“I know.” He strove for words to express the knot about his heart. “You’ve no reason to believe me, but I will not let this stand. I’ve allies on the Council. Makrov will be stopped.”

He broke off, the full consequences slamming home. That meant leaving. Leaving meant abandoning Calenne. As ever, the desires of the man and the duties of the leader walked divergent paths.

“You’ll have to come with me, brother.”

“Back to Tressia?” Josiri snarled. He stared back through the rain towards the gate. “I’m going nowhere. Ana needs me. Calenne needs me. And my people. The people you and I betrayed. They need me.” He punctuated each point with a jab of a forefinger to Viktor’s chest.

“If you stay, Makrov will kill you,” said Viktor. “In the north, I can protect you. The pardon restores your family’s seat on the Privy Council – a full vote, not the half-measure I once commanded. We can use that to change things.”

He turned away and stared at the sky. How swiftly happiness turned to ash, triumph to defeat. How could intent count for so little? “I’m . . . I’m sorry that it’s come to this.”

Hearing no reply, he turned. Josiri had gone.

Josiri staggered through the rainswept camp, heartsick and seething. Once again, he’d lost everything. Calenne. Revekah. Anastacia. The others.

He suspected – as Makrov surely suspected – that there had been no marriage between Viktor and Calenne. And to be named an Akadra? He couldn’t even begin to express his distaste. But he admired the cleverness of the ploy. It had preserved those who’d fought under his command and in his sister’s name.

Better than that, it gave him a chance to hurt Makrov as he had been hurt. He paused for breath in the lee of a supply wagon. The rain hammered down, fit to match his mood. No. Not as he had been hurt. He could never repay Makrov so completely. But there had to be something. His mother would have known how to twist the knife.

He thought of their last day together, as he had so often since waking. Her last advice. When enemies are your only recourse, choose the one with the least to gain. Katya had surely not meant the words as he now took them, but wasn’t that the nature of legacy?

He cast around with renewed purpose and took his bearings. Gavamor was dead. But if his possessions remained, one last act of retribution could yet be managed.

Melanna gazed out across the prison stockade, her mood bleak as the skies. Perhaps half her fellows had survived the night. The rest had succumbed to their wounds, quietly or with din fit to wake the heavens. At least the rain served to wash away the smell, though she was sure it would return soon enough.