Kagamandra Tulas rose suddenly, sending the chair toppling. Hands to his face, he staggered to the door, and then into the corridor. The sound of his feet as he fled was like that of a drunken man.

Sharenas snarled something Serap could not make out, and then rushed after her friend.

A moment later golden light spilled out from the High Priestess, filling the chamber. Blinded, Serap cried out.

She heard Syntara speak. ‘When all your grief for the dead is washed from you, what remains? Each of you, turn now from death and face life. Grieve not for the dead but for the living. For kin and stranger both. Grieve, until you are ready to come to me.

‘Come to me, and we will speak of justice.’

The light poured in, filling Serap’s flesh, her bones, setting all it touched to flame. She fell to her knees, and wept like a child.

* * *

Shuddering, Kagamandra Tulas leaned against the wall at the corridor’s end. Sharenas reached him, drew him round. He resisted, but her will would not be denied and a moment later she held him in her arms. ‘Damn that High Priestess,’ she hissed. ‘Shock weakened us and she pounced – no, I cannot guess at her ambitions. I know only to fear them. This much I have learned.’

‘Stop,’ he said. ‘There will be war now. Don’t you see that?’ He pushed her away with a hard shove that sent her stumbling. ‘I’ll not fight. This I swear! I’ll not fight!’

She stared at him from across the corridor. There were people in the main room and they had turned in alarm at this confrontation, but her eyes were for her friend and none other. ‘Kagamandra, please. The highborn will do nothing. Not yet. None of them – not even Anomander. They need to summon the Hust Legion. And the Wardens. They need to make an alliance with Sheccanto and Skelenal—’

His eyes widened. ‘What?’

‘Listen. A rival to Mother Dark was born in the room we just left.’

‘I would not listen. I stoppered my ears! I will not!’

Sharenas shook her head. ‘Not Syntara, friend. She was but a mahybe, set among us Tiste by the Azathanai. There is no hope of any of us gleaning the purpose of that, unless it was to see Kurald Galain destroyed. We have seen the beginning, but cannot know the end.’

‘There will be war!’ His shout bounced from the walls, echoed fierce into the Great Hall.

‘I am not blind, Kagamandra. But nor am I helpless, and neither are you!’

‘I will not fight!’

The door to the Campaign Room slammed open further up the corridor and both turned. A moment later, Urusander appeared.

His skin was white as alabaster, his once-grey hair shot through with threads of gold.

‘Here then,’ Sharenas said in a low voice, ‘comes her rival.’