Into the realm of skewered goddesses. Sharpened stakes. The forest was now a place to be feared – when had that loss come upon Ivis and his kind? The first village? The first city? That first stretch of torn, cleared ground? There would have been a moment, a cusp, when the Tiste changed, when they left behind their sense of being prey, and in its place became the hunter. Forests were refuges for quarry. They offered camouflage, hidden trails and secret escape routes. Trees to climb, branches to venture out upon. They beguiled with ceaseless motion, or deep shadows. In a single flash, they could confound lines of sight. ‘Into the deep wood the prey flee, and into the deep wood we follow/and in the knowledge of our seeing, we make it shallow.’ Even in his youth, the poet Gallan had seen clearly enough. He had grown up in an age of trophies, of antlered skulls, fanged jaws, and dappled, tanned skins that mocked the pretence of the unseen.

We both saw the forests emptied, made shallow with our knowing. And yet, for all that, the slaughter could not defeat our abiding fear.

Fighting the chill, he strode into the forest, boots silent upon the thick, wet leaves.

Another battlefield, this one, with the scars of slaughter upon all sides.

He yearned for the return of Lord Draconus. Or even a simple word – a missive sent from the Citadel. He had fashioned a report of the battle with the Borderswords, dispatching it to Kharkanas. It had elicited no response. He had reported in detail the murders within the house. Even this was met with silence.

Milord, what would you have me do? Two daughters are left to you, their hands red. We found the charred remains of the third – Malice, we think – in an oven. Envy and Spite, milord, hide in the bones of the house. But it’s a flimsy refuge. With a word the walls can be breached. With a word, Lord Draconus, I can have the horrid creatures in chains.

But this led Ivis into a realm in which he did not belong, and responsibilities he would rather do without. Was this cowardice? Was there not the necessity of justice in the matter of slain men and women? But milord, they are your daughters. Your charge. For you to deal with, not me, not a master-at-arms, who by every law imaginable would see the two of them skinned alive.

Return to us, I beg you, and make right this crime. Their blood protects them from me. But not from you.

More to the point, milord, what if they seek to strike again? We have our hostage to think of, the sanctity of her life – Abyss take me, the sanctity of what remains of her innocence!

I will defend her, milord, even against your daughters.