Lord Satoris sank into his throne. “Choice,” he said bitterly. “What choice have I ever had? The pattern binds me fast, and I alone suffer the knowledge of it.” He clutched his thigh, fingers digging deep into the wounded flesh. When he raised his hand, it dripped with black ichor, glistening wetly in the light of the marrow-fire. “Drop by drop, year by year, age upon age,” he mused. “What will be left of me if I refuse this choice? For it will come again, and again and again, and there will be less of me to meet it. Did you know, Oronin Last-Born, when you planted Godslayer’s blade in my flesh? Will you sound your Horn for me?” He laughed softly. “And what will happen when you do? Who will sound the Horn for you? For make no mistake, the day will come. Fear it, as you fear to cross the Sundering Sea. I will be waiting for it. I will be waiting for you all. I have placed my stamp upon the world, as I was meant to do.”

“My Lord.” Tanaros sought to return the Shaper’s wandering thoughts to the present. “Your will?”

“You are insistent, my General.” The Shaper lifted his hand, his ichor-wet hand, dragging his splayed fingertips down his face. Broad trails gleamed, black on black. “Malthus,” he said in a calm voice, “wants a battle; so my Elder Brother bids him. It is my will that he shall have it, and I wish them all the joy of their desire.” Lord Satoris met Tanaros’ eyes. “Send an envoy. Let them retreat to a fair distance, and we will meet them in battle. And then …” He smiled. “Destroy them.”

Tanaros bowed. “My Lord, it will be done.”

NOT A MOUSE, BUT A worm.

A worm, a lowly worm, crawling blindly through the earth; that was what Dani felt himself to be. Only Thulu’s intermittent directions whispered from behind reminded him otherwise. It was easier, in a way. It kept the terror at bay, the suffocating fear that stopped his throat when the walls closed in tight and he had to wriggle on his belly to keep going, never certain whether the tunnel would widen beyond, grow ever narrower, or end altogether.

At times it happened and they had to backtrack, slow and painful, to the last fork they had taken. And then Thulu had to pause, singing the veins of the earth in a ragged voice, reorienting himself toward distant water.

I am a worm, Dani thought, a worm.

There was air, though not much. It was close and stifling. They breathed in shallow breaths, trying to dole it out in precious lungfuls. Dani wondered how worms breathed as they inched through the black earth. Through their skin, perhaps.