If this confession sought sympathy from Arathan, he judged himself a failure. ‘I would evade that fate for myself, sir. The wisdom you have offered me is not the one you intended, so I cannot but view it as a most precious gift.’

The smile Draconus then swung to him was wry. ‘You have reawakened my pity for Sagander, and I do not refer to an amputated leg.’

‘Sagander’s iron stakes pinned him to the ground long ago, sir. Legs or not, he does not move and never will.’

‘You are quick to judge. What you describe makes him no less dangerous.’

Arathan shrugged. ‘Only if we walk too close. He is in my past now, sir. I do not expect to see him again.’

‘I would think not,’ Draconus agreed. ‘But I wonder if I have not wronged him. You are far from easy company, Arathan. Now, a house awaits us.’

Following his father’s gesture, Arathan looked ahead. Plain in sight, as if conjured from the ground less than a hundred paces distant, was a low structure. Its long roof sagged in the middle and a few gaps were visible as black holes amidst the lichen-covered slate tiles. Beneath the projecting eaves, the stone walls were roughly hewn and streaked with red stains. The yard around the house was devoid of grass and looked beaten down.

‘Is it conjured?’ Arathan asked.

‘Suggested is the better word,’ Draconus replied.

They set off towards it. The house appeared to be abandoned, but Arathan was certain that it was not. He squinted at the black patches made by the windows to either side of the solid door – which seemed to have been hacked from a single slab of grey stone – but could make out no movement in the shadows within. ‘Are we expected?’

‘More than expected, Arathan. Necessary.’

‘Necessary for this house to be?’

‘Just so.’

‘Then surely, Father, belief has more power than you credit it.’

‘I never discredited the power of belief, Arathan. I but warned you that it can offer dubious charms, and rarely does it invite self-analysis, much less reproach.’

‘Then sorcery must never be examined too closely? Lest it lose its power?’

‘Lest it cease to exist, Arathan. What is it to be a god, if not to hold the unfettered willingness to believe?’

‘Now you grant belief omnipotence. I can see how that would charm anyone, even a god.’

‘With each day, son, I see you grow more formidable.’

The observation startled Arathan. He already regretted his brutal words to his father. As if I can speak of love. The only game I knew to play was one of possession. It does ill to treat love as would a child a toy. Feren, I am sorry for all that I did, for all that I was, and was not. ‘I am anything but formidable, Father. I but flail with weapons too large to hold.’

Draconus grunted. ‘As do we all.’