It was clear to Felisin from where she and the others waited that the priest of Hood was striding directly towards her. His eyes were ten thousand eyes, but she was certain they were all fixed on her. Yet even this growing horror did little to stir the numbness that lay like a smothering blanket over her mind; she was aware of it rising inside but the awareness seemed more a memory of fear than fear now alive within her.

She barely recalled the first Season of Rot she’d lived through, but had clear memories of the second one. Just under three years ago, she had witnessed this day secure in the family estate, in a solid house with its windows shuttered and cloth-sealed, with the braziers set outside the doors and on the courtyard’s high, broken-glass-rimmed walls billowing the acrid smoke of istaarl leaves. The last day of the Season and its Thirsting Hour had been a time of remote revulsion for her, irritating and inconvenient but nothing more. Then she’d given little thought to the city’s countless beggars and the stray animals bereft of shelter, or even to the poorer residents who were subsequently press-ganged into cleanup crews for days afterwards.

The same city, but a different world.

Felisin wondered if the guards would make any move towards the priest as he came closer to the Cull’s victims. She and the others in the line were the charges of the Empress now – Laseen’s responsibility – and the priest’s path could be seen as blind and random, the imminent collision one of chance rather than design, although in her bones Felisin knew differently. Would the helmed guards step forward, seek to guide the priest to one side, lead him safely through the Round?

‘I think not,’ said the man squatting on her right. His half-closed eyes, buried deep in their sockets, flashed with something that might have been amusement. ‘Seen you flicking your gaze, guards to priest, priest to guards.’

The big, silent man on her left slowly rose to his feet, pulling the chain with him. Felisin winced as the shackle yanked at her when the man folded his arms across his bare, scarred chest. He glared at the approaching priest but said nothing.

‘What does he want with me?’ Felisin asked in a whisper. ‘What have I done to earn a priest of Hood’s attention?’

The squatting man rocked back on his heels, tilting his face into the late afternoon sun. ‘Queen of Dreams, is this self-centred youth I hear from those full, sweet lips? Or just the usual stance of noble blood around which the universe revolves? Answer me, I pray, fickle Queen!’

Felisin scowled. ‘I felt better when I thought you asleep – or dead.’

‘Dead men do not squat, lass, they sprawl. Hood’s priest comes not for you but for me.’