He came on another step. “Let her go, and you live to warn Ebigail that I’m coming for her.”

The words should have sounded ridiculous. From him, they formed a promise certain as death. Apara felt the first flutter of panic. “You heard my terms.”

He shook his head. “This isn’t a negotiation.”

“I’ll kill her.” Raven damn them both. Couldn’t he see she didn’t have a choice?

“You won’t.” Akadra’s eyes dropped. “Sidara? Do you trust me, little one?”

“I . . . I do, uncle.”

“Then close your eyes.”

For the second time since entering the foundry, Apara went blind. This time, there was no searing light, no flash of brilliance. There was only darkness. Suffocating. Pervasive. Penetrating. It coursed through her, ice crackling beneath her skin – beneath her eyes. The raven-cloak shrieked in terror. Then the world fell away, and she with it.

Viktor caught the woman’s falling body, his shadow soaring as it enveloped her. Fingers hooked like claws, he tore her cloak to tatters. Bird-voices screamed in agony. Feathers burst into strands of black vapour and spiralled away like fading smoke. Viktor shuddered as unfamiliar magic washed over him. Then he turned his attention on the woman once more.

The contradicting tangle of her soul unwound like yarn, fears gleaming bright and reluctance shimmering like silver. It wouldn’t take much, sang his shadow. Just a gentle tug. A caress. The woman could be redeemed. She could serve a better, nobler purpose than Ebigail Kiradin’s schemes.

He’d felt the lure before, in the Southshires. When Josiri had first refused him. On that occasion, he’d turned aside. How many lives could he have saved had he done otherwise? And the woman was not Josiri. She had the stink of Otherworld about her. A vranakin. A murderer. He owed her nothing . . .

The woman screamed and twisted free of his hands. Eyes feral and face taut with terror, she flung herself from the gantry. Viktor’s fingers closed on empty air.

Viktor cursed under his breath. The kernclaw was gone. Lost. And to his surprise, the piece of his shadow that had assailed her lost alongside. He expected to feel diminished, lessened with the dwindling of himself. But somehow, he felt more complete than ever.

Opening his eyes, he faced the Reveques. Lilyana, on her feet once more, had her arms tight about her children. Her face was slick with blood and tears, but her eyes shone.

“Bless you, Viktor.”

Elzar staggered out of the gloom, doubled over and a splayed hand to his heaving chest. “They’re falling back.” He stared down at the motionless vranakin. “Those that can. They’ve taken Sevaka.”

Viktor frowned. Clearly the tangle of the vranakin’s soul was nothing to that which had claimed Tressia. “Tell me. All of it.”

Fifty-Eight

Fifty-Eight