The man seemed to nod, though the yellow eyes remained fixed, immobile. Gradually, for reasons Sorweel could not fathom, his breathing slowed and the roaring in his ears fell away.

Porsparian led him to his quarters, taking too many turns for Sorweel to ever hope to remember. The tent was large enough for him to stand in, and furnished with nothing more than a cot for himself and a mat for his slave. For most of the afternoon, he laid in a bleary reverie, staring at the white fabric, watching it rise and fall like the shirt of a slumbering little brother. He paid no attention to the porters when they arrived with his meagre collection of things. He held his father’s torc for a time, an age-old relic of the Varalt Dynasty, stamped with the seal of his family: the tower and two-headed wolf. He pulled it to his breast, clutched it so tight he was sure the sapphires had cut him. But when he looked there was no blood, only a quick-fading impression.

King Proyas arrived as the tent panels became waxen in the failing light. He said a few jocular words in Sheyic, perhaps hoping to hearten with his tone. When Sorweel failed to respond, the Exalt-General stared at the young King with a kind of magisterial remorse, as though seeing in him some image from his own not-so-kindly past.

Porsparian knelt with his forehead to the ground for the entirety of visit.

After Proyas left, the two sat in utter silence, king and slave, pondering the way the rising dark made everything transparent to the encampment’s evening chorus. Singing warriors. Churlish horses. Then, when the darkness was almost complete, they heard someone, a Kidruhil trooper, relieving himself behind the tent’s far corner. Sorweel found himself smiling at the old Shigeki, who was little more than a silhouette sitting on the ground a length away. When the trooper farted, Porsparian abruptly cackled, rocked to and fro with his spindly legs caught in his arms. He laughed the way a child might, gurgling against the back of his throat. The effect was so absurd that Sorweel found himself howling with the mad old man.

Afterwards, Sorweel sat on the end of his cot while Porsparian busied himself lighting a lantern. Everything seemed bare in the light, exposed. Without explanation, the old Shigeki disappeared through the flap, into the dread world that murmured and rumbled beyond the greased canvas. Sorweel stared at the lantern, which was little more than a wick in a bronze bowl, until it seemed his sight must be marred forever. The point of light seemed so clear, so whispering pure, that he could almost convince himself that burning was the most blissful of death of all.