Movement elsewhere caught Drem’s eye, the horn he’d heard still ringing out, and he saw activity towards the southern end of the encampment: figures hurrying onto the pier. Further out, shapes emerged from the darkness, two boats, bristling with oars, rowing steadily for the dock. And in the dark skies above them a shape flew, two more appearing, dark shadows skimming the water, a shimmer in the starlight.

Too big for birds, Drem frowned. Then he saw one alight on the pier, a winged man in chainmail shirt. Shaven-haired warriors fell to their knees, bowing.

A rush of ice swept through his veins, a new level of fear.

It cannot be! Kadoshim.

He felt his legs turn to water, had to hold on to the timber struts of the wall to keep himself upright.

But of course it can be. Look at what I’ve just seen in those cages, twisted by Elyon knows what foul magic and dark practices. Oh, Da, you were right. There’s nowhere left to run from this.

Drem leaped over the wall, weightless for a moment before he fell crunching into a bank of snow and scrambled to his feet. Then he was running for the trees.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: BLEDA

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

BLEDA

Bleda stood in Drassil’s courtyard, stamping his feet against the cold.

‘Why are we here?’ he said to Jin, who was standing beside him, somehow managing to look far less cold than he felt.

‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘Kol asked me to be here by highsun, and he asked that I bring you.’

‘Kol. You friendly with Ben-Elim, all of a sudden?’ Bleda asked her.

‘Not as friendly as you are with the Lord Protector,’ she shot back at him. It was said harmlessly enough, but Bleda knew there was an edge to Jin’s words. A confusion, and a suspicion.

I understand that, because I am confused about it myself.

It had been two days since he had been summoned to Israfil’s room, since he had been commended for making a stand, for fighting the Kadoshim. He could not lie, it had felt good to be praised like that. And there was much truth in it. He had chosen to fight the Kadoshim, rather than watch them and the Ben-Elim kill one another.

And I am still not completely sure why.

A good part of it had been seeing the Kadoshim. Never had he imagined such malice made flesh. Politics, border disputes, even blood feuds he understood. But at the sight of the Kadoshim all of that had faded.

It was evil. I saw evil, poured into a form of blood and bone. That’s why I fought.

But was that the only reason?

And being commended by Israfil had felt wrong, not just because he had come to see Israfil as the personification of all that he stood against, the empire that would subjugate his people, had subjugated his people.