‘One final question, then. Why am I doing you these favours, anyway?’

As petulant as ever, I see. Very well. You chose to turn your back on the need, when last it arose. Disappointing, that, yet enough did indeed attend to manage the Chaining – although at a cost that your presence would have diminished. But, even chained, the Crippled God will not rest. He exists in endless, tormenting pain, shattered, broken within and without, yet he has turned that into a strength. The fuel for his rage, his hunger for vengeance—

‘The fools who pulled him down are long dead, K’rul. Vengeance is just an excuse. The Crippled God is driven by ambition. Lust for power is the core of his rotten, shrivelled heart.’

Perhaps, perhaps not. Time will tell, as the mortals say. In any case, you defied the summons at the Chaining, Lady Envy. I will not brook your indifference a second time.

‘You?’ She sneered. ‘Are you my master, K’rul? Since when—’

Visions flooded her mind, staggering her. Darkness. Then chaos, wild, unfocused power, a universe devoid of sense, of control, of meaning. Entities flung through the maelstrom. Lost, terrified by the birth of light. A sudden sharpening – pain as of wrists opened, the heat spilling forth – a savage imposition of order, the heart from which blood flowed in even, steady streams. Twin chambers to that heart – Kurald Galain, the Warren of Mother Dark – and Starvald Demelain, the Warren of . . . Dragons. And the blood – the power – now sweeping in currents through veins, through arteries, branching out through all existence, and the thought that came to her then stole all warmth from her flesh. Those veins, those arteries, they are the warrens. ‘Who created this? Who?’

Dear Lady, K’rul replied, you have your answer, and I will be damned if I am going to countenance your impertinence. You are a sorceress. By Light’s Wild Mane, your power feeds on the very blood of my eternal soul, and I will have your obedience in this!

Lady Envy staggered another step, suddenly released by the visions, disorientated, her heart thudding in her chest. She drew in a sharp breath. ‘Who knows the ... the truth, K’rul?’ That, in striding through the warrens, we travel through your very flesh. That, when we draw upon the power of the warrens, we draw your very blood? Who knows?’

She felt a casual shrug in his reply.

Anomander Rake, Draconus, Osric, a handful of others. And now you. Forgive me, Lady Envy, I have no wish to be a tyrant. My presence within the warrens has ever been passive – you are free to do as you choose, as is every other creature who swims my immortal blood. I have but one excuse, if you will. This Crippled God, this stranger from an unknown realm . . . Lady Envy, I am frightened.

A chill stole through her as the words sank into her mind.