Josiri sighed. Some prejudices, Anastacia would never let go. Chief among them was that holy cloisters were neither so chaste nor respectable as scripture decreed. Perhaps she was right. Some very peculiar things went on behind closed doors, as he knew all too well himself.

“It’s time you did more,” said Anastacia.

Josiri opened his eyes and examined her expression for mockery. He found none. Anastacia was as close to earnest as she ever came.

“I meant what I said before,” she went on. “That was very well played, but it’s a small gesture. You need something larger. A flame that burns so bright no one will mistake its import.”

Josiri glanced at the door, even though he knew it was closed. “I told you last night, we’re not ready.”

“That might be what you said, but I know your heart.” A long, pale forefinger brushed Josiri’s chest and tapped at his breastbone. “It’s your readiness you doubt. And your time is running out.”

He sighed. “You mean the Hadari?”

“The Hadari. Makrov’s second exodus. Increased quotas from the fields. Invasion, suppression or starvation, what does it matter? Your people will still suffer. They’ll still perish.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Oh, my poor, dear misguided heart, it’s precisely that simple. History turns on simplicity. It’s those who survive it who seek deeper meaning.”

She had a point. Josiri didn’t like it, but she had a point. “What would you have me do?”

“Symbols are important.” Anastacia pulled away and stared up at Katya’s portrait. “Give your people something to hate.”

Maiden’s Hollow lay cold and dark, even with the sun blazing above. The thick canopy of thorn-tangled branches played its part, but there was something more – something that made Revekah Halvor’s skin crawl.

There were rumours, of course. There were always rumours about such places. That the ring of headless statues were not statues at all. Rather that they were flesh-and-blood dancers petrified by ancient spite, their outflung hands frozen in gay abandon and their skirts lifted by a wind long since dead. A peasant’s tale, and easily dismissed as superstition . . . if not for the fact that neither simarka nor kraikon could cross the dell’s bounds.

Cursed or blessed, Maiden’s Hollow was priceless to wolf’s-heads. Revekah wondered at the cost, one levied in nightmares of black roses and scratching, crackling whispers. She couldn’t have stood watch among the black trees. How others tolerated doing so, she couldn’t imagine.

Revekah skirted the centre of the circle – and its toppled statue of a robed man – and descended the rain-smoothed steps to the cavern. Two men pored over a map at a rough wooden table. Other pelts screened off entrances to the warren of tunnels and caves below.