Regret was an empty curse. He had let age take hold of him, as if ennui was an old man’s final gift to himself – the blessed embrace of indifference in the guise of wisdom. Weariness awaited every unmindful soul, no matter its age, no matter its station. He knew that centuries of life awaited him, but that was a truth he could not face without blinking, without shying away. The true curse, the one curse that could fill a soul to bursting, was weariness. Not of the flesh, although that played its part; but of the spirit. He had come to recognize in himself a kind of hapless impatience: the affliction of a man waiting and wanting to die.

Loss and broken hearts could be borne by the young, the strong of will, the robust in spirit. He possessed none of those traits, and so he stood, soon to give away his only daughter, soon to pass into her hands all the promises of youth and none of the unspoken regrets, as befitted a father fading from the light. I am left behind and I am content with that. As content as any old fool can be content. Perhaps I’ll take to drink. Some sordid poison of forgetfulness to plunge days and nights into oblivion.

No longer needed … why should such things feel so cruel?

He stared at the spent fire, the cooling coals that held to their old shapes of stick and branch. Every dying hearth was home to fragile ghosts, and all that glowed on was but the memory of living. That and nothing—

A sense of motion drew him round. A Houseblade shouted – he saw his guards draw weapons, saw them contract to form a tight line. And from the forest edge, dark shapes boiling out – a gleam of bared iron—

Appalled, disbelieving, Lord Jaen tugged his sword free. He lunged towards the carriage and drove the pommel of his weapon against the door. ‘Out! Now! Out!’

The maid, Ephalla, crawled from under the carriage, groggy with sleep. Jaen grasped her arm and lifted her to her feet. He shook her. ‘Listen to me – take my daughter – flee to the house. Do you understand? To the house!’ He flung her hard against the side of the carriage and then wheeled.

His Houseblades were retreating, closing in around the carriage on the side facing the forest.

Behind him he heard the door swing open; heard his daughter’s frightened cry as Ephalla dragged her from the carriage.

‘We withdraw!’ Jaen shouted to his Houseblades. ‘Back to the house. Fall back!’

His guards formed a curved line, backing quickly. Jaen glanced over a shoulder and saw the two women running for the house.

The attackers were rushing closer. There were too many of them.

‘Slow them down!’ he commanded.