‘Please give my abject apologies to Lady Bartel,’ Khassian said with exaggerated courtesy. ‘We were rehearsing a scene from my opera and must have allowed ourselves to be quite carried away by the – emotion of the situation.’ He could not resist a malicious glance at the Captain as he delivered this coup de grâce.

‘I was just about to leave.’ Acir Korentan, all icy tact, gave a brusque nod of the head and retreated.

Khassian stood at the window and watched him stride hurriedly away along the curve of the Crescent. Korentan’s tensed shoulders, his brisk pace, all betrayed his frustration.

‘I win this bout,’ Khassian said quietly. But he frowned as he said it.

Acir Korentan turned abruptly aside from the Crescent and plunged into the grove of great trees that bordered the Wilderness Garden beyond.

The arrogance of the man! The overweening arrogance!

He had gone to warn Khassian of the very real danger he was in – and Khassian had laughed in his face. He had baited him, he had mocked his beliefs! And yet…

Acir came to a standstill.

And yet he sensed there was an essential integrity of spirit beneath the cynical veneer. And in one respect, he had to admit, Khassian was right. He had never read the opera libretto. Girim nel Ghislain had described it to him, had recited aloud one or two of the passages of holy scripture which Khassian had, the Grand Maistre alleged, portrayed in his score in a blasphemous manner.

He stood amidst ancient cedars in a dark, mossy glade. A marble dryad glimmered on the far side, pale in the gloom; spirit of the grove, haunting the Wilderness. The air was damp, tinged with the green smell of moss and creeping lichens.

The chronicle of Mhir’s death and transfiguration had been set down by an unknown disciple… though many, including Acir, believed that Elesstar the Beloved had written a substantial part of it. The ancient text was spare yet each incident was graven into Acir’s memory as vividly as if he had been a witness to the events.

He sat on a marble bench, stained with damp, and pulled his breviary from his jacket.

When she heard the words of the Prophet Mhir, Elesstar felt her heart burn with longing. She looked on his face and saw the true radiance of Iel. She arose and put aside the fine raiment and costly jewels that the Shultan Arizhar had given her.

She found Mhir at work with his disciples around him, labouring to rebuild the fallen Temple of Mhir, the Temple which Arizhar the Cruel had razed to the ground in his impiety.

And there in that holy place Mhir and the slavewoman Elesstar were united before Iel…