In such straits, imagination was useless, and she saw herself as well adapted to her diminishing world. Leave it to the others, with their emboldened ambitions and awkward avarice, to reap the glories of this civil war. Infayen expected to die in the victory. Her lifeblood, draining away, would fill a bowl, to be delivered to her daughter, and from that coagulated failure Menandore was welcome to sip, as her mother had done before her.

Welcome, the taste would say, to the family.

Once she announced herself, she did not have to wait long before being granted an audience with the High Priestess.

The Chamber of Light was bright enough to blind her to its details, barring that of Syntara who stood awaiting her. This was satisfactory. She had no interest in the trappings of this new faith.

‘Hunn Raal fucked a cookfire,’ she said.

Syntara’s perfect brows lifted.

In a monotone, Infayen explained what had been witnessed.

* * *

Betrayal was not something Sharenas Ankhadu had contemplated when mapping out the course of her life. Perhaps, on occasion, she might find herself a victim to it. But the blood on her own hands was unexpected, and the righteous cause driving those who now pursued her gnawed at her resolve. Her list of reasons for doing what she had done held a taint of selfishness. Indignation and affront were all very well, sufficient to justify harsh words or, in extremity, a slap. Modest answers, in other words, to match the personal scale of the moment. But a sword through the neck, at a tavern table, with the head rolling, bouncing upon the ale-spilled wood… when did I begin this new habit of losing control?

Vatha Urusander was a man with blunted needs. She had supped on his frustration, and had walked down into Neret Sorr, and then into the Legion camp, bloated by its fury. Each face she had confronted had seemed transformed, its every detail born anew in her searing focus. These are the enemies of peace. The face of Serap. The faces of Esthala and her husband. Of Hallyd Bahann, Tathe Lorat, Infayen. Hunn Raal.

Some of those faces are now still, enlivened no more. Frozen in their moments of culpability. The others… they bear lively masks of rage, and yearn for my death.

If betrayal has a known visage in this, it is mine.