Suicide? No, she couldn’t imagine that either. Not those two. Kellanved had clawed his way to power over too many obstacles. He would destroy anyone or anything in his path. It was his signature.

Tayschrenn stirred, his head rising like a hound at a scent. ‘Listen,’ he whispered, glancing up.

Kiska bit her lip, scanned the ceiling. The waiting, the dread and uncertainty, had stiffened her shoulders and neck. Immobile for so long, her bad leg felt as if it had fused at the knee. Shifting, she flexed it and eased the tension from her back. What was happening now? Peripherally, she noticed Hattar gliding cat-like and protective ever closer to them, his weapons bared.

‘How will we—’

Tayschrenn raised a finger to his lips. ‘Listen.’

Kiska strained to penetrate the quiet. The subtle throb of the surf shuddered through the rock. Dust falling and the stones losing heat to the night brought ticks and trickled motes from the walls.

Then she heard it. A distinct tap and faint shush – tap-shush, tap-shush – crossing the ceiling, side to side.

Kellanved.

She’d never seen him of course, but had heard many descriptions – some contrary, most vague. Many mentioned his walking stick and his slow gait, but all told of his extreme age and the black skin and curled silver hair of a Dal Honese elder from the savannah of south-western Quon Tali. And, of course, there was his taste for grey and black clothing.

As if to confirm Kiska’s suspicions, Tayschrenn and Hattar caught each other’s gaze.

An overpowering sensation of pressure bore down upon her like an invisible hand. She sensed something enormous nearby, silent in the dark, like a Talian man-of-war passing within arm’s reach. A gravid deadly presence too huge to grant her notice. She glanced to Tayschrenn and saw him grimace, fingertips pressed against his temples. A droplet of blood fell from his nose.

It’s him, she thought, amazed. Even I can feel it.

The pacing – for that is what it seemed to Kiska – abruptly stopped. A long silence followed. She imagined conversation and wondered how desperately Tayschrenn might wish to know its content. Then again, a man like him might be bored by what could be little more than an exchange of warnings and mutual threats.

The limestone blocks of the ceiling jerked then, like child’s toys, and dust showered down. The soundless impact drove Kiska down into her chair and popped her eardrums. The candles snuffed out. Metal rang from the stones above. Weapons, Kiska imagined. A thumping and clatter as of bodies falling. A shout – a wordless roar of rage – that faded into silence. In the charged calm that followed, she barely breathed.

Light flared up. Hattar, calm and phlegmatic, relit the candles. Kiska could not believe the man’s aplomb.

Then a woman’s shrill scream tore through the solid stone, and Kiska leapt from her chair. She glanced to Tayschrenn but his clenched features revealed nothing. Was that the end of Surly? Had Kellanved and Dancer won? Yet the scream held no note of despair or death. Instead it spit frustration and venom.