The death of innocence? The loss of hope? Betrayal? ‘As I said, it will suffice.’

‘Yedan Narad, upon the day of the war’s end, you must lead us. None other will serve. But this day, as we begin the war, you have already served well enough. We see at last the path we must take, to become slayers of men and women.’

‘The same habit of hunting, Glyph. Only the prey has changed. I said little of worth.’

After a time, the Denier slipped away. Eyes still closed, Narad stared out upon a raging shoreline, argent with furious fire. He felt the weight of his sword in his hand, hearing but otherwise ignoring its muted peals of glee, while beside him a woman spoke.

‘My prince, our spine is bent unto breaking. Will you not return to us? We need your strength.’

Narad grimaced. ‘How is it that you make a virtue of my refusal of your lives, my refusing your right to them? For that is what you now ask of me. Stand fast, I will shout. Bend we shall, but break they will.’

‘Sire, you never shout.’

He waved a hand. ‘You know me as a humourless man, and yet you persist. Why dog a beast that never lived?’

The woman – a soldier, not a queen – was silent for a time, and then she said, ‘I took upon myself a family I never had. A daughter. A son, or was it two? I gave them the delusion they desired. They called me Mother. Until their moments of death, I held to the lie. What compelled me to do such a thing? Even now, while my corpse lies rotting beneath the stones the Andii raised about us, the question haunts me like my own ghost. ‘What compels us, Yedan, to so plunder the truth?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing less or more than love, I think. Not for the ones you know and have always held close, but for the ones you may never meet. Or for those who, bearing the face of a stranger, stumble into your arms. In that instant, friend, you draw upon the deepest taproot within you. It has no name. It needs no name.’

‘Then, what do you call it?’

He pondered the question for a moment, wondering at her insistence that some things need be named. Then he said, ‘Why, call it glory.’

He opened his eyes and the scene vanished. Once again, before him was the stark contrast of snow and trees, white and black, raised up in front of a fissured sky.

The man he was, in his dreams – the man who was a lover of men – was far wiser than Narad. He spoke with knowledge and forbearance. He spoke like a man at peace with who he was, with who he would ever be. He spoke, too, like a man about to die.