‘I believe I do, milord.’

‘Upon this road?’

‘Just off it.’

Something changed in the First Son’s voice then, as he said, ‘And not far, priest?’

‘Not far, milord.’

‘If I made a spiral of my search,’ said Anomander, ‘I now close upon a place where I believe it ends. I think, priest, that we will attend the same altar. Will you make of it a shrine?’

Endest started at the notion. He fumbled to close the satchel, and then made his way over to Anomander to hand the leather bag back. ‘Such a thing had not occurred to me, milord.’

‘Your hands are wounded?’

‘No more than my soul, milord.’

‘You are young. An acolyte?’

‘Yes.’ Bowing his thanks for the food, Endest returned to the side of the road.

They continued on in silence for a time. Ahead, the track leading to the estate of Andarist appeared, flanked by burnt grasses and the skeletal remnant of a fire-scorched tree.

‘I do not think,’ said Anomander, ‘that I would welcome a consecration in that place, acolyte, even could you give it. Which you cannot. The only holy object in the ruin before us is an Azathanai hearthstone, and I fear to come upon it now, and see it broken.’

‘Broken, milord?’

‘I also fear,’ Anomander continued, ‘that my brother is not there, when I can think of no other refuge he might seek. I was told he chose the wilderness for his grief, and can think of no greater wilderness than the house where his love died.’

Endest hesitated, and then drew a deep breath. They were but a dozen paces from the track. ‘Lord Anomander,’ he said, halting but keeping his head down. ‘Mother Dark has blessed her.’

‘Her? Who?’

‘The maiden, Enesdia of House Enes, milord. In the eyes of our goddess, that child is now a High Priestess.’

Anomander’s voice was suddenly hard as iron. ‘She has blessed a corpse?’

‘Milord, may I ask, where were her remains buried?’

‘Beneath the stones of the floor, priest, upon the threshold to the house. My brother insisted and would have torn those stones from the ground with his bare hands, if we had not restrained him. Regrettably, there was some haste in that excavation. Her father lies beneath the ground at the entrance, and at his side is the body of the hostage, Cryl Durav. The Houseblades lie encircling the house. Priest, Mother Dark has never made claim to the souls of the dead.’

‘I cannot say, milord, that she does so now.’

‘What has brought you here?’

‘Visions,’ Endest said. ‘Dreams.’ He then lifted his hands. ‘I – I bear her blood.’

To utter those words was to unleash the torment within Endest, and with a cry he fell to his knees. Anguish rushed through him in waves black as midnight, and he heard his own voice emerging, broken and torn.