‘Good,’ Neferata said simply, urging her horse into motion. The others followed closely. Perhaps Khaled has learned from his blunders in Bel Aliad after all, she thought darkly. ‘Who was it, then? Was it W’soran?’

‘I don’t know. I suspect so. It doesn’t matter. He has her. He wanted to see you as soon as you arrived,’ Naaima said.

‘Where is Khaled? Did he have nothing to say about this?’ Neferata growled. Naaima didn’t answer immediately. Neferata tensed. She could sense her handmaiden’s disquiet. ‘What is it?’ she demanded.

‘Khaled is the one who took her,’ Naaima said harshly. ‘He and Ushoran’s guards intervened in a brawl between five of ours and a number of W’soran’s abominations.’

‘What happened?’

‘Four of ours are dead. Anmar was the only survivor. Those creatures… they tore them apart, right in the street. W’soran claims they were resisting his authority.’

‘His authority?’ Neferata spat incredulously. ‘That creature only has as much authority as I deem fit. Khaled as well. He forgets himself if he thinks to put himself at cross-purposes with me.’ Neferata cursed and urged her horse to greater speed. In his years in Ushoran’s bodyguard, the former Arabyan princeling had become too comfortable, she had known that. But it was that very thing which had likely endeared him to Ushoran. Was he merely playing the part she had assigned him? Or was he now truly Ushoran’s dog? It was a question she intended to get an answer to tonight. One of many questions, in fact, that the time had come to have answered.

Since she had learned about the crown of Mourkain, and Ushoran’s desire for it, a number of previously nonsensical elements had fallen into place. She sniffed the air, tasting the dull black skeins of W’soran’s magic. It had permeated the stones of Mourkain over the centuries, like ancient damp rising anew. It tasted different tonight.

Vorag had told her much of Ushoran’s coming, and how Kadon had ruled before then. How Kadon had worn a crown of black metal, but how Ushoran seemed to either disdain it, or have mislaid it. Or, perhaps, he had been denied it.

There were only a few reasons she could think of for Ushoran to give sanctuary to a treacherous serpent like W’soran, and one of those was to make use of the old monster’s knowledge, but why? Ushoran could simply have had another crown made. What was so important about this one?

At that thought, something vibrated through her, its ugly voice echoing eerily in her head. Come to me, Queen of the Dawn! Come, Beautiful Death! Run to me. Run to my embrace, it hissed, its words scraping across the underside of her thoughts like the coils of some great serpent. She could feel its intangible presence pulling at her as she rode.

The horses galloped through the streets towards the pyramid. She saw more guards, but none tried to bar their way. The city was bristling with them, and here and there among them, she saw the black robes of W’soran’s ghouls. Hurry, Queen of Lahmia! The stars spin faster and faster as dust is stirred by hollow winds. The dead howl in their cages of breathing meat! Hurry, the voice hissed in her ears. She bent her head, trying to ignore it. Her eyes found the dark shape of the pyramid and she heard a whisper of ghostly laughter. Naaima held her tighter.

‘You’re trembling,’ she murmured, low enough that others couldn’t hear.

Neferata controlled herself. The moon was fat and bloated in the black sky and it cast a yellow eye over the plaza in front of the pyramid. She tugged on the reins as they entered the plaza. More guards awaited them. Spears were lowered and warnings shouted, but Neferata ignored them, leaping from her horse and stalking towards the doors, the others hurrying after her. Her talons slid from her fingertips as the guards in front of the door held their ground.

‘Stand aside,’ a voice bellowed as the doors were pushed open from within. Khaled stepped through, shoving a guard viciously aside. ‘I said stand aside, fools!’ he roared. He met Neferata’s gaze as she swept towards him, not slowing. ‘My lady, let me expla—’

She didn’t let him finish. She snatched him up by his throat and lifted him over her head, her eyes blazing like coals. ‘Fool,’ she snarled. Her voice echoed across the plaza and she smelled the sudden surge of fear from the guards. Khaled gagged and tried to speak as her fingers tightened about his throat. Cartilage popped and bone crunched and Khaled jerked and flopped like a broken-backed snake. She flung him aside and spun to face Naaima and the others. ‘Come!’

She struck the doors with her palms, forcing them open with a thunderous boom which echoed throughout the pyramid. She stalked through the corridors, servants fleeing before her like chickens fleeing a leopardess. A duo of Strigoi moved to bar her way at the entrance to the throne room and she gazed at them with blank fury. ‘Move aside,’ she growled.

Both wore the heavy black armour of Ushoran’s guard, and both were familiar to her. Zandor bowed mockingly, one hand on his sword. ‘We must announce you, my lady,’ he said. ‘It is the custom.’

‘You might have forgotten, what with all that time spent among the barbarians,’ Gashnag added, glaring at her. Both Strigoi looked ready for a fight. They were no longer the parasitic courtiers they had been so long ago. Now they were warriors, or carried themselves as such. She wondered, in the moment before she hurled herself at them, whether Abhorash had had a hand in that.

Zandor reacted first, half drawing his sword before her talons opened his face to the bone. He screamed and reeled, clutching at his face even as she caught Gashnag’s sword in her hand. Blood dripped down the blade as the tableau held for several seconds. Then she tore the blade from the startled Strigoi’s hand and backhanded him into the great bronze doors of the throne room. The doors burst inwards, carried wide by Gashnag’s weight. He slid across the floor, his armour clattering, and Neferata followed him, carrying his sword.

‘My Lady of Mysteries, to what do we owe the pleasure?’ Ushoran said. He looked human and ordinary on the throne. Anmar sat at his feet. The chamber was empty save for the hooded figures which stood near the great throne like a silent court, and the bulky forms of several monstrous ghouls. She was reminded of the creature that W’soran had unleashed on her in the vaults and she hissed. He had made more of them, obviously, and he had got better at whatever dark process had been involved in their creation. These creatures were bigger than the other, and were not quite so patchwork. They gazed at her with dim hunger and she remembered how the other had attached itself, remora-like, to her arm.

She tore her eyes from the monster to the steps of Ushoran’s throne where Anmar sat, head bowed and shoulders hunched. Neferata gazed at the girl for a moment before she addressed Ushoran. ‘I come to reclaim what is mine,’ Neferata said, gesturing to Anmar. See how he sits in your chair, the voice hissed. She ignored it.

‘If you had been a few moments slower getting here you would have had nothing to reclaim,’ Ushoran said idly. ‘I intended to give her to W’soran’s pets there. What do you think of them, hmmm? Much improved from the last time you saw one. They are quite striking and vicious as well. They have a taste for the blood of our kind, I’m told. Isn’t that so, W’soran?’

One of the hooded figures standing near the throne tossed back his hood to reveal W’soran’s desiccated features. ‘Oh yes, as I’m sure Neferata realises by now.’

Neferata ignored him. ‘Why have you taken my handmaiden, Ushoran?’ she demanded.

‘You mean to say that your little spies haven’t told you yet?’ Ushoran said, gesturing to Naaima as he pushed himself up from the throne. He spread his arms. ‘Someone tried to kill me,’ he said. He gestured to Anmar. ‘This creature of yours was seen in their company.’