Scanning the harbor, she saw soldiers and sailors guarding the ships and scrubbing the decks. The beach sloped up until it joined the buildings facing it. A sailor exited a hut on the shore, two steaming bowls in his hands, handing one to a friend.

Kargan had a hint of a smile on his face as he regarded her, as if he were waiting for something. Chloe frowned, and looked back at the harbor.

Then, somewhat distant, but so large it couldn’t be real, she saw something that took her breath away.

It rose from behind the red buildings, erected on the land further upriver, within the city walls but far from the palace. It was a mountain . . . but a mountain made by men, perfectly proportioned, triangular-faced on all sides. It was the biggest structure Chloe had ever seen.

She rubbed her eyes. She could see shining golden blocks the size of houses piled one on top of the other, describing how it had been made, with each level slightly smaller than the one below. Strangely, two thirds of the way up, the glistening faces ceased and the levels became naked stone all the way to the summit.

The triangular mountain continued to grow bigger in Chloe’s vision as they approached the harbor. Where the stones were clad, the mountain shone bright yellow in the sun.

‘In the name of Aeris, what is that?’

‘It is the pyramid,’ Kargan said.

Chloe couldn’t take her eyes off it. ‘Who built it?’

‘Slaves.’ Kargan laughed. ‘It was built with the pitiful lives of wretches.’ He looked at it for a while before sobering. ‘Solon built it.’

‘What is it?’

Kargan’s expression was now grave. ‘It is the sun king’s tomb,’ he said softly.

‘And is that . . . Is it covered with . . . ?’

‘Gold,’ said Kargan. ‘Pure gold.’ He hesitated. ‘It might help you to know: the sun king is dying.’

Chloe looked at Kargan’s face. He was deadly serious.

‘The magi say there is a cancer inside him, robbing him of breath, causing him to cough blood. He visited the Oracle at Athos to seek the Seer’s wisdom. The Seer did not tell him what he wanted to hear. She said he doesn’t have long for this world, and that he would be dead by the end of the thirty-first year of his reign. When he pressed the Seer, asking what he could do, she said there was only one thing: prepare his soul for the afterlife.’

Kargan was pensive for a time.