Is she ashamed of me? Five years since I saw her last, and not even a nod of her head. He was suddenly painfully aware of his appearance, how little he now looked like a Sirak prince. Especially his hair, which should have been grown long enough for a warrior braid, the rest of his head shaved and the long braid bound upon completing his warrior trial and Long Night. Instead his hair was cut short, the same way as the other training warriors at Drassil wore their hair.

To her it must look as if I have become one of them. Does she think I have betrayed my Clan?

Bleda felt all this raging within him, rearing and lashing at him, like a wild stallion’s hooves. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead with the effort of keeping it all hidden.

I will not shame her more than I already have.

And then Israfil’s voice faded and Bleda realized a silence had fallen over the table.

‘My thanks for your courteous welcome,’ Uldin of the Cheren said, his voice warm and strong. ‘It is a pleasure to be in fabled Drassil. Truly, it is a place of magnificent wonders, greater even than we had ever imagined, and I am only left with the question of why have I not journeyed here before. Why have I left it so—’

‘What Uldin is trying to say,’ Erdene interrupted, her voice calm and flat as a windless sea, ‘is: why are we here? Why have you summoned us?’

Israfil inclined his head to Erdene.

‘Five years have passed since your two Clans went to war,’ Israfil said, ‘breaking the peace of the Faithful. Breaking Elyon’s Lore. And in those five years your two Clans have known unbroken peace, is this not so?’

‘This is a truth,’ Uldin said, glancing at Erdene, who just gave a curt nod.

‘We Ben-Elim are here for one reason: to protect the creation of Elyon. All the peoples of these Banished Lands. Asroth led his legions of the Fallen, the Kadoshim, into this world, and so we followed them, to protect you as best we could. The war with the Kadoshim was fierce and bloody, and many of my kin fell in battle on that fateful day. Even so, we won that battle, saved mankind from a dread fate, but the war is not over. Asroth remains, imprisoned within a skin of starstone iron, and many of his Kadoshim survived, secreting themselves away to fight on with stealth and cunning. So we stay to guard the body of Asroth, and we fight on against the Kadoshim.’

‘This is a tale we all have heard,’ Erdene said. ‘You did not summon us over a hundred leagues to tell us this.’

‘No, I did not,’ Israfil said, betraying no sign of annoyance at Erdene’s interruption. ‘I have received word of the Kadoshim moving in your lands, of deaths at their hands.’