Jibril was their tutor, a dark-haired Ben-Elim who had taught them their histories ever since they had arrived in Drassil, some five years gone. Different Ben-Elim taught different subjects. Bleda suspected it was not because they specialized in different subjects, with some knowing more or less about certain subjects. Bleda believed that all the Ben-Elim were equally knowledgeable, but that they also had their own likes and dislikes, subjects that brought them pleasure and subjects that they disdained.

‘Jibril is escorting your kin along the eastern road,’ Alcyon said. ‘So Israfil asked me to give you your lesson today.’

‘You?’ Jin said, looking Alcyon up and down.

Much as any other giant, he stood a man and a half tall and was thick with muscle, his face a slab of forehead and angular lines, long moustache hanging and bound with leather. A tattoo of vine and thorn trailed up one arm and partway down the other. The things that were different about him when compared to other giants were his hair and weapons. His hair was shaved from his head, apart from a thick black strip across the centre of his skull, plaited into his warrior braid. And he wielded twin axes, single-bladed rather than one of the double-bladed variety that most giants chose. He usually wore them across his back, but now they were leaning against a wall, long-shafted with hooked, bearded blades.

‘Yes, me. I am not Ben-Elim, but I have a little knowledge inside this head of mine.’ He prodded his temple with a thick finger.

Jin looked as if she didn’t quite believe him.

‘What are you looking at?’ Bleda asked, moving over to look at the table. A huge parchment was spread out, a map inked upon it. Bleda frowned as he stared at it, for at first it had looked like a map of the Banished Lands, but where the Land of the Faithful now existed, it was divided into different realms. Bleda smiled to see Arcona, a broad expanse to the east of the dark stain that was Forn Forest.

‘Isiltir, Carnutan, Helveth, Tenebral,’ Bleda read. ‘What are these places?’ he asked.

‘That is the Banished Lands before the Day of Wrath,’ Alcyon said. ‘There were many realms then.’

‘Where have they gone?’ Bleda asked.

‘They have been welcomed into the Protectorate of the Ben-Elim, become part of the Land of the Faithful,’ Alcyon said.

Is this what will happen to Arcona? Bleda thought, a shiver of fear rippling through him, Absorbed into the Protectorate, as if it had never existed.

‘Sit,’ Alcyon said, waving a hand and rolling up the map.