This was how the fateful decision was made to place the young King of Sakarpus, Sorweel, in the care of the Aspect-Emperor’s two eldest sons, Moënghus and Kayûtas.

“When he becomes a brother to them,” his Arcane Holiness explained to his old friends, “he will be as a son to me.”

The knock came mere moments after Sorweel’s attendants had finished dressing him, a single rap, hard enough to rattle the hinges. The young King turned to see the door swing wide. Two men walked in without so much as an imploring look, the one fair and “royal boned,” as the Sakarpi said of tall gracile men, the other dark and powerfully built. Both were dressed in the martial finery of the New Imperium, with long white vests hanging over hauberks of nimil-chain. Cloth-of-gold tusks glimmered in the dull morning light.

“Tomorrow,” the fair one said in flawless Sakarpic, “you will report to me …” He strolled to the one open panel along the suite’s shuttered balcony, glanced out over the conquered city before turning on his heel. The dawning light caught his hair, transformed it into a luminous halo. “You ride with us … apparently.”

The other plucked a string of fat from the tray that bore the remains of Sorweel’s breakfast, dropped it into his mouth. He scrutinized Sorweel with murderous blue eyes as he chewed, absently wiped the pads of his fingers along his kilt.

Sorweel knew who they were—there was no mistaking the lethal strength of the one or the unblinking calm of the other. He probably could have guessed their names even before their father had sacked his city. But he resented their manner and tone and so replied with the cold outrage of a lord insulted by his lessers. “You don’t look like horses.”

Moënghus growled with what may have been laughter, then muttered something in Sheyic to his taller brother. Kayûtas snorted and grinned. They both watched Sorweel as though he were an exotic pet, a novelty from some absurd corner of the world.

Perhaps he was.

An uncomfortable silence followed, one that seemed to swell with every passing heartbeat.

“My elder brother,” Kayûtas said eventually, as though recovering from a momentary lapse in etiquette, “says that’s because we’re wearing our breeches.”

“What?” Sorweel asked, flushing in confusion and embarrassment.

“Why we don’t look like horses.”

Despite himself, Sorweel smiled—and so lost this first battle. He could feel it, humming through the two brothers’ laughter, a satisfaction scarcely concerned with humour.

They’re hunters, he told himself, sent to run down my heart.

He felt it most at night, when the ranging concerns of the day shrunk to the clutch of limbs beneath cold blankets and the mourning could seize his face without fear of discovery. Small. Alone. A stranger in his father’s home. I am a king of widows and orphans, he would think, as the faces of his father’s dead Boonsmen floated before his soul’s eye. It all came crowding back, the sights and sounds, the horror, the jerk and tumble of violent futility. Children weeping in the doorways, beloved buildings cupped in shining flame, the bodies of Horselords twisted in the streets.