Viktor felt it as soon as their fingers met, though he couldn’t quite describe exactly what he felt. It was like . . . Thunderheads on the horizon, the pressure building before a storm. Bleak. Hollow . . . Almost hungry. His shadow twitched in affinity. Josiri too had something dark slithering about his soul. But where Viktor’s shadow was a piece of him, the darkness in Josiri felt alien . . . like a seed.

He tightened his grip. His eyes bored into Josiri’s. “Are you wounded?”

“A few scrapes, and a cut from an Immortal’s sword. Nothing more. I’ve been lucky.” Suspicion bubbled to the surface. “Why?”

“You’ll allow me a little concern.”

Old tales of cursed blades and maledictions of spirit trickled into Viktor’s thoughts. He’d never given them much credence until now. They belonged to myth, but only in the same way that swords blazing like fire belonged to myth. A cut would be more than enough.

Viktor sent his shadow snaking between them, its coils lost in the dark.

It obeyed reluctantly, exhausted from the labours of the day and from tapping the now-vanished wellspring of magic that Viktor had sensed beneath soil and wielded to turn the tide of battle. Still, the pride remained. He’d harnessed the power of a Forbidden Place – he’d touched the face of the divine. Elzar would be hungry for the details.

Viktor shook the thought away and focused on the moment at hand. He’d never attempted something of this kind, but his relationship with his own shadow had shifted ever since he’d returned to the Southshires, particularly since the conjuring at the battle’s climax. It wouldn’t be right to describe it as tamed, but there was a new calm between them. Perhaps that same accord allowed him to see deeper into Josiri’s core?

He released Josiri’s hand and stepped back. His shadow probed the seed in Josiri’s soul.

And just like that, it was gone. Devoured.

Josiri blinked and stood straighter than he had before.

Viktor drew back his shadow. It felt heavier. Content. How much good had he previously left undone through restraint? Something to think on.

“Forgive me,” he said. “But I must go. I will find Calenne if she’s there to be found. My tent is yours.”

He clambered into his saddle, wincing as the motion pulled on recently stitched wounds.

Calenne was still out there. She had to be.

Josiri watched until Viktor was lost to sight, and the rhythmic thump of hooves faded beneath the sound of drunken carousal. The world suddenly seemed brighter – as if pressure had lifted from behind his eyes. What was it his father had always said? A heartfelt apology is good for the soul.

Turned out it might be true.

He felt Anastacia’s eyes on him. “You’re unusually quiet.”