I used the servants’ door to sneak away from Mother, to find Galdan in the fields beyond. He liked his wine, did Galdan, so I’d bring him a stoppered jar, from the cellar. For afterwards.

Along this corridor, then. Mother hears nothing.

I’ve come for my son, finally. This time, no one will take him away.

She moved beneath the smoke, which roiled along the arched ceiling of the corridor and then began tumbling down as she went deeper into the building. But things were strangely unfamiliar. A doorway she had expected wasn’t where it should have been, and here, when the passage should have swung right, it now swung left.

Ivis. You must have undressed me. In the carriage. I was so hot. Faint. Your hands were upon my body, but I don’t remember that. I wish I did.

She stumbled against stone steps, bruising a shin and then a knee as she fell against the hard edges. Smoke was pouring past her, rushing upward. She heard a scream, and then a piercing howl from somewhere above. Orfantal?

Sandalath climbed upward.

* * *

Caladan Brood stepped into the main chamber. Before him, filling most of the room, was a figure wrought in flames, its belly massive, swollen and stretched as it rested heavily upon the flagstones. In its burgeoning, it had pushed the dining table against one wall, while simply crushing most of the chairs. Above this belly, still huge and yet disproportionately small compared to what lay below, was a woman’s upper torso, heavy breasts, rounded shoulders, a fat-layered neck beneath a round face. The eyes were black coals amidst the fire, fixing now upon the High Mason.

‘I felt you, brother.’

‘Olar Ethil, do you have them?’

She nodded, her expression satiated. ‘I do. Safe.’

‘Will you yield them, when this night is done?’

‘Do you ask it of me?’

‘I do.’

‘For you then, Brood, yes, I will yield them. But what of you? Are you proof to these mundane fires?’

‘For a time,’ he replied. ‘Enough. Your daughters hide.’

‘You hurt them badly.’

‘And if I finish it?’

Olar Ethil laughed. ‘Draconus cannot hate you more than he already does.’

‘And you?’

She shrugged. ‘I am here, am I not? Protecting these two mortals.’

‘From your daughters? Or from the fire you so eagerly unleashed?’

‘Both.’ She waved a languid hand, the motion making a roar. ‘You built well. Too good a home for the likes of me.’

‘Your vengeance, then, for his having rejected you. That, Olar Ethil, is petty.’

‘Beware the scorned woman.’

‘Then why save Ivis and the boy?’

The woman was silent for a time, eyes narrowed to slits as she studied Caladan Brood. ‘Not the path I chose.’

‘The Finnest in the tower?’

Slowly, she nodded. ‘Do you wish to know more?’

‘Is it my business?’