‘And you barely recovered from a concussion,’ his father continued. ‘It must have hit you like a sleeping draught. I am sorry, Arathan, that you missed most of an enjoyable evening.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘You have had too few of those.’

‘He called you his friend,’ Arathan said, his tone painfully accusing.

A flatness came to his father’s eyes. ‘He calls everyone “friend”, Arathan. Give it no further thought.’

Arathan glared after him as he walked away.

From a lone, diseased tree upriver drifted the morning cry of a bird and he looked over but could not see the creature among the crooked branches and sullen leaves.

It hides, and it is free.

Free to fly away from all of this.

* * *

A short time later they ascended the slope and came out upon the Bareth Solitude, and the way ahead stretched on in ribboned rows beneath a clear sky, and Arathan was reminded of Sagander’s lessons recounting the death of a great inland sea.

As he rode, he thought of water, and freedom.

And prisons.

To the west was the land of the Azathanai, where dwelt protectors who protected nothing, and wise sages who never spoke, and Thel Akai came down from the mountains to share drunken nights no one remembered the next day. It was a world of mysteries, and he would soon see it for himself. With the thought, he felt light in the saddle, as if moments from transforming into a bird, from taking wing in search of a diseased tree.

But the thin sea ahead was bereft of trees, and the beach ridges with their bleached cobbles edged basins of grass and little else.

He wasn’t interested in stabbing his father in the back – that broad back just ahead, beneath that worn cloak. No one would ever wield him like a knife.

Grizzin Farl had told him: his mother still lived. She lived, tormented by grief, which meant that she loved him still. He would find her and steal her away.

In a world of mysteries, there were plenty of places in which to hide.

For both of us.

And we will love each other, and from that love, there will be peace.

Part Two : The Solitude of This Fire

PART TWO

The solitude of this fire

Chapter Six

SIX

HUST HENARALD’S EYES were level and dark, as if to test the weight of the words he was about to speak, to see if they sank claws deep into the man seated opposite him, or merely slipped past. The low light sculpted out the hollows of his cheeks, and above the prominent bones flaring out from his narrow, hooked nose those sharp eyes seemed to have retreated far in their shadowy recesses, yet remained piercing and intent. ‘One day,’ he said, voice rough from years at the forge, in the midst of bitter smoke and acrid steam, ‘I will be a child again.’ He slowly leaned back, withdrawing from the oil lamp’s light on the table, until he seemed to Kellaras more a ghostly apparition than a mortal man.