‘Oh, just fuck off, will you?’ She angled away. ‘I’m off to see a man with freckles on his arms.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

YEDAN NARAD STOOD FACING THE FOREST WITH HIS BACK to the grove. The snow upon branches and the ground blackened the boles of the trees, and the crazed scrawl of twigs against the white sky ran like cracks in the face of the world. It was no difficult thing to see the future’s end, looming like the breaking of winter.

Each night his dreams tore apart the shrouds of time. He walked a shoreline in a past he had never lived, into a future that was not his. He spoke with queens who called him brother, yet offered him the rotting, skeletal visage of a young woman in the attire of a bride. He felt sweet breath upon his cheek that assaulted his senses like the stain of gangrene.

During each day, as the hunters of the Shake gathered, as the makeshift army of Glyph of the Shore grew, Narad found himself less able to distinguish the real from the imagined, the moment ahead from the moment just past. At times, he would glance up and see the surrounding forest transformed into walls of raging fire, into a ceaseless cascade of silver, mercurial light. From wounds in the air, he saw the lunging bulk of dragons clawing through, the image rushing towards him as if he was, somehow, flying into the face of horror.

In his dreams, they named him warrior. Of his exploits, they spoke words of awe from crowds too formless to comprehend even as he walked through their midst. Somehow, he led them all, sustained by virtues and qualities of command he knew he did not possess. Everything seemed borrowed, perhaps even stolen. The expectations had begun to bleed into the real world, as increasingly he was looked to for guidance. It was only a matter of time before someone – Glyph, or, now, hate-filled Lahanis – exposed him for what he was.

Narad, lowborn murderer, rapist, who lied to the First Son of Darkness. Why? Because deceit dwells in his heart, and he will duck every hand of justice. Cowardice hides behind his every desire, and just as he fled retribution, so he created for himself false memories, pillaging all he could.

And yet, it was too late to deny the reality of what was coming. He had promised the Shake to the First Son, but the summons, when it came, would see Lord Anomander – not the Shake – dislodged, made to move in order to achieve the meeting. And in that moment, Narad now knew, he would once more betray the man.