‘Your loyalty’s to the city you’ve sworn to defend, Captain—’

‘I know sir, but those soldiers on the walls, sir – well, they’re as close as they’re allowed to get, if you understand me. And they’re not happy about it.’

‘They’re not alone in that. Now get going, Captain Keneb.’

Duiker was the last. When the gate finally emptied, not a single breathing refugee remained outside the walls, barring those he could see well down the road, still seated on the cobbles, unable to move, drawing their last breaths – too far away to retrieve, and it was clear that the Aren soldiers had been given strict orders about how far beyond the gate they were permitted.

Thirty paces from the gate and with the array of guards standing in the gap watching him, Duiker wheeled his horse around one final time. He stared northward, first to the dust cloud now ascending the last, largest barrow, then beyond it, to the glittering spear that was the Whirlwind. His mind’s eye took him farther still, north and east, across rivers, across plains and steppes, to a city on a different coast. Yet the effort availed him little. Too much to comprehend, too swift, too immediate this end to that extraordinary, soul-scarring journey.

A chain of corpses, hundreds of leagues long. No, it is all beyond me, beyond, I now believe, any of us . . .

He swung his horse around, eyes fixing on that yawning gate and the guards gathered there. They parted to form a path. Duiker tapped his heels into the mare’s flanks.

He ignored the soldiers on the wall, even when the triumphant cry burst from them like a beast unchained.

Shadows flowed in silent waves over the barren hills. Apt’s glittering eye scanned the horizon for a moment longer, then the demon dipped her elongated head to look down on the boy crouched beside her forelimb.

He too was studying Shadow Realm’s eerie landscape, his own single, multifaceted eye glistening beneath the jutting brow ridge.

After a long moment he lifted his head and met her gaze. ‘Mother,’ he asked, ‘is this home?’

A voice spoke from a dozen paces away. ‘My colleague ever underestimates this realm’s natural inhabitants. Ah, there is the child.’

The boy turned and watched the tall, black-clad man approach. ‘Aptorian,’ the stranger continued, ‘your generous shaping of this lad – no matter how well-meant – will do naught but scar him within, in the years to come.’

Apt clicked and hissed a reply.

‘Ah, but you have achieved the opposite, Lady,’ the man said. ‘For he now belongs to neither.’

The demon spoke again.

The man cocked his head, regarded her for a long moment, then half-smiled. ‘Presumptuous of you.’ His gaze fell to the boy. ‘Very well.’ He crouched. ‘Hello.’

The boy returned the greeting shyly.

Casting a last irritated glance at Apt, the man offered the child his hand. ‘I’m ... Uncle Cotillion—’