Three of them travelling together found it easier to forage food. Their earth-singing was stronger in a chorus, their interweaving voices helping to drown out the earth’s piteous groans. They charmed rabbits and wild pigeons and even fish from a puddling lake. But even so, they could feel Lur’s changes, a slow dying beneath its parched, brown skin. It seemed likely these strange mages would end up sorry they’d come.

I know we will, Jervale thought morosely, woken yet again out of violent dreams.

And that was the worst of it. Huddled on the cold ground under his blanket, listening to Bannet snore and Del stir restless on his other side, and the donkeys and the horses rattling their hobbles, he tucked his fingers into his armpits and tried to forget what he’d seen.

But how can I forget all that blood? How am I meant not to remember black hail and crimson lightning?

He didn’t know. He only knew he had to stop it from happening. Or else why did he dream?

“My love, how could you do this? You bitch, you slut, you treacherous whore…”

Anguished, Barl twisted and moaned on her rough, lonely cot.

“This binding won’t hold me forever, Barl. You know I’ll break free of it. You know I will find you.”

Sobbing, breathless, she hid her face in her hands. “If I can’t see you, Morgan, then you can’t see me.”

It was a child’s way of thinking. She heard him laugh, vicious with pain. “You cannot hide from me. I live in your soul.”

“No,” she said, weeping. “That’s not true.”

“You left me, Barl. You left me.” He sounded heartbroken. Bereft. “How could you do that when I love you more than life?”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“We all have a choice, my love. And every choice has a consequence. You’re going to learn that, soon enough.”

“No!” she shouted, tumbling out of her makeshift bed. And then she gasped as glimfire ignited, leavening the dark.

“Morgan again?” said Remmie tiredly, ducking inside her tent. The glimfire came in with him, cheerful as a firefly. “Barl, you should take a sleeping posset.”

She shook her head. “I tried. It doesn’t help. He still finds me.” A shudder. “He always finds me.”

The first time, in Benbarsk, she’d thought it was a dream. But then she’d heard him while she was waking… and realised no, it was real. Somehow he’d found a way to cross the vast distance between them. Her warded binding was weakening. One day, he’d break free.

And when that day comes…

He was mad now. He was a madman. Whenever his mind touched hers she could feel its warped twisting. Those terrible catalysts he’d used to create the beasting incant. The night he’d spent using it, killing all those mages and his soul along with them.