Sig sat at the end of the Queen’s bench in Uthandun’s feast-hall, her legs stretched out to the side of the too-low table. A ten-night had passed since the rescue of Keld and the lighting of the beacons. Six days spent travelling back to Uthandun, four more as Sig prepared to leave. Keld had needed time to heal, as had his hound Fen. And although Sig was eager to be gone, she lingered an extra day or two so as to hear news as it trickled in to Queen Nara. Sig hoped for clues as to what the lighting of the beacons signified.

Nara was reading over a newly arrived parchment now, as servants cleared food from the table where they had all gathered to break their fast.

Nara’s eyes were narrowing the further she read. She screwed the parchment into a ball and looked up with a glare.

‘Attacks on my people, my towns, up and down the long length of Ardain,’ she said. ‘Kadoshim have been sighted, though from these early reports the bulk by far of the perpetrators are these new acolytes.’ She swore in an unqueenly fashion and threw the screwed-up parchment on the floor.

Elgin was sitting beside her, and Madoc, the Queen’s first-sword, stood at her shoulder. His eyes tracked the ball of parchment and he bent and picked it up.

‘Looks like we were a little late in stamping on the hornets’ nest,’ Elgin said.

Maybe all I achieved was to kick and stir it up, Sig thought.

‘The Order will help you fight this,’ Sig growled, feeling a deep anger. The thought of Kadoshim and their servants striking at the people of Ardain like this, a close ally and friend to the Order . . .

She felt her fists bunching.

‘I am loath to leave, when my coming may have begun this,’ Sig said. ‘But I must return to Dun Seren first, tell Byrne of what is happening. There is more to this, I feel it, and I do not like the not knowing. The beacons – I suspect they were not confined to Ardain.’

‘No, they were not. My scouts have reported them blazing beyond my borders. Into the Land of the Faithful,’ Nara said. ‘I wonder what the Ben-Elim will make of this outbreak.’

Sig shrugged. She and her Order were not on the best of terms with the Ben-Elim. They tolerated one another, mostly because they shared a mutual enemy, but there was little trust or friendship between them.

‘The Kadoshim are moving, the wheels of some plot turning. I will send aid to you,’ Sig said. ‘More than one giant, a huntsman and a warrior fresh from his Long Night.’