He nodded. ‘And I see it shining through, High Priestess. There is nothing to fear – the truth of that is plain to my eyes.’

‘Reborn,’ she whispered. And then her eyes flashed. ‘I demand sanctuary.’

‘And you have come to me. I understand, High Priestess.’

‘Where else could I go? I cannot stay here. I need the protection of the Legion …’

He straightened, saying nothing. He needed to think this through.

‘Hunn Raal—’

‘A moment, please. This is a complication—’

‘Is that what I am? A complication? Hardly the grovelling stance you took yesterday, babbling how everything is in place!’

‘Yesterday you were the High Priestess of Mother Dark,’ he snapped. ‘But now she’ll not have you, Syntara. I must think of my master, and the future I seek for him. I must think of the Legion.’

She stood, faced him. ‘Save that nonsense for the fools who will believe it. I see your ambition, Hunn Raal. I know your bloodlines. You long to walk these halls again, in your rightful place. Your master is simply the means, not the end.’

‘We are not all as base as you, Syntara. Now, cease your raging. Give me time to see a way through this, to the advantage of all of us. Tell me truthfully now, why do you believe you need sanctuary?’

Her eyes widened. ‘Look at me! See what she has done!’

‘The Azathanai did this, not Mother Dark. You fled the chamber – why?’

‘You were not there,’ she hissed. ‘You did not hear the horrible things the woman said of me.’

‘Then,’ he concluded, ‘you fled in shame. Mother Dark did not cast you out.’

‘Nor did she defend me! Her own High Priestess!’

He grunted. ‘Fortunate for her then that she had two High Priestesses.’

Her slap against the side of his face sent him back a step, not from the weight of the blow, but in the shocked sobriety it delivered. One side of his face stinging, he studied the woman before him, and then sighed. ‘“Anger is the death of beauty.” Who was it said that? Never mind. This has been a fraught day – the city streets flooding to announce the coming of the Azathanai, and I am told there was ice in the passage leading to the Chamber of Night. And now you … what do these things portend, High Priestess?’

But her gaze had slid past him, to the jug of wine on the table. She strode over, poured full a goblet and drank it down in three quick swallows. ‘Are you too drunk to fuck me, Hunn Raal?’

Said the woman who just slapped me. ‘Probably.’

‘Men are so pathetic.’

‘I have other things on my mind.’

She refilled her goblet and then faced him. ‘Will Urusander take me?’

‘As what?’