‘At the First Throne, Monok Ochem. Whilst we await the coming of the renegades ... and their Tiste Edur allies.’

Ibra Gholan reappeared with a broken-necked hare, which he skinned in a single gesture, then flung the blood-smeared body to the ground beside Trull Sengar. ‘Eat,’ the warrior instructed, tossing the skin aside.

Onrack moved off while the Tiste Edur made preparations for a fire. He was, he reflected, disturbed by Trull Sengar’s words. The Shorning had made much of excising the physical traits that would identify Trull Sengar as Tiste Edur. The bald pate, the scarred brow. But these physical alterations were as nothing, it appeared, when compared to those forced upon the man’s spirit. Onrack realized that he had grown comfortable in Trull Sengar’s company, lulled, perhaps, by the Edur’s steady manner, his ease with hardship and extremity. Such comfort was deceiving, it now seemed. Trull Sengar’s calm was born of scars, of healing that left one insensate. His heart was incomplete. He is as a T’lan Imass, yet clothed in mortal flesh. We ask that he resurrect his memories of life, then wonder at his struggle to satisfy our demands. The failure is ours, not his.

We speak of those we have exiled, yet not to warn – as Monok Ochem claims. No, nothing so noble. We speak of them in reaffirmation of our judgement. But it is our intransigence that finds itself fighting the fiercest war — with time itself, with the changing world around us.

‘I will preface my tale,’ Trull Sengar was saying as he roasted the skinned hare, ‘with an admittedly cautionary observation.’

‘Tell me this observation,’ Monok Ochem said.

‘I shall, Bonecaster. It concerns nature . . . and the exigency of maintaining a balance.’

Had he possessed a soul, Onrack would have felt it grow cold as ice. As it was, the warrior slowly turned in the wake of Trull Sengar’s words.