forth from that gloomy chamber, spending hours at Tyn’s bedside, and learned nothing. They found nothing save silence, and a dead, empty space in the Shared. The Dreamer breathed, his eyes moved beneath their lids, but there was no life in him. His body was truly a shell now, an empty, abandoned shell. There was no Tyn, no Aeglyss. The wounds in his face and his wrists dried, but did not heal. Cerys sat and stared into that gaunt face, as if by merely looking she might find some answer. But none came. The Shared was still, unresponsive. The Dreamer did not stir. The iron chain around her neck grew heavier.

Amonyn lay in his own quarters, alive but bruised both without and within. Herraic came to see Tyn himself, and fretted and frowned impotently until Cerys asked him to leave. Mordyn Jerain hesitated between life and death, his wounds half-healed. Olyn stayed in the crows’ roost, and would not emerge. Highfast was paralysed, prostrated by trepidation and gloom and uncertainty. Snow fell, and laid white blankets across the roofs and battlements and courtyards.

During the short hours of daylight, the Elect could busy herself with her duties. She could find enough activity to fend off the darkest of her thoughts. It was an illusory, temporary calm but necessary. At night, she had no such defences, and could not even take comfort in Amonyn’s company. Guilt and doubts circled her, snapping at her.

She wondered if she had failed Tyn, through some lack of wisdom or lack of knowledge in the ways of the Shared. Not for the first time, she thought of Inurian. He might have been Elect instead of her, had he stayed in Highfast. Had that been what he wanted from life. Would his failures have been less?

Now and again, in the sleepless night, Cerys would shake and scold herself for giving in to such futile self-doubt. It served no purpose to play these games. What was done, was done. Still, dawn would find her at the Dreamer’s bedside. She rested her elbows on his sheets, held her chain of office clasped in her hands. She closed her eyes and wondered if Tyn was still there, somewhere, and if he would hear her when she asked for his forgiveness.

Then, on the morning of the third day: “Elect.”

She opened her eyes. Tyn was gazing at her. He was smiling. And it was not Tyn.

“They are here.”

He was rising from the bed, casting aside the sheet. She could only watch.

“Did you think I had gone? No, Elect. Just waiting. I do not mean to leave this place empty-handed. And I do have friends, after all. Would you like to meet them?”

He came around the bed to her side, took her hand in his. There was no warmth in his skin, only the cold of dead flesh.

“Walk with me, Elect. Show me your mighty library, your precious store of wisdom that fills you with such pride.”

She saw – or thought she saw – him enshrouded by a vast cape of shadow that swelled up behind him like a living thing. It drowned out the world, leaving her alone with him, the two of them alone in a dark domain where the very air was made of his thoughts, the ground upon which she walked was made of his hatred for her and for all things.

They moved, though she could not say which of them led the other. A door opened, and there were men there. Warriors. Guards, she vaguely remembered. She saw them faintly, as through a veil. They were saying something, but their words were only sounds that fluttered up against her and fell away, spent and meaningless.

“No,” she heard Aeglyss saying, and his voice was all about her, in her blood and her bones. “The Elect and I are going to the library. You, you are going to the gates. Open them. Open Highfast.”

He drew her onwards, through corridors. They passed by torches burning on the walls. Aeglyss took one and lit their way with it, though the shadows stayed all around them, and the light seemed sickly to Cerys. She recognised the passageways they walked along, knew that they were familiar, but they belonged to someone else, to another life.

They entered into a great chamber, where daylight spilled in through high windows, and there were ranks of writing desks. Cerys smelled parchment and ink and dust. She knew this place. There were people here: just one or two. They were afraid. They cowered. Aeglyss could taste their fear, and she could too. It was a sharp, acrid touch on her tongue, in her nose.

Aeglyss turned around and around, arms outstretched, the flame of his torch crackling.

“Look, Elect. What a wonder.”

She looked, and saw books, and rolls of parchment and shelves. The Scribing Hall, she thought. The library.

“Tyn? Elect, what is happening?” someone called.

She frowned in the direction of the voice. A man was there, half-hidden behind one the desks. He stared out, fearful. Bannain, she thought to herself. I remember his name.

“Nothing,” Aeglyss shouted. Then he had hold of the front of Cerys’s dress. He dragged her close to him. She did not resist, for he was already all around her.

“Wake, Elect. Wake up. You should see this.”

She plummeted back into her body as if falling from a great height into a pool of cold water. She gasped for breath. Her head spun.

“What a task,” Aeglyss cried. “What a burden, to watch over all this for so many years.”

“Leave us!” Cerys shouted, her mind tumbling away into panic.

“No! Whose gratitude have you earned by all these years of devotions? What have you achieved by storing up the past here, making it so precious?”

“Please. Please.”

She cast a desperate glance sideways. Bannain and two scribes were rising hesitantly.

“Forget them,” Aeglyss hissed. “I am here to relieve you of your burdens, Elect. All of you. Memory is no longer needed, for what is to come will be unlike what has been before. There are to be no more secrets. I declare the past dead. Your task is done with. Are you not pleased?”

“Release me.” She struggled against him, but his grip was firm.

“Oh, I intend to. I will take the weight of your responsibilities from your shoulders.”

He threw her down, and she sprawled to the floor, sending a chair skittering away across the flagstones. He was laughing. Savage glee poured forth from Tyn’s stale throat, coarse and wild. Cerys got to her feet.

Aeglyss strode down a rank of shelves, drawing the flame of the torch he carried across the books and the scrolls and the manuscripts.

“No,” Cerys shouted, but he ignored her.

Gouts of black smoke burst up. She could see flames taking hold. Everything that mattered about Highfast was here, in this hall. And Aeglyss laughed as he swept the torch back and forth. Cerys moved towards him, but Bannain was faster. He darted forwards, and as he did so he faded. He folded the Shared about himself for a heartbeat, spilled the Elect’s gaze off his back. He was gone. Gone to her, but not to Aeglyss. Tyn’s arm snapped around. Sparks erupted in a frenzied cloud as the torch struck Bannain on the side of the head.

He crashed against one of the desks. Aeglyss followed him, kicking aside a chair that came between them.

“You think tricks like that will work on me? That is my ocean you’re swimming in, child.”

Bannain groaned and rolled onto his side. Cerys glimpsed a red welt across his temple. She cast about for something, anything, to use against Aeglyss. Smoke was thickening the air now, rasping down into her chest with every breath. The sound of the hungry, consuming flames filled her ears, and their hateful, triumphant light danced across the walls. She took up a chair and rushed towards Aeglyss.

He crouched and struck Bannain’s head again and again with the torch. Embers spun away across the floor. There was a stench of burned hair and flesh. Bannain was not struggling. Aeglyss laughed.