The greys of the grove coalesced. A ring of shields, Josiri and Izack at their heart. Viktor felt Elzar at his side, one hand clutching a sword he did not know how to wield, his lips moving in silent prayer. Two tiny figures emerging from the blazing pyre, the one dragging the other. A lone rider galloped from the west. Infantry bore down from the east. And the golden light of the kraikons, relentless among the grey as they smashed Josiri’s shield ring to broken matchwood.

Tomorrow. He could learn his limitations tomorrow.

Viktor drove his shadow against the nearest kraikon. How plainly he saw it now. The kraikon’s light blazed almost as bright as Anastacia’s soul, and was not for him to tame. But there: gossamer strands of golden light, puppet strings twitching among the grey, and all of them tying back to a small, brilliant speck at the very heart of the grove.

With a rush of jubilation, Viktor hurled his shadow at the speck of golden light.

Heat flared beneath his shadow’s folds. But this time it was not the seething majesty of the sun, but the flicker of a candle flame. Like a candle flame he smothered it.

Cold rushed in. Too late, the puppeteer realised her danger. Her panicked cry rose to a terrified shriek, then shattered like glass.

The slap rocked Apara’s head back on her shoulders. Flesh burned raw by the heat of the pyre’s flames throbbed anew. She spat a mouthful of soot-black sputum onto the grass and glanced down, unable to meet her mother’s fury head on.

“Escaped? Can I trust you with nothing?” Lady Kiradin threw her hands to the sky. “Has anything ever failed me so completely as my own blood?”

Apara kept her eyes downcast. Much as she wished it otherwise, her mother was right. The failure seared her spirit as readily as the flames had seared her skin. “Horden is dead. As you commanded.”

“And Roslava Orova is free! My treacherous Sevaka is free!” She gestured around the circle of hearthguard. “I should adopt from the gutter. At least they’d have gratitude enough to display competence. Queen’s Ashes, but I . . .”

Her vitriolic splendour drowned beneath Tailinn’s desperate screech. The proctor released her control amulet as if burned and threw hands up to shield her face.

In the time it took Apara to catch her breath, Tailinn changed from a vibrant, rose-cheeked young woman to a corpse fished from the northern floes. Tears froze to icy droplets on her cheeks. Freckles vanished beneath a patina of impossible frost. Exposed flesh paled, cracks snapping across skin like a pane of glass beneath a mallet.

Something beneath the robes gave way with a tortured, squealing snap. An ankle. A knee. Perhaps a thigh. Apara leapt back as the body fell, a backwash of icy air brushing her feet as the lifeless remains shattered into a dozen pieces.