‘Probably,’ Mother Dark agreed. ‘We can but eagerly await such delineations, and the time when you and I need not worry over our missteps born of ignorance.’

After a moment, Urusander resumed his approach to the dais. Mounting it, he paused in front of his throne and then, seeing the slotted scabbard awaiting the sceptre, settled the object into its place. Turning, he faced Mother Dark.

When she held out her right hand, he raised his, bringing it up beneath hers. Their hands clasped briefly before parting once more.

Facing the chamber, Mother Dark and Father Light stood for a moment, as if posing for posterity, before both sat down on their thrones.

‘That’s it,’ muttered Hunn Raal beside Renarr. ‘Done.’

She turned to him. ‘Recall his assertion,’ she observed.

‘His what?’

‘He names Osserc his heir, Hunn Raal. We have witnessed, and so it is, as you say, done.’

Something dark flitted across his expression, then was gone, his smile returning. ‘Ah, the boy. Yes indeed. Well, he was the pup in my shadow, and should he ever return…’ Shrugging, Hunn Raal turned away.

Closer to the thrones, both High Priestesses were speaking with their deities, quietly, for the moment at least.

Swinging round to follow Hunn Raal, Renarr found herself facing the historian.

‘I would know more about you,’ he said to her. ‘For the official version.’

‘Invent what you need,’ Renarr replied.

‘I would rather not misrepresent you.’

‘You would have me the detritus to cling to, amidst the flood of lies?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Perhaps later, historian,’ she said as she reached the door ‘I will give you all that you need, and more.’

* * *

Renarr did her best, then, to walk away from all of it. Vatha Urusander had been given a series of opulent rooms, as if anticipating a delay in the consummation of his marriage to Mother Dark, and it was in these rooms that she found her momentary refuge.

Witnessing the battle had left her drained. The sorcery had been shocking, appalling. It had been unfortunate that Hunn Raal had not only survived but prevailed, inasmuch as he had been the last one left standing.

In the company of the men and women who sold their bodies, and the near-feral pack of children swarming the ridge, Renarr had watched the sordid consequences of the failed magicks as soldiers clashed in the valley below. She had tried to imagine her mother down there, in the press, commanding her company in the slaying of fellow Tiste. But that proved difficult. Something about it did not – could not – fit, and it was some time before she realized that her mother would never have participated in such a travesty.

Military honour was bound to service. The virtue of honour could not stand alone, could not stand for itself. Service sustained honour, when nothing else could. Tearing it away from all that gave it meaning reduced the soldier to a thug, a bully. She had, with that realization, stepped back, her attention shifting to all the children gathered now along the crest to watch the killing below.