Newcomers emerged out of the murk. An old woman, walking with a cane. Elda Savka. A Tressian soldier, his king’s blue uniform bloodied and torn and his face blackened with bruises, came behind. His feet barely touched the ground, his toes scraping the cobblestones. That he moved at all was down to his two minders. A greying man and a young woman, they dragged the soldier along by his shoulders.

“Bring me the serathi!”

Kurkas recognised the voice, though it wasn’t Elda’s. Halvor had addressed him in something akin to those hollow, commanding tones even as she’d sought to kill him. Or maybe it hadn’t been her at all, but something acting through her. Kurkas, never the most religious of men, felt his fingers twitching in the sign of the sun.

“Bring me the serathi, or I’ll tear him apart!”

Brask stared unblinkingly at the captive. “Kasnor,” she muttered. “It’s Sergeant Kasnor. From the archimandrite’s personal guard.”

“Then I don’t reckon his eminence will be joining us, do you?” Kurkas replied.

“Raven’s Eyes, what do you mean?”

Kurkas didn’t bother to reply. “Mother Savka? You’ve been misinformed. No serathi here. Maybe go back into town and check with the archimandrite?”

“Arzro Makrov dines with the Raven even as we speak.”

Lucky old Makrov, thought Kurkas glumly. Getting to the feast before the crowds. “Then you’ll have to take me at my word.”

“Do you think I’m blind? I see the sun shining within.”

Kurkas tapped his fingers on stone. At least things were drawing together to make a mad kind of sense. Not that he cared for the picture taking shape. No. He didn’t care for it at all.

“I’m more interested in why it’s so dark out there.”

“Your queen has returned. We are all to be one in the Dark.”

A name drifted through Kurkas’ thoughts. He pushed it away. If he didn’t think it, didn’t say it, then this wasn’t really happening, was it? Icy water rushed through his veins.

“If you want to be a queen, turn east and keep walking,” he hollered. “No royalty in the Tressian Republic.”

“You think I care for your paupers’ council? I am Malatriant. This land belongs to me. You all belong to me.”

Malatriant. The name he’d tried so hard not to think, now spoken plain. No putting that jack back in the box, not now.

“Should have gone north when I had the chance,” he muttered.

“She’s mad,” murmured Brask.

“Is she, though?” asked Kurkas. “I’d as soon not take chances.”

“What does she want? There are no serathi here.”

“There’s one. Anastacia.”

“But . . . she’s a demon.”

“I don’t think her majesty cares.”