He thought of that nest now, inexplicably, as he stood staring at the smear of smoke above the forest to the east, watching it spread across the sky. The procession had drawn to a halt while Lord Jaen rode out with a dozen Houseblades to investigate, a venture from which they were yet to return. Cryl remained with the carriage, ostensibly in command of the remaining eight Houseblades, although there were no orders to give.

Upon this journey, to the place of the wedding, Enesdia was required to remain cloistered, hidden from sight by the closed shutters on the carriage windows, and communicating only via a tube with her maid, Ephalla, who sat beside the driver on the bench. Somewhere, on the north road out from Kharkanas, Lord Andarist would be similarly bound to solitude, assuming they had departed the city yet. There were symbolic meanings to this ancient tradition, but Cryl wasn’t much interested in them. As the poet Gallan once said, traditions hid the obvious and habits steadied the world.

When next he rested eyes upon Enesdia, she would be facing her future husband, on the threshold of the edifice Andarist had built to proclaim his love for her. And Cryl would smile, from where he stood at her father’s side – a hostage made brother and a brother filled with brotherly love.

But I am not her brother.

There was virtually no traffic upon the road, and the line of trees off to their left, gap-holed by the beginnings of trails, seemed empty of life: wood like bone, leaves like flakes of ash. The river on the right showed them a mud-clotted bank where plants had torn away in unseasonal currents and high water. As they had travelled down from Enes House, they had almost kept pace with Dorssan Ryl’s southward flow, but now the familiar water seemed to have rushed past and in its place was something darker, stranger. He knew that such notions were nonsense. The currents were unending, and whatever sources of the river existed high in the mountains of the north, they too never ceased.

After one more long searching study of the trail mouth in which the troop had vanished some time earlier, Cryl turned and strode down from the road to draw closer to the river. The black water held hidden every promise, and even to reach down into it was to find nothing to grasp. He thought of its chill touch, and the numbness waiting in its depths. River god. Your water does not run clear, and so you remain blind to the shore and the lands beyond. But I wonder … do you hunger? For all that you cannot have? All that you cannot defeat? The traditions of current, the habits of flooding, and the mysteries you guard: these are the things the Deniers would worship. And I see no crime in that.