‘And of the two of us, I alone will suffer a moment of torment. So be it. Now, I have words from this night, to be brought to our master . . .’

He had always walked with a pitching gait, low to the ground, sufficient to have earned him a host of unflattering nicknames. Toad, crab-legs ... the names children gave each other, some of which were known to persist into adulthood. But Heboric had worked hard as a youth – long before his first, fateful visit into a temple of Fener – to excoriate those appellations, to eventually earn Light Touch, in response to certain skills he had acquired on the streets. But now, his sidling walk had undergone a transformation, yielding to an instinctive desire to drop even lower, even to using his hands to propel him along.

Had he considered it, he would have concluded, sourly, that he moved less like a cat than an ape, such as those found in the jungles of Dal Hon. Unpleasant to the eye, perhaps, but efficacious none the less.

He slowed on the trail as he approached Toblakai’s glade. A faint smell of smoke, the dull gleam of a fast-cooling fire, the murmur of voices.

Heboric slipped to one side, among the stone trees, then sank down within sight of the two seated at the hearth.

Too long his self-obsession, the seemingly endless efforts to create his temple – that now struck him as a strange kind of neurotic nesting; he had ignored the world beyond the walls for too long. There had been, he realized with a surge of bitter anger, a host of subtle alterations to his personality, concomitant with the physical gifts he had received.

He had ceased being mindful.

And that, he realized as he studied the two figures in the glade, had permitted a terrible crime.

She’s healed well. . . but not well enough to disguise the truth of what has happened. Should I reveal myself? No. Neither of them has made a move to expose Bidithal, else they would not be hiding here. That means they would try to talk me out of what must be done.

But I warned Bidithal. I warned him, and he was . . . amused. Well, I think that amusement is about to end.

He slowly backed away.

Then, deep in the shadows, Heboric hesitated. There was no clash between his new and old instincts on this matter. Both demanded blood. And this night. Immediately. But something of the old Heboric was reasserting itself. He was new to this role as Destriant. More than that, Treach himself was a newly arrived god. And while Heboric did not believe Bidithal held any position – not any more – within the realm of Shadow, his temple was sanctified to someone.

An attack would draw in their respective sources of power, and there was no telling how swiftly, and how uncontrollably, that clash could escalate.