Watching him from the high bank was a tall but overweight man with the heavy build of a past warrior who now rarely exercised. A rich white silk tunic left one shoulder bare, held at the waist by a navy cord, and he was the only man in sight wearing sandals so close to the water. Hanging from his neck was a silver medallion displaying two fish entwined: Silex, in his guise as god of fortune. Three thick silver rings decorated his fingers.

‘Peithon.’ Dion nodded as he gave the boat one final check and then walked up to the bank. ‘Well met.’

Peithon was King Markos’s closest adviser and master of both trade and treasury. Long ago he and the king fought side by side in the war against Tanus. Though his stomach had a paunch, his face was large rather than fat, with a long nose and extremely thick lips.

‘Dion,’ Peithon said. ‘You’ve been gone much longer than expected. Where have you been?’ He shook his head. ‘Your mother has been hectoring the king incessantly. Others have confirmed the blocking of the narrows since you left.’

‘The blockage is gone,’ Dion said.

Peithon fell in beside Dion and the two men made the short walk to the palace. Two sailors in canvas trousers stood to one side as they passed, bowing while Dion nodded back.

‘Gone?’ Peithon asked when they were out of earshot. ‘How?’

Dion hesitated, but there was no way to prevent what he knew was coming. At least it was here, away from the rest of his family. ‘An eldran changed to serpent form and cleared it.’

‘No.’ Peithon shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you. Why would an eldran help you?’

‘I traveled through the Shards to Phalesia. I explained the situation to Aristocles and asked that he seek their help.’

‘Eldren,’ Peithon almost spat the word. ‘How can the Phalesians bear to even look at them? They are demon spawn, all of them. Eldren . . . wildren . . . it is all the same. The cunning ones are no better than the wild.’

‘Where is Father?’ Dion asked, changing the subject. ‘And Nikolas?’

Dion didn’t want to talk to Peithon about eldren any longer than necessary. A flyer – a fury – had killed Peithon’s bride-to-be just weeks before their wedding day. It was a wildran, of course, an eldran that had forgotten who he or she was. But Peithon’s logic was that if there were no eldren left living there would eventually be no wildren. It was a line that many city folk took in Xanthos, as well as Phalesia.

‘Your brother is busy at the training ground. Your father is with him.’

‘I have important news.’