I’ll find Orfantal. I’ll explain things. I’ll make him promise to turn away from his mother. Away from her, and straight to Korlat. Be a brother, I’ll say. The older brother. Take her hand, and don’t let your mother ever pull you two apart.

I’ll do all that. In the Citadel. And then I’ll go and look for the bad soldiers. I’ll kill them, and then I’ll go home, to Jinia. I’ll take away Mother’s burdens – not all of them, just the ones I can do something about.

‘You all seem to forget,’ Sandalath said. ‘That demon. He chose me. Not you, Sorca, or any other woman. Me.’

So low were Prok’s words that Wreneck alone heard them: ‘Abyss take me…’

* * *

Sukul Ankhadu found Rancept in an antechamber near the servants’ corridor. He had laid out his scale shirt, his greaves and vambraces and his helm, which still bore its bent nose-guard. The weapons were set in a row on the floor: a mace, a shortsword, and a dagger that was more a spike than anything else. A round shield of a style not used in a generation, a buckler, and a hatchet completed his array of equipment.

His breathing was loud and wet as he crouched, inspecting buckles and straps.

Leaning against one wall, Sukul studied the man. ‘You’re abandoning me,’ she said. ‘Who will be left? Only Skild because of his game leg, and the maids.’

‘Skild will continue your schooling,’ Rancept replied.

‘And what schooling did you have?’

‘Scant.’

‘Precisely. I learn more sniffling underfoot at the meetings than I have from years of Skild’s lessons.’

He was silent for a time, examining the leather wrap of the mace’s handle. And then he said, ‘It takes a superior mind to achieve cynicism, and I don’t mean superior in a good way.’

‘Then how do you mean it?’

‘Convinced of its own genius, levitating upon the hot air of its own convictions, many of which are delusional.’

Grunting, Sukul sipped from the goblet she now carried with her everywhere. ‘The counter to all that, castellan, invariably cites a sense of realism in defence of a cynical outlook.’

‘Cynicism is the voice of ill-concealed despair, milady. The reality the cynic hides behind is one of his or her own making. Convenient, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I liked you better when all you did was mumble.’

‘And I you when the glow of your cheeks was youth’s blessing.’

‘Back to that again, is it? Tell me, did that woman, Sekarrow, ever play that musical instrument – what was it called? That iltre?’

‘Thankfully, no.’ He slowly, awkwardly straightened, reaching for the small of his back.

‘I argued for your staying, Rancept. You’re too old for battle. But Lady Hish Tulla said it was your decision to make. I disagree. It was hers. It remains hers. I will speak to her again.’