Urusander was studying him. ‘Then where is Raal? I think I need a word with him.’

‘He rides in haste to Kharkanas, Father. There is dire news, which sent him to the Citadel, to audience with Mother Dark, and this same news sent me here, to you.’

Urusander’s expression was severe and it seemed to age him. ‘Out with it, then.’

‘A new threat, Father. Invasion – from the Sea of Vitr.’

‘Nothing comes from the Vitr.’

‘Until now,’ Osserc replied. ‘Father, this was of such importance that Sharenas and Kagamandra both rode out across Glimmer Fate to the very shore of the Vitr to see for themselves. Hunn Raal carried the news to the Citadel. Kurald Galain is under threat. Again.’

Urusander looked down but said nothing.

Osserc stepped closer to the table, until he felt its worn edge against his legs. ‘Mother Dark will have no choice,’ he said. ‘She will need the Legion once more. Sevegg, Risp and Serap have all ridden out, to carry word to the garrisons and to the decommissioned. Father, the flag must be raised—’

Urusander was studying the clay tablets, but at that he shook his head and said, ‘I have no interest in doing so.’

‘Then I will stand in your stead—’

‘I – you are not ready.’

‘In your eyes I will never be ready!’

Instead of replying to that accusation, instead of easing Osserc’s deepest fear, Urusander stepped away from the table and walked to the window behind him.

Osserc glared at his father’s back. He wanted to sweep the tablets from the tabletop, send them on to the floor to shatter into dust. For the briefest of instants, he wanted to drive a knife into his father, deep between the shoulder blades, straight down into the heart. But he did none of these things; he but stood, trembling against all that his father’s silence told him. Yes, son. You will never be ready. ‘What must I do to convince you?’ he asked, hating the weakness in his tone.

Urusander folded his hands behind his back but did not turn from whatever he was looking at through the murky window panes. ‘Give me one thought not made in haste, Osserc. Just one.’ He glanced over a shoulder, momentarily, and there was grief in his eyes. ‘And I will cling to it as if it were the Spar of Andii itself.’

Uncomprehending, Osserc shook his head. ‘Will you keep your only son beneath the respect of everyone? Your own soldiers? Why? Why do that to me?’

‘And if I make you commander of the Legion, you will have all the respect you so need?’

‘Yes!’

Urusander had turned back to the window. He now reached up and rubbed a smudge on the frail glass. ‘By title and the burden of responsibility, you will find all you yearn for? You will find this “respect” you’ve heard so much about, from old veterans and drunk fools; from the poets and what you think you see upon the wood panels so finely brushed into likenesses – from historians and other whores of glory?’