Only her Ward Commander and his lieutenants were taken into custody; the rest of her wardsmen were confined to barracks under the eye of Regent Martinek’s forces. Members of her household staff were pardoned in exchange for a pledge of loyalty to the Southeastern Pelmaran Regent. A few wept, but what of it? It was only a few. Most helped them search the fortress, scouring it from top to bottom, lest it transpire that the Lady Cerelinde was housed there after all. Haomane’s Allies were thorough.

These things, Lilias had expected. The vast numbness that filled her, the void in her heart left by Calandor’s death and the Soumanië’s loss, insulated her. And in truth, she could not blame her people. She had lied. She had erred. She had failed to protect them. Left to her own devices, she would have begged leave to retire to her chambers, to turn her back upon the world and eschew all sustenance, letting her newly mortal flesh dwindle until Oronin’s Horn made good its claim on her spirit. What else was left for her? At least on the far side of death, she might find Calandor’s spirit awaiting her.

But Aracus Altorus did not leave her to her own devices.

He didn’t know how to use the Soumanië, and there was no one else to tell him. Even the Ellylon shook their heads, saying it was a thing only Ingolin the Wise might know. It afforded her a grim amusement. They were fools to think the Soumanië would be so easily claimed. And so, far from letting her retire in solitude and turn her face to the wall, Aracus kept her at his side, and Lilias kept her silence. He sought to woo her with sweet reason, he bullied her, he chivvied her, he offered her bargains she refused. He would not stoop to torture—there was that much, at least, to be said for Haomane’s Allies—but neither would he let her out of his sight. He dragged her into the Cavern of the Marasoumië beneath Beshtanag Mountain, where he made an ill-guided attempt to use the gem to summon Malthus the Counselor.

Even if he had known its secret, he would have failed that day.

Lilias had laughed, close to hysteria, as the foundations of the world shifted and the node-point of the Marasoumië turned dull and inert, a dead hunk of grey granite. The bundled fibers of light that had traced the Ways went dead, leaving empty tunnels through solid rock. Aracus had cried aloud in pain, scrabbling at his forehead, removing the fillet from his brow and clutching it in his hand. As the Soumanië shone like a red star in his grasp, answering to the distant power of Godslayer, she knew what it was that the Sunderer had done, and that the Counselor was trapped within the Ways.