Josiri brought his boot down on the amulet. Golden light flared under his heel and dissipated into the grey. With a sigh that stretched all the way to his toes, Josiri sat down alongside the simarka and tilted his face towards the rain.

“What a miserable day.”

Jeradas, 10th day of Radiance

Jeradas, 10th day of Radiance

Folk praise me as a saviour.

Is the wolf thought righteous for siding with the sheep?

Perhaps, had he not slaked his own hunger first.

from the sermons of Konor Belenzo

Forty-Five

Forty-Five

No one spoke. At least, no one uttered words loud enough to draw notice above the creak of the wagon’s axle and the rumble of wheels. After two days on the road, no one had anything much left to say. The escort even left marching songs unvoiced. But for the tramp of feet, Josiri might have believed they’d parted ways somewhere in the Tevar Flood.

Josiri squeezed his interlocked fingers tight and strove to restrain his worries. For himself. For his companions. For Anastacia . . . and for Calenne most of all. The absence of news was a hungry void that gobbled up all around it until only despair remained.

The cart shuddered to a halt. A soldier parted the canvas flaps. “Lord Akadra, your presence is requested.”

Lord Akadra. Josiri rose on numbed legs and shuffled out into the open air. A bleak afternoon sliding into nondescript evening. Grey fading black. If there were a more apt metaphor for his life, he couldn’t grasp it.

The soldier led him around the wagon’s front, past the double column of northwealders. Most were arrayed in the king’s blue of the 12th, though the foremost wore the Akadra swan.

Viktor sat at the head of the convoy, unarmoured but garbed in black and silver. A riderless horse waited beside his own. Far to the north, beyond the rolling, windblown meadows and huddled villages, the white stone of Tressia’s outer wall waited.

Viktor gestured to the empty saddle. “Join me, brother.”

Josiri scowled, but obeyed. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“We do not live in a world of wishes. You of all people should know that by now.”

With a flick of his reins he set the horse in motion.

Josiri did likewise, and the convoy rumbled on. “No. I live in a world where a man’s wishes . . . a man’s words . . . mean nothing.”

“I . . .” Viktor broke off, the angry rumble beneath his words subsiding. “My every dealing with you has been in good faith.”

“And much good it has done!” snapped Josiri. “Or do you suppose Makrov shares your noble sentiments?”

The air grew colder. Far colder than an overcast Sommertide’s day should manage.