Apara closed her eyes, remembering Nikros’ last moments. Lost in a storm of black feathers. She hadn’t chosen the kernclaw’s path any more than she’d chosen to kill her mother. Seemed she hadn’t chosen much of late. Was she truly being offered a choice now? Or would the black fog coax her to whatever answer Akadra desired?

“What . . . what must I do?”

The river gushed away into the gloom, its inky surface ungleaming in the glow of the firestone lantern. The flickering stalactite-cast shadows gave the sense of breathless spirits watching and waiting wherever the light faded.

Like the shambles of Dregmeet and the hollow halls of Strazyn Abbey, Coventaj cavern was a shunned place. Unlike them, it was avoided even by the vranakin. It hadn’t always been so – at least, not judging by the lissom, nymph-like statues, whose stone glowed white in the lantern’s backwash. The remnant of an earlier age, remembered only in rumours of Tressia’s third, forgotten river. So legend told, its headwaters sprung from a land of giants, and vanished into Otherworld without ever reaching the sea.

Viktor had never been one for legends, and remained so at that moment. He cared only for privacy, and Coventaj offered that more than any other place within the city’s bounds.

The air changed, the cold caress of anticipation fading into crackling, searing chill. Mist curled across the mottled stone to weave a blurred, inconstant doorway, offering sight of Coventaj’s mirror beyond the mists. Viktor glimpsed a spectral host paying homage at an altar, a chalice brandished high, and then two figures filled the entranceway.

“He’s yours, as promised.”

Apara kneed her captive in the small of his back. Blinded by the hood tied over his head, he fell awkwardly against a stalagmite.

“I’ll have your head for this, gutter-scum!” the hooded man rasped.

Viktor allowed himself a moment of sympathy, even admiration. Courage should always be acknowledged, even when bluster more than valour.

“Were you seen?”

Apara’s lips tightened. “Please. The mists swirl thick about Swanholt. A child could have brought him.”

The prisoner stiffened. “Viktor? Viktor, is that you?”

Apara struck him behind the ear. He grunted and fell to his knees.

“I did what you asked.” She stared down at her feet, the picture of obedience. “Is my debt repaid?”

Such desperate yearning. Viktor supposed that was always the way with predators, once teeth were at their throat.

“You’ve made a good start,” he said. “I’ll call for you again.”

Hope gleamed in her eyes. “How will you find me?”

He focused his thoughts on the tether that bound them and tugged. Not much. Not enough to cloud her will. Just enough to remind her of its existence. “I’ll find you.”

Apara shrank away at the words. But then her manner shifted. The cold, frightened shape at the back of Viktor’s mind grew warmer. “Then I want his rings.”