‘Here,’ Calidus said and passed him an apple. Lykos took it in both hands, ran his fingers over the featureless skin. A grey apple. Not very appealing.

‘Would you walk away from it all, then?’ Calidus asked him.

‘From what?’

‘Your life.’

Lykos thought about that, maybe for a few heartbeats, maybe for a moon, he could not tell. Eventually he shook his head. ‘I can hardly remember it.’

‘Your heart’s desire was to unite the Three Islands. To become Lord of the Vin Thalun.’

‘The Three Islands?’

‘Aye. Your father was a Vin Thalun corsair, and Lord of the Island of Panos. You inherited that island, though you had to fight for it.’

A dim memory stirred. The corpse of his father lying upon a bower of thorns. Flames. Blood in the firelight.

‘I did.’

‘You made a pact with Asroth. He helped you win the Three Islands. You united them, forged a nation out of the Vin Thalun and became their king.’

Lykos felt a flicker of emotion, an echo of the joy that had consumed him as he had sat before the defeated captains of Nerin and Pelset and heard their oaths of fealty.

‘Take a bite of your apple.’

Lykos lifted it to his lips and saw there was a pink flush to its skin, faded and pastel, but there now, stark against the grey of this world. He took a small bite, tasted . . . something. Faint, bland.

‘And you have done more. You rule in Tenebral, are regent in Nathair’s stead.’

‘Aye. But that hasn’t gone so well.’

‘Tell me of it.’

As Lykos spoke, he remembered: the effigy of Fidele that Calidus had gifted him, the power it gave him over her. Passion stirred in him at the memory of her, the sensation of her skin beneath his fingers, the taste of her fear. He remembered the arena, his wedding day, Fidele as beautiful and desirable as he had ever seen her. Maquin and Orgull duelling in the fighting-pit. Maquin throwing down his weapons, the explosion of eagle-guard from amongst the spectators.

Chaos.

Battle.

Fighting Maquin, Fidele plunging a knife into his back. He felt a wave of anger at that, but it soon subsided into a self-deprecating chuckle. ‘I suppose I had that coming.’

‘No. In your world you take, or it is taken from you.’

‘I remember those words. My da spoke them to me.’

‘Aye. And you have taken, and tasted.’

‘I have.’ He thought of Fidele again, felt a spark of anger at Maquin, the man who had taken her from him.

‘Your face, Lykos. What happened to it?’

He touched his cheek, felt gouges in his flesh, blood congealing into crusted scabs.

‘She attacked me, clawed me like an animal. The bitch.’ He licked a drop of his blood from a finger. ‘She was magnificent.’

Calidus grinned at him.

‘Do you want to go back?’