Yanda suppressed a shiver, though she couldn’t decide if the speaker’s certainty provoked the reaction, or her voice. There was something about the timbre . . . something she couldn’t quite identify.

Makrov leaned out over the balcony, knuckles whitening around the balustrade. “Guards! Find the heretic! She’ll repent her wickedness!”

One-sided commotion broke out as the soldiers peeled away from the perimeter and entered the marketplace proper. One-sided, for no one resisted. Men and women, young and old, they merely stared up at the balcony with empty, expectant expressions.

In the centre of the marketplace the crowd parted, flowing away across the cobbles like waves retreating across shingle. A lone figure stood in the clearing – an aging woman who stood with the aid of a curved stick. Yanda scrabbled for a name in the recesses of memory. Elda Savka. An ally of the Trelan family years back, but a model citizen since Katya’s death.

“They don’t belong to you. They are mine, and I theirs,” pronounced Elda. “You have my thanks. So many broken spirits searching for solace. You drove them back to me. The work of years accomplished in days. All that I do now, you made possible. Now we are all one in the Dark.”

“We are all one in the Dark,” the crowd echoed. They stared up at the balcony with glittering black eyes.

Yanda’s blood ran cold. “Makrov . . .”

But if Makrov understood how badly things were amiss, none of it pierced his apoplexy.

“You think I’m intimidated by games?” Spittle flecked the corner of his mouth. His bunched fist strove against empty air. “I’ll break you all for this! You’ll beg for another exodus! Guards! I want that woman! Now!”

Elda smiled. As one, the crowd turned on the guards in their midst with clawing hands and bludgeoning fists. Steel glinted through the rain. Screams rang out. Southwealders fell, blood streaming from their wounds. Others pressed on with implacable purpose.

Yanda gazed in horror. “Do something!”

Makrov stood frozen at the balcony’s edge, mouth agape in a suddenly pallid face.

“Fall back!” she shouted. “Get out of there! Mobilise the garrison!”

It was an age too late. All a mob needed to overcome its cage was selfless purpose, and the southwealders had that and more to spare. One by one, the soldiers drowned beneath a tide of bloodied flesh. Then the mob turned its attention on the perimeter. With a deep, keening growl it surged forth. Screams began anew.

Elda stood unmoving, her gaze locked on the balcony. “Do you understand now?”

Yanda gripped her sword’s hilt. It offered no comfort. A cold hand closed about her heart.

The mob converged on the reeve’s manor. The main door burst apart with a wrenching crash.

Makrov moaned and staggered away from the balcony’s edge. “No. This can’t be happening.”