Yanda glanced through the balcony doors of the reeve’s manor. The marketplace was fuller than it had been in days – proof that Makrov’s threats concerning non-attendance had taken root. Better a few minutes harking at the archimandrite’s rhetoric than a gallows jig.

“Ready,” she confirmed, “but I suspect not eager.”

With a final nudge of the circlet, he turned from the mirror and took his sceptre from a serene. “They will learn, Shaisan. They must all learn.”

Yanda’s eyes tracked across the miserable crowd, dancing from miserable expression to miserable expression. “Are you sure this is wise?”

Makrov’s cheek twitched. “Ebigail Kiradin bade me show strong leadership – the sort that you failed to provide. The southwealders scattered these seeds. The harvest is long overdue.”

Yanda felt something break, deep inside. “This isn’t strength! It’s spite! If you really cared, you’d help them heal. Look at them – they’re beaten! They won a war no one believed they could, and you’re busy grinding them into the mud for it.”

Makrov’s shoulders shook. His jowls ruddied. “You’ve been here too long, Shaisan. You’re thinking like one of them.”

“I wish that were true. I lack their courage. This, and this alone, is a trait you and I share.”

Impossibly, Makrov’s face darkened further. He stalked towards her, teeth parted and lips atremble.

“You will stand with me for today’s address,” he spat. “After that, you may go wherever you wish. Ride north to your family. You can grub about in the woodlands with these malcontents you so admire. But you are relieved of duty and title, do you understand me?”

Part of Yanda heard the words for the death knell of a dying career that they were. What remained soared free on golden wings. “Oh yes, excellency.”

Revekah slumped wearily against the birch tree. Kurkas wouldn’t be long, but she needed only a little time.

She crooked her knee and slid the dagger from its ankle sheath. Kurkas wouldn’t understand. He’d try to stop her. And she couldn’t explain. How did you explain a feeling? She knew only that something inside her had awoken. Something that didn’t belong, and yet was as much a part of her as her memories. It had been growing since the battle, but had quickened to a gallop once she’d set foot in Eskavord.

She set the blade to the pulsing vein in the side of her neck and closed her eyes. Was this how Katya had felt at the end? Fitting, somehow, that they walked the same path even now.

“So you know?”