‘Then name our crimes,’ Anomander said. ‘For myself, I will face them, and deny nothing that I have done.’

Narad lifted his head, but refused to open his eyes. Ah, this. ‘Azathanai,’ he said. ‘You are welcome here.’

Hunters now stirred, rising on all sides, taking hold of weapons.

Anomander said, ‘So I am denied, then.’

Narad shook his head. ‘First Son of Darkness. The time is not yet for… for our welcome. But I will promise this. When we are needed, call upon us.’

At last, Narad heard the voices of his fellow hunters, their murmurs, their curses. Even Glyph seemed to hiss in sudden shock, or frustration.

But Anomander was the first to reply. ‘Yedan Narad, this civil war does not belong to you. Though I can see how your companions might like to witness what vengeance I may deliver, in the name of the slain people of this forest.’

‘No,’ said Narad, and his shuttered eyes offered him nothing but a silvered realm, mercurial and flaring as if with unseen fires. That seemed fitting enough. ‘That is not our battle, you are right. Not… how we will fight our… our enemies. I speak of something else.’

‘You stumble—’

Caladan cut off the Son of Darkness with a harshly rasped, ‘Stifle your mouth, you fool!’

‘When the fires take the sea,’ Narad said, seeing once again that terrible shoreline where he had walked. The hand on his shoulder held him with a savagely tight grip now, sending pain lancing through him. ‘Upon the shoreline,’ he said. ‘There, when you ask it of us, we will stand.’

‘In whose name?’ Caladan asked.

‘Hers,’ Narad replied.

The Deniers shouted, in fury, in outrage.

But Narad opened his eyes and met Lord Anomander’s startled gaze. And said, a second time, ‘Hers.’

He watched as Caladan reached out, grasped hold of Lord Anomander’s left arm, and dragged the Son of Darkness out from the camp. As if a single additional word might shatter everything. In moments both were gone, vanishing among the burned boles.

Glyph stepped in front of Narad, his face contorted. ‘You pledge us to Mother Dark?’

‘No,’ Narad said.

‘But – I heard you! We all heard you! Your words to the First Son of Darkness!’

Narad studied Glyph, and something in his expression swept the rage from Glyph’s face. ‘She was not in my dream, Glyph,’ he said, attempting a smile that made the hunter recoil before him.

‘Then—’ Glyph paused and looked away, as if seeking one last sight of the two who had come among them, but they were gone. ‘Then, brother, he misunderstood you.’

‘But the other one did not.’

‘The Azathanai? How can you know?’

Narad smiled again, although it was a hard thing to manage. ‘Because of what he did, Glyph. How fast… how fast he took Anomander away. No explanations, you see? No chance for… for clarification.’

‘The Azathanai chose to deceive the Son of Darkness?’