‘I cannot. As I said, First Son, there is no precedent for this. Shall I be bound to your summons? Perhaps. Just as you may in turn be bound to mine. Shall we each know the other’s mind? Shall all secrets vanish between us? Shall we for ever stand in opposition to one another, or shall we stand as one? Too much is unknown. Consider carefully then, for it seems you speak from wounded pride. I am not a creature who weighs value in coin, and in wealth I ever measure all that cannot be grasped.’

Anomander was silent.

The Azathanai then held up a hand, and Sparo was shocked to see blood streaming down from a deep gash in the palm. ‘Then it is done.’

As he turned away, Anomander called out to him, ‘A moment, please. You are known by title alone. I will have your name.’

The huge man half swung round, studied Anomander for a long moment, and then said, ‘I am named Caladan Brood.’

‘It is well,’ said Anomander, nodding. ‘If we are to be allies …’

‘That,’ replied the High Mason, ‘still remains to be seen.’

‘No blood shed in my name or cause—’

Caladan Brood then bared teeth, and those teeth were sharp and long as those of a wolf. ‘That, too, Lord, remains to be seen.’

Chapter Three

THREE

NOT TOO MANY years ago, fewer indeed than she cared to think about, Korya Delath had lived in another age. The sun had been brighter, hotter, and when she had carried her dolls, a dozen or more, up the narrow, treacherous stone steps to the Aerie’s platform, she had delivered them into that harsh light with breathless excitement. For this was their world, cut clean with the low walls enclosing the platform casting the barest of shadows, and the heat rising from the stone was lifted up by the summer wind as if giving voice to a promise.

Up here, in that lost age, it ever seemed she was moments from unfolding wings, moments from sailing up into the endless sky. She was a giant to her dolls, a goddess, and hers were the hands of creation, and even without wings she could stand and look down upon them, reaching to adjust their contented positions, tilting their faces upward so that she could see their stitched smiles or surprised ‘O’ mouths, and their bright knuckled eyes of semi-precious stones – garnet, agate, amber – that gleamed and flashed as they drank in the fervent light.