‘Then… send her back.’

‘Seen or unseen, flesh or ghost, she suffers still. You and I, we have murdered the old ways, and all that we will come to, it is of our own making.’ She hesitated, and then cocked her head. ‘You can always blame your neighbour.’

She bowed before him, and turned away.

Ivis watched her re-join the others, and the three shamans slipped back into the forest. In moments they vanished from sight.

Blame the neighbours. Yes, we’ll do that. When we can, if only to make living easier.

He resumed walking, his scowl deepening as he looked upon the wall before him. The Deniers would do as they must. If indeed they chose to disappear, rejecting the vengeance they had every right to seek, well, regrets had a way of breeding, and the swarming spawn could drown a soul in an instant.

Passing through the gate, his steps slowed as he studied the keep before him. Ah, milord. Your daughters? Well now, there was a fire in the house… we saw naught the telltale flickers of light, and all too late felt its murderous heat.

Come the spring, milord, I see a sky made grey with smoke.

* * *

Sandalath Drukorlat sat near the fire in the common room, away from the others. The new surgeon, Prok, was singing a ballad, words slurring and the brightness of his gaze an alcoholic sheen through which he blinked regretfully at the world. Whatever sorrow existed in the song lost its truths in the maudlin self-pity of the man’s voice.

Seated near the surgeon, in poses of faint attention or outright uninterest, were arranged the other newcomers to the household, as well as Armourer Setyl and Horse Master Venth Direll. The new keeper of records, a woman named Sorca, hid her face behind the bowl of a pipe. Her complexion, oddly smooth and unlined, was the same hue as the smoke she sent out in long, tumbling streams from her somewhat overly generous mouth. Her hair was cut short as if to undermine her femininity, but her broad features were soft and peculiarly welcoming. For all that, the woman rarely spoke, and when she did, it was in a low mutter, as if all conversation was in truth a private one, she with herself. Sandalath had yet to see her smile.

Sitting close to the new keeper was the woman who had replaced Hilith as head of the house-servants. Bidishan was wiry, nervous, carrying herself with an air of impatience, as if some vital task yet awaited her for which she needed all her energy, but, Sandalath had come to realize, there was no such task, and each day and evening was consumed by the same headlong rush. Perhaps it was sleep that Bidishan hurried towards, as if oblivion was the only island to take her exhausted self, flung insensate upon the strand at day’s end, and in the realm of dreams the woman unleashed all that was in her soul.