There was a kind of recklessness in women. To open her legs was to invite it in, and with the invitation came surrender. Each night, the taste of that surrender stole into her like a drug. Her brother could see it, and was right to fear it. A woman who does not care is a dangerous woman.

Each day, as they rode across the barren land, she longed for the night to come, for the boy’s helpless eagerness, for the shudders of his body against hers, for the waves that seemed to steal away his life – so much of it, rushing into her. She meant to use that life.

Children died. But a woman could make more children. Sons were born and sometimes they died, but there were many sons. And even dreams of the future held in hands, places of darkness.

* * *

Riding at his sister’s side, trapped in the silence between them, Rint studied the lie of the land, wishing that monuments might rise before them, erupting from the hard ground, halting them in their tracks. All forward progress denied: nothing to do but turn round and return to Kurald Galain.

When she took with child, she would flee, like a thief down a street, into hidden alleys, secret courses that none could follow. A prize in her womb, she would draw knife and hiss at any who drew near. Even her brother.

He cursed Draconus, cursed this entire venture; he felt his body weaken with anguish at the sight of young Arathan, riding so proud at his father’s side. He’d thought better of his sister. The world, crowding close round this meagre party, had grown sordid.

The day was drawing to a close, shadows stretched into their path from the lead riders, ephemeral and misshapen. To either side the plain rolled out, rippled like a dislodged rug, threadbare on the rises where the winter winds cut like knives for months on end. The deeper basins were bleached white, made lifeless by leaching salts.

They had passed some ruins just after noon. Foundation stones of pitted granite formed a rectangle on a level span just above a broad, shallow basin. The scale of the structure seemed oversized for Azathanai, and Rint saw little sign of their legendary stone-working skills in the roughly hewn granite. The walls had long since tumbled, forming a scree down the slope on the basin side and lying in heaps upon the opposite side. There was no evidence that anyone had ever harvested the rubble. Apart from the lone building, Rint saw no other signs of habitation – no pen walls, no field enclosures, and the ground bore no evidence of ploughing. He wondered at it as they rode by.