I am the priest of the pointless, seneschal to the hapless. You see my silence as humility. You see the wear in my face as some burden willingly taken on, and so give me a gravity of countenance I hardly deserve. And in your debates, you ever turn to me, seeking validation, revelation, a pageant of wise words behind which you can dance and sing and bless the darkness.

He could not tell them the source of his weariness. He could not confess the truth, much as he longed to. He could not say, You fools, she looked through my eyes and made them weep. She bled through my hands and saw in horror that it sanctified, dripping tears of power. She took hold of me only to then flee, leaving behind nothing but despair.

I will age as hope dies. I will bend to the weight of failure. My bones will creak to the crumbling of Kurald Galain. Do not look to my memories, my brothers and sisters. Already they twist with doubt. Already they take on the shape of my flaws.

No. Do not follow me. I but walk to the grave.

A short time earlier, while he sat on the bench of the inner garden, huddled against the bitter cold, beneath a thick cloak of bear fur, he had seen the young hostage, Orfantal, run alongside the fountain with its black frozen pool. The boy held a practice sword in one hand, and the dog, Ribs, ran beside him as if it had rediscovered its youth. Now free of worms, it had gained weight, that beast, and showed the sleek muscles of its hunting origins. Together, they played out imaginary battles, and more than once Endest had come upon Orfantal in his death-throes, with Ribs drawing close beside the boy as he lay on the ground, spoiling the gravitas of the scene with a cold wet nose snuffling against Orfantal’s face. He’d yelp and then curse the dog, but it was difficult to find malice in the love the animal displayed, and before long they would be wrestling on the thin carpet of snow.

Endest Silann was no indulgent witness to all of this. In the dull, half-formed shadows cast by child and dog, he saw only nightmares in waiting.

Lord Anomander had left the wretched house of his brother – scene of recent slaughter – in the company of the Azathanai High Mason, Caladan Brood. They had struck north, into the burned forest. Endest had watched them from the bloodstained threshold.

‘I will hold you to your promise of peace,’ Anomander had said to Brood, just before they left, when they all still stood in the house.