Felisin felt something shiver in her soul as the buzzing rapidly shifted, forming words that she could understand. ‘Secret. . . to show . . . now . . .’

‘Go on then,’ the one-time servant of Fener growled, ‘show me.’

Perhaps Fener acted then, the swatting hand of a furious god – Felisin would remember the moment and think on it often – or the secret was the mocking of immortals, a joke far beyond her understanding, but at that moment the rising tide of horror within her broke free, the numbness of her soul seared away as the flies exploded outward, dispersing in all directions to reveal ... no-one.

The former priest of Fener flinched as if struck, his eyes wide. From across the Round half a dozen guards cried out, wordless sounds punched from their throats. Chains snapped as others in the line jolted as if to flee. The iron loops set in the wall snatched taut, but the loops held as did the chains. The guards rushed forward and the line shrank back into submission.

‘Now that,’ the tattooed man shakily muttered, ‘was uncalled for.’

An hour passed, an hour in which the mystery, shock and horror of Hood’s priest sank down within Felisin to become but one more layer, the latest but not the last in what had become an unending nightmare. An acolyte of Hood ... who was not there. The buzzing of wings that formed words. Was that Hood himself? Had the Lord of Death come to walk among mortals? And why stand before a once-priest of Fener – what was the message behind the revelation?

But slowly the questions faded in her mind, the numbness seeping back, the return of cold despair. The Empress had culled the nobility, stripped the Houses and families of their wealth followed by a summary accusation and conviction of treason that had ended in chains. As for the ex-priest on her right and the huge, bestial man with all the makings of a common criminal on her left, clearly neither one could claim noble blood.

She laughed softly, startling both men.

‘Has Hood’s secret revealed itself to you, then, lass?’ the ex-priest asked.

‘No.’

‘What do you find so amusing?’

She shook her head. I had expected to find myself in good company, how’s that for an upturned thought? There you have it, the very attitude the peasants hungered to tear down, the very same fuel the Empress has touched to flame—

‘Child!’

The voice was that of an aged woman, still haughty but with an air of desperate yearning. Felisin closed her eyes briefly, then straightened and looked along the line to the gaunt old woman beyond the thug. The woman was wearing her night-clothes, torn and smeared. With noble blood, no less. ‘Lady Gaesen.’

The old woman reached out a shaking hand. ‘Yes! Wife to Lord Hilrac! I am Lady Gaesen ...’ The words came as if she’d forgotten who she was, and now she frowned through the cracked make-up covering her wrinkles and her red-shot eyes fixed on Felisin. ‘I know you,’ she hissed. ‘House of Paran. Youngest daughter. Felisin!’