If holy words could not offer up an answer to despair, then what good were they? If the truths so revealed did not invite restitution, then their utterance was no more than a curse. And if the restitution is found not in the mortal realm, then we are invited to inaction, and indifference. Will you promise to a soul a reward buried in supposition? Are we to reach throughout our lives but never touch? Are we to dream and to hope, but never know?

‘High Priestess, make of your worship an unflinching recognition of the unknown, and indeed, the unknowable.’

Such devotion promised no reward. It made every stance abject and solitary. Revelation proclaimed a vacuum, where faith was doomed to flounder. Then again, perhaps she intends by her prescription just such a revelation: that while we are light inside, there is nothing but darkness upon the outside.

Syntara, we face one another as enemies. But I wonder if even that is a profane conceit.

Frowning, she drew out her writing materials. It was time, she decided, for overtures.

The sound of rushing feet and then a rapid knocking upon the door startled her. She rose and adjusted her robes. ‘Enter.’

To her surprise, it was not a priestess who appeared, but the historian, Rise Herat.

‘High Priestess, I beg you, accompany me.’

‘Where?’

‘To the courtyard,’ he replied. ‘A conjuration is under way.’

‘A what?’

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Emral, there is darkness there, impenetrable darkness, and …’ he hesitated, ‘High Priestess, this darkness bleeds.’

* * *

As they strode towards the front doors, Emral could hear faint screams, through which cut shouts as some sought to quell the panic in the courtyard. ‘Historian,’ she said, ‘this may well be Mother Dark’s sorcery, and so nothing anyone need fear.’

‘Your arrival and subsequent comportment might well invite that thought, High Priestess,’ Rise replied, ‘which is why I sought you out.’

‘But you do not believe it belongs to Mother Dark, do you?’

He glanced at her, his lined face pale. ‘As I arrived at your door, I admit, I longed for a calming response from you at the news I delivered.’

‘But in its absence?’

He shook his head.

They arrived outside. Figures had retreated from the manifestation, which dominated the centre of the courtyard, and from the entrance to the Citadel the gates themselves were no longer visible, blighted by the immense darkness. The stain filled the air, black and roiling, with tendrils spilling down to writhe like tentacles upon the cobbles. As Emral stared, she saw it grow larger, bleeding out to hide the gate’s towers, and the platforms where stood transfixed Houseblades.

The clamour of voices had begun to die away, and Emral’s outwardly calm appearance seemed to seal the silence.

The emanation itself made no sound, but cold drifted out from it – the same cold as was found in the Chamber of Night. Emral stared, wondering if indeed Mother Dark had begun this conjuration. But for what purpose?