“There is another explanation,” Jezal could hear Brint saying, voice tense as though he was about to deliver a punchline. “Perhaps he’s in love with her!” The three of them burst out laughing. It was a good joke alright. Captain Jezal dan Luthar, in love, and with a girl whose station in life was so far beneath his own. What a ridiculous idea! What an absurd notion! What a joke!

“Oh shit.” Jezal put his head in his hands. He didn’t feel like laughing. How the hell had she done this to him? How? What was it about her? She was fine to look at, of course, and clever, and funny, and all those things, but that was no explanation. “I cannot see her again,” he whispered to himself, “I will not!” And he thumped his hand against the wall. His resolve was iron. It always was.

Until the next note came under his door.

He groaned and slapped the side of his head. Why did he feel like this? Why did he… he couldn’t even bring himself to think the word… like her so much? Then it came to him. He knew why.

She didn’t like him.

Those mocking half-smiles. Those sidelong glances he caught sometimes. Those jokes that went just a little too close to the bone. Not to mention the occasional examples of outright scorn. She liked his money, maybe. She liked his position in the world, of course. She liked his looks, undoubtedly. But, in essence, the woman despised him.

And he’d never had that feeling before. He had always just assumed that everybody loved him, had never really had cause to doubt he was a fine man, worthy of the highest respect. But Ardee didn’t like him, he saw it now, and that made him think. Apart from the jaw, of course, and the money and the clothes, what was there to like?

She treated him with the contempt he knew he deserved. And he couldn’t get enough of it. “Strangest thing,” Jezal mumbled to himself, slouching miserably against the wall of the tunnel. “Strangest thing.”

It made him want to change her mind.

The Seed

“How are you, Sand?”

Colonel Glokta opened his eyes. It was dark in the room. Damn it, he was late!

“Damn it!” he shouted, shoving back the covers and leaping out of bed. “I’m late!” He snatched up his uniform trousers, shoving his legs in, fumbling with his belt.

“Don’t worry about that, Sand!” His mother’s voice was half soothing, half impatient. “Where is the Seed?”

Glokta frowned over as he pushed his shirt in. “I’ve no time for this nonsense, mother! Why do you always think you know what’s best for me?” He cast around him for his sword, but couldn’t see it. “We’re at war you know!”

“We are indeed.” The Colonel looked up, surprised. It was the voice of Arch Lector Sult. “Two wars. One fought with fire and steel, and another one beneath—an old war, long years in the making.” Glokta frowned. How ever could he have mistaken that old windbag for his mother? And what was he doing in Glokta’s chambers in any case? Sitting in the chair at the foot of his bed, prattling about old wars?

“What the hell are you doing in my chambers?” growled Colonel Glokta, “and what have you done with my sword?”

“Where is the Seed?” A woman’s voice now, but not his mother’s. Someone else. He did not recognise it. He squinted against the darkness, straining to see who was in the chair. He could make out a vague outline, but the shadows were too deep to tell more.

“Who are you?” asked Glokta sternly.

“Who was I? Or what am I?” The figure in the chair shifted as it rose slowly, smoothly, from its seat. “I was a patient woman, but I am woman no more, and the grinding years have worn my patience thin.”

“What do you want?” Glokta’s voice quivered, reedy and weak as he backed away.

The figure moved, stepping through the shaft of moonlight from the window. A woman’s form, slender and graceful, but shadows stuck to the face. A sudden fear clawed at him and he stumbled back against the wall, raising his arm to fend the woman off.

“I want the Seed.” A pale hand snaked out and closed around his outstretched arm. A gentle touch, but cold. Cold as stone. Glokta trembled, gasped, squeezed shut his eyes. “I need it. You cannot know the need I have. Where is it?” Fingers plucked at his clothes, quick and deft, seeking, searching, darting in his pockets, in his shirt, brushing his skin. Cold. Cold as glass.

“The Seed?” squeaked Glokta, half paralysed with terror.

“You know what I speak of, broken man. Where is it?”

“The Maker fell…” he whispered. The words welled up, he knew not from where.

“I know it.”

“…burning, burning…”

“I saw it.” The face was close enough for him to feel the breath upon his skin. Cold. Cold as frost.

“…he broke upon the bridge below…”

“I remember it.”

“…they searched for the Seed…”

“Yes…” whispered the voice, urgent in his ear, “where is it?” Something brushed against his face, his cheek, his eyelid, soft and slimy. A tongue. Cold. Cold as ice. His flesh crawled.

“I don’t know! They could not find it!”

“Could not?” Fingers closed tight around his throat, squeezing, crushing, choking the air from him. Cold. Cold as iron, and just as hard. “You think you know pain, broken man? You know nothing!” The icy breath rasped in his ear, the icy fingers squeezed, squeezed. “But I can show you! I can show you!”

Glokta screamed, thrashed, struggled. He fought his way up, stood for a dizzy instant, then his leg buckled and he plunged into space. The dark room tumbled around him and he crashed to the boards with a sickening crunch, his arm folded beneath him, his forehead cracking against the floor.

He struggled up, clawing at the leg of his bed, pushing himself against the wall, snorting for breath, staring wild-eyed towards the chair, yet barely able to look for fear. A bar of moonlight spilled through the window, cut across the rumpled bed-clothes and onto the polished wood of the seat. Empty.

Glokta cast around the rest of the room, eyes adjusting to the darkness, peering into every shadowy corner. Nothing. Empty. A dream.

And now, as the crazy hammering of his heart relaxed, as his ragged breathing slowed, the pain came on. His head thumped, his leg screamed, his arm was throbbing dully. He could taste blood, his eyes stung and wept, his guts heaved, sick and spinning. He whimpered, made an agonising hop towards the bed, then collapsed on the moonlit mattress, exhausted, wet with cold sweat.

There was an urgent knocking at the door. “Sir? Are you alright?” Barnam’s voice. The knocking came again. No good. It is locked. Always locked, but I don’t think I’ll be moving. Frost will have to break it down. But the door swung open, and Glokta shielded his eyes from the sudden ruddy glow of the old servant’s lamp.

“Are you alright?”

“I fell,” mumbled Glokta. “My arm…”

The old servant perched on the bed, taking Glokta’s hand gently and pushing up the sleeve of his night-shirt. Glokta winced, Barnam clicked his tongue. His forearm had a big pink mark across it, already beginning to swell and redden.

“I don’t think it’s broken,” said the servant, “but I should fetch the surgeon, just in case.”

“Yes, yes.” He waved Barnam away with his good hand. “Fetch him.”

Glokta watched the old servant hurry, stooped, out of the door, heard him creaking along the narrow corridor outside, down the narrow stairs. He heard the front door banging shut. Silence descended.

He looked over at the scroll he had taken from the Adeptus Historical, still rolled up tight on the dresser, waiting to be delivered to Arch Lector Sult. The Maker fell burning. He broke upon the bridge below. Strange, how parts of the waking world stray into one’s dreams. That damned Northman and his intruder. A woman, and cold. That’ll be what set me off.