He lay there on his back, sweaty chest rising and falling fast, arms spread out wide, staring at the gilded ceiling. “So this is what victory feels like. If I’d known I’d have taken some gambles sooner.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’re the Duke of Delay, remember?”

He peered down at his wet cock, nudged it to one side, then the other. “Well, some things it’s best to take your time with…”

Shivers prised his fingers open, scuffed, scabbed, scratched and clicking from gripping his axe all the long day. They left white marks across her wrist, turning slowly pink. He rocked back on his haunches, body sagging, aching muscles loose, heaving in air. His lust all spent and his rage spent with it. For now.

Her necklace of red stones rattled as she rolled over towards him. Onto her back, tits flattened against her ribs, the knobbles of her hip bones sticking sharp from her stomach, of her collarbones sticking sharp from her shoulders. She winced, working her hand around, rubbing at her wrist.

“Didn’t mean to hurt you,” he grunted, lying badly, and not much caring either.

“Oh, I’m nothing like that delicate. And you can call me Carlot.” She reached up and brushed his lips gently with a fingertip. “I think we know each other well enough for that…”

Monza clambered off the bed and walked to the desk, legs weak and aching, feet flapping against the cool marble. The husk lay on it, beside the lamp. The knife blade gleamed, the polished stem of the pipe shone. She sat down in front of it. Yesterday she wouldn’t have been able to keep her trembling hands away from it. Today, even with a legion of fresh aches, cuts, grazes from the battle, it didn’t call to her half so loud. She held her left hand up, knuckles starting to scab over, and frowned at it. It was firm.

“I never really thought I could do it,” she muttered.

“Eh?”

“Beat Orso. I thought I might get three of them. Four, maybe, before they killed me. Never thought I’d live this long. Never thought I could actually do it.”

“And now one would say the odds favour you. How quickly hope can flicker into life once more.” Rogont drew himself up before the mirror. A tall one, crusted with coloured flowers of Visserine glass. She could hardly believe, watching him pose, that she’d once been every bit as vain. The hours she’d wasted preening before the mirror. The fortunes she and Benna had spent on clothes. A fall down a mountain, a body scarred, a hand ruined and six months living like a hunted dog seemed to have cured her of that, at least. Perhaps she should’ve suggested the same remedy to Rogont.

The duke lifted his chin in a regal gesture, chest inflated. He frowned, sagged, pressed at a long scratch just below his collarbone. “Damn it.”

“Nick yourself on your nail-file, did you?”

“A savage sword-cut like this could easily have been the death of a lesser man, I’ll have you know! But I braved it, without complaint, and fought on like a tiger, blood streaming, streaming I say, down my armour! I am beginning to suspect it could even leave a mark.”