Beyond, a church sat sullen and dark. Its squared-off bell towers were of a design that had passed out of use long before Malachi’s birth – before even the Republic had risen from the ashes of Malatriant’s rule. Broken windows leered like narrowed eyes. Bowed walls strained between the weight of black ivy. Mist trickled between the worn headstones and headless serathi of the tiny churchyard.

Struck by sudden dizziness, Malachi stared up past jettied timbers. He caught no sight of the sun, only distant cracks of blue sky. He was truly down in the dregs. That he’d come willingly was no consolation.

“Malachi Reveque.” A patch of gloom about the fountain shifted form. Green eyes gleamed beneath a grey hood. “You are a long way from home. This is a place for those that have no place.”

“I . . .” He clenched his fist to quell its tremors. “I come to petition the Parliament of Crows.”

“Is that so?” The figure drifted closer. “And what do you offer?”

Hairs prickled on the back of Malachi’s neck. He glanced over his shoulder. There were grey shapes in the alleyway, and feather-cloaked kernclaws amid the chimneys. Watching. Waiting.

He turned his attention back to the fountain – to the elder cousin who waited silently for an answer.

“That’s for the Parliament’s ears.”

For a long time, the elder cousin said nothing. A bell tolled, low and mournful. The church gate yawned back into mist-wreathed darkness.

“They will hear you.” The elder cousin drifted away. “Come.”

After only the briefest hesitation, Malachi followed him into the mists.

Rosa jerked awake, roused by the clamour of battle. Bleary eyes strove to make sense of what she beheld. The panicked crowd fleeing from the hilltop. The buckling cordon of king’s blue uniforms on the grove’s edge. Kraikon trading blows to shake the sky. And in the thick of it, a wedge of green uniforms, glittering in the sun. Had the Hadari come? Was Tressia invaded?

“Rosa?” The voice scraped like sand on skin, but savage glee shone beneath. “Hold on, Rosa!”

Sevaka?

Rosa twisted her head. Ravaged flesh tore anew on mooring spikes. It was Sevaka, bound and tied – not nailed – to a second gibbet set within the pyre. Like Rosa, her feet sat mere inches above the stacked timber. Dozens more gibbets stood in the outer ring of trees. Empty nooses spoke to purpose unfulfilled. A knot of bound prisoners within a ring of swords made that purpose plain.

A little further distant, Ebigail Kiradin stood in a knot of hearth-guard, staring out across the chaos with a rigid expression.

Rosa stared again at the carnage. The green was not that of the Hadari, but of Essamere. Her Essamere. Her comrades. And there at their head. Viktor. The friend she’d betrayed. He’d come for her. And now he’d die for it.

All her fault.