She reached out to him, one soft gore-smeared hand touching the line of his jaw, lifting his gaze to her own. The rapists had done their work. There was no forgetting that. He remembered the feel of her broken body beneath him, and the ragged mess that had been her wedding dress. With dead eyes, she looked upon him, and her dead lips parted, to utter the dead words, ‘You did.’

Narad’s eyes blinked open. It was night. The few fires had burned down, and the scorched stumps of trees stood thin and black on all sides of the camp. The others were asleep. He sat up, tugged aside the ratty furs of his bedding.

He welcomed her haunting, but not the illusions it delivered. He was not her brother. She was not his queen – although perhaps, in some ways, he had made her so – but that honour, as he felt it in that place, on that fiery shoreline, was not his alone. It was an earned thing. She led her people, and her people were an army.

Wars inside make wars outside. It has always been this way. There is nothing left, but everything to fight for. Still, who dares imagine this a virtue?

He lifted hands to his scarred, mangled face. The aches never quite faded away. He could still feel her grimed fingers along the line of his jaw.

Motion caught his eye. He quickly stood and faced it. Two figures were walking into the camp.

The heavier of the two reached out to stay his companion, and then strode towards Narad.

He is not Tiste. He wears the guise of a savage.

But the one who waits behind him, he is Tiste. Andii.

The huge stranger halted before Narad. ‘Forgive me this,’ he said in a low, rumbling voice. ‘There is heat in the earth beneath us. It burns fiercest beneath your feet.’ He paused and tilted his head. ‘If it eases you, consider my friend and me as… moths.’

The others in the camp had awakened, were sitting up, but otherwise not moving. All eyes were fixed upon Glyph, who had risen and was joining Narad.

The stranger bowed to Glyph. ‘Denier, will you welcome us to your camp?’

‘It is not for me,’ Glyph replied. ‘I am the bow bent to the arrow. In this matter, Azathanai, Yedan Narad speaks for us.’

Narad started. ‘I’ve not earned any such privilege, Glyph!’

‘This time of night belongs to you,’ Glyph replied. ‘This is not where you stand, but when.’

Narad returned his attention to the stranger. Azathanai! ‘You are not our enemy,’ he said slowly, flinching at the faint question in his tone. ‘But the one behind you – is he a Legion soldier?’

‘No,’ the Azathanai replied. ‘He is Lord Anomander Rake, First Son of Darkness.’

Oh.