Riv staggered from her bed, the effort almost defeating her, feeling weak as a newborn kitten, but the sight of Garidas dead upon the flagstoned floor, his blood pooling dark and her mam standing over the corpse with her sword in her hand gave Riv the jolt of energy she had been lacking.

She tugged on breeches and boots, a linen shirt, which caught on her back, grating rough as sandpaper, but she managed to get it on.

Aphra ran to Garidas, knelt beside him. She closed his dead, staring eyes. Accusing. Aphra took his hand, smeared with blood, and stared up at her mam.

‘I am sorry,’ Dalmae whispered. Then, louder. ‘Forgive me. I had no choice. I would murder the world to protect you and Riv.’

Aphra was silent, her shoulders shaking, and Riv realized her sister was weeping.

‘Mam, why? What is happening?’ Riv slurred. ‘I don’t understand.’ She was washed with emotions, shock, horror, confusion. Garidas had said so many things, of Kol and Israfil and improper relations.

Aphra and Kol, involved, Garidas said. This is Kol’s doing. He has broken the Way of Elyon, broken the Lore. And Mam has murdered Garidas! A good, kind man; he was offering to help Aphra somehow.

Her mam did not look at her, would not look at her, only continued to wipe blood from her hands on her cloak.

‘Aphra?’ Riv said, but her sister just stared back at her. The stink of blood filled the room, cloying. The weight of it all, murder, Aphra, Kol, right and wrong; her entire life she had been raised to obey the Lore, wanting to do nothing more than obey it.

Purity is removing the ego, Israfil said. What is purity here? What is the right thing to do? She felt breathless, her stomach lurching.

I feel sick. Have to get out of here. And suddenly she knew, she had to see Israfil, to speak to him, to explain Aphra’s innocence before this got any worse.

‘Get Mam out of here,’ she blurted to Aphra as she stumbled past them, out of the door and onto a spiral staircase. Her mam and Aphra called out behind her but she did not stop, staggering down the twisting stairs, bumping and banging into the wall on her way down.

Shouts echoed up to her, the scrape of swords being drawn. She ran on, behind and above her the slap of boots on stone. Riv almost fell through the door that led into her barracks’ feast-hall, saw a sight that made her feel physically sick.

White-Wings, close to blows.

Garidas’ men, a score or two. They had heard his cry, tried to get to him, and been barred by Aphra’s hundred. Some were shouting, pushing, others with drawn blades, ready, threatening, but holding back from that dread step of slaying their own.