Josiri strove for breath and wondered at Akadra’s defensive tone. Something had shifted, but he knew not what or why. Nor could he shake the presence of a yawning precipice.

“If that’s true, then thank you,” he gasped. “She deserves better than to be trapped in Branghall.”

Akadra sat on the windowsill and wiped a fresh rivulet of blood from his lips. He looked every bit as weary as Josiri felt.

“That’s for her to judge. But of your mother, I do not lie. I would have saved her. She wouldn’t allow it. Then my father used my ‘victory’ to further my position, and the truth slipped away.” He straightened. “Out of respect for her, I ask you one more time. Join with me. Let us be as brothers. Let us save your people.”

Josiri sank back, mired in a sea of regrets and lost opportunities. If he’d accepted Akadra’s offer on the first day, he could have presented it as a victory. Maybe even wrested the Vagabond Council from Crovan’s influence. But it was too late. And there was still that wall between them, mortared in old blood. Even if Akadra spoke the truth about his mother’s death, the thought of scaling that wall hurt like losing her all over again.

“What you ask, I cannot give.”

Akadra rose. There was no trace of his earlier fury, nor even disappointment. Just the flat, grey bleakness of a winter sky, forlorn of life and hope.

“Then you and I have something in common,” he said. “Today, we both had opportunity to alter how the future unfolds. We neither of us had the strength for what had to be done. Let us hope we can live with the consequences.”

He stalked from the great hall, leaving Josiri to dwell on decisions past. And on what opportunity Viktor had lacked the strength to seize.

Viktor’s return trip across Eskavord passed in a blur of seething anger and might-have-beens. So much hung on Josiri’s cooperation. Still the duke had refused to see reason. Too much pride. The curse of the Trelans.

But was he himself any less complicit? Viktor knew his shadow could have bent Josiri to his will, had he possessed the courage to set it free. And it had wanted to slip its leash – wanted it so badly he could still feel its frustration at being denied. But he couldn’t have risked it, not after his failure with Anastacia. He’d been so certain of that, too, and now another – a daughter of Lumestra, no less – paid the price for his hubris.