The face he swung to her was such a cascade of expressions that she could make no sense of it. ‘That cannot be. Have the Forulkan returned? Does the war begin again? I’ll not yield this time! I will pursue them down to the very sea, and see the crest ride red for years upon that cursed shore!’

She blinked. ‘No. The Forulkan have not come. They renew no war. Did their own queen not acknowledge the justice of their defeat? Lord Urusander, you broke them, and they shall not return.’

‘Then what has befallen the Hust?’

‘Treachery,’ she replied, once more searching his face, and once more baffled by what she saw. A warlord in search of an enemy. But surely, this is the season for it, as the chambers you pace grow smaller and smaller still. ‘They were poisoned,’ she said. ‘In a single night, following a gift of wine and ale. A gift, sir, from Captain Hunn Raal.’

When he said nothing, when he but stared at her, his face like cracked ice, Sharenas looked away – almost desperately. ‘This is why,’ she said, ‘they speak only of the wedding.’

Urusander finally spoke, his tone viciously cold. ‘How does the First Son give answer? Does he now march upon us?’

‘With what?’ Sharenas snapped. ‘The Houseblades of the nobles? None are summoned to Kharkanas. Lord Anomander is not even there. Instead, he searches for Andarist. Lord Silchas commands in his place, and seeks to restore the Hust Legion.’

‘But – how?’

‘He raids the mining pits, sir.’

Urusander raised a hand between them, as if to push her away. She fell silent. With her words she had battered at him, wielding them as would a madwoman. No shield thrown up against them survived their relentless frenzy. She thought she saw in him, now, at last, signs of shock. But balance is not a game. Have I pushed too far, even when I spoke nothing but the truth? Is this, perhaps, the reason for keeping Urusander ignorant?

‘They think me a puppet,’ Urusander said. ‘I was told that Ilgast Rend defied every effort at conciliation. He threw away the lives of the Wardens, and killed many of my own soldiers. Was it courage or cowardice that he chose to die in battle?’ He waved a hand. ‘When Calat Hustain learns of this, of what Rend did with his people… ah, even I do not know how I would survive that. Such betrayal, and by a nobleborn…’ His voice trailed away. He stared south again. ‘It is curious, is it not, how the horrors climb the walls of our righteous indignation? Up and out, spilling over the battlements with howls, in a night of lit torches and wind-whipped flames. I see their grim forms, spreading out, and out, over Kurald Galain. Hunn Raal? May the spirits forgive me, but it was my hands that shaped him. My blessed, poisoned portrait.’