Whiskeyjack grunted. ‘She grows swiftly – there are eager, impatient forces within her, too powerful for a child’s body to contain. You’ll not have long—’

‘Before propriety arrives,’ Paran finished drily, not noticing Whiskeyjack’s start. ‘Fine for then, what of now? Who will naught but see me as a monster should we even so much as hold hands? What can I say to her? What can I possibly say?’ He spun to Whiskeyjack. ‘This is impossible – she is a child!’

‘And within her is Tattersail. And Nightchill—’

‘Nightchill! Hood’s breath! What has happened – how?’

‘Questions not easily answered, lad. You’d do better to ask them of Mallet and Quick Ben – and of Silverfox herself.’

Paran involuntarily took a step back. ‘Speak with her? No. I cannot—’

‘She wishes it, Paran. She awaits you now.’

‘No.’ His eyes were once again pulled downslope. ‘I see Tattersail, yes. But there’s more – not just this Nightchill woman – she’s a Soletaken, now, Whiskeyjack. The creature that gave her her Rhivi name – the power to change . . .’

The commander’s eyes narrowed. ‘How do you know, Captain?’

‘I just know—’

‘Not good enough. It wasn’t easy for Quick Ben to glean that truth. Yet you know. How, Paran?’

The captain grimaced. ‘I’ve felt Quick Ben’s probings in my direction – when he thinks my attention is elsewhere. I’ve seen the wariness in his eyes. What has he found, Commander?’

‘Oponn’s abandoned you, but something else has taken its place. Something savage. His hackles rise whenever you’re close—’

‘Hackles.’ Paran smiled. ‘An apt choice of word. Anomander Rake killed two Hounds of Shadow – I was there. I saw it. I felt the stain of a dying Hound’s blood – on my flesh, Whiskeyjack. Something of that blood now runs in my veins.’

The commander’s voice was deadpan. ‘What else?’

‘There has to be something else, sir?’

‘Yes. Quick Ben caught hints – there’s much more than simply an ascendant’s blood to what you’ve become.’ Whiskeyjack hesitated, then said, ‘Silverfox has fashioned for you a Rhivi name. Jen’isand Rul.’

‘Jen’isand Rul.’

‘It translates as “the Wanderer within the Sword”. It means, she says, that you have done something no other creature has ever done – mortal or ascendant – and that something has set you apart. You have been marked, Ganoes Paran – yet no-one, not even Silverfox, knows what it portends. Tell me what happened.’

Paran shrugged. ‘Rake used that black sword of his. When he killed the Hounds. I followed them ... into that sword. The spirits of the Hounds were trapped, chained with all the ... all the others. I think I freed them, sir. I can’t be sure of that – all I know is that they ended up somewhere else. No longer chained.’

‘And have they returned to this world?’

‘I don’t know. Jen’isand Rul... why should there be any significance to my having wandered within that sword?’