I stuck him in the gut with my sword so hard up under the ribs that the point tapped brick behind as he gurgled. His eyes opened wide as his mouth formed soundless words, as a man might practice a polite introduction. A silent owl woven out of smoke swooped down and snapped up his soul.

If you are not to be killed, then you must kill. That is the law of the hunt.

I was halfway across the room to the stone stairs before any of the others noticed the captain’s body sliding down the wall as he collapsed. As a sergeant came running I slashed my wicked sharp blade across the throat of the orderly behind him. No one noticed because they were all staring at the dead captain. I slipped past a pair of men guarding the steps and began my climb, dodging around men pressed to window slits, waiting to loose their bolts.

“Felt you a breeze—?”

“Bastards can’t even hold the line against cursed beasts of women—!”

This foul-mouthed man I stabbed from the back and shoved so he tumbled down, his weight staggering those below him. How they shouted in consternation, looking about for the spirit haunting them. Fool! Fool! Always letting my reckless lusts take hold of me.

That was how Andevai had courted me. I had seen what he was, arrogant and vain and determined to win once he entered any contest, and yet despite knowing he would see me as a challenge to be won, I had still allowed myself to be dazzled by his physical beauty and his unrelenting admiration. He had seen my weakness, which was my desire for him, and so he had fed me one morsel at a time until I could no longer resist devouring the whole of what he offered. So be it. Maybe I was a fool, maybe I would one day get so angry at him that I would rip out his throat, but I cursed well was not going to let Drake or the mansa have him. He belonged to me.

The stairs led past an empty first-floor room and up to the top floor, which was a square room with four windows. On a table lay an unrolled map of the landscape over which the two armies struggled, with Red Mount marked by a bold red X. A man with lime-whitened spiky hair bent over the table, tapping a knife’s point on the house in which we stood. The old mansa of Two Gourds House sat calmly in a chair. A middle-aged magister sat cross-legged on the floor, hands on knees, head bowed, panting as he collected himself. His face was reddened, blistered in places. He was not Vai.

“Let me take the next attack,” said the old mansa. “You are weakening.”