The chill, salty wind whipped at his face, tugged at his ragged, long, dirty hair. His clothes were little more than crusted strips – the Seerdomin had given him his cloak, which Toc had wrapped about himself like a blanket. It had been this gesture that had hinted to the Malazan that the man at his side still possessed a shred of humanity.

The discovery had brought water to his eyes.

Clarity had been reborn within him, aided by the Seerdomin’s detailed account of the battles to the south. Perhaps it was insanity’s final, most convincing delusion, but Toc clung to it none the less. He stared southward across the wind-whipped seas. The mountainous shoreline on the far side was barely visible.

They had surely reached it by now. They might well be standing on the beach, staring bleakly towards him, and all that lay in between. Baaljagg would not be discouraged. A goddess hid within her, driving ever onward, ever onward, to find her mate.

The mate who hides within me. We’d travelled, side by side, all unknowing of the secrets within each other. Ah, such brutal irony . . .

And perhaps Tool would not be daunted. Time and distance meant nothing to the T’lan Imass. The same, no doubt, was true for the three Seguleh – they still had their singular message to deliver, after all. Their people’s invitation to war.

But Lady Envy...

Mistress of adventure, seduced by serendipity – true, she was angry, now. That much was clear from the Seerdomin’s reportage. Affronted was a better description, Toc corrected. Sufficient to see her temper flare, but that temper was not a driven thing. She was not one to smoulder, not one to kindle deep-bedded fires of vengeance. She existed for distraction, for wayward whims.

Lady Envy, and likely her wounded, hurting dog, Garath, would turn away now, at last. Tired of the hunt, they would not set to themselves the task of pursuit, not across this violent sea with its glowing, awash leviathans of jagged ice.

He told himself not to be disappointed, but a pang of sadness twisted within him at the thought. He missed her, not as a woman – not precisely, in any case. No, the immortal face she presents, I think. Unburdened, a trickster’s glint to her millennial regard. I teased her, once . . . danced around that nature . . . made her stamp her foot and frown. As only an immortal could do when the unlikely brunt of such mocking. I turned the knife. Gods, did I truly possess such audacity?