They had known she was a prideful woman. It was the whole reason for summoning the bitch here: Maithanet had hoped the dimensions and reputation of her surroundings would be enough to mellow her hubris into something more malleable, something they could shape to their own purposes.

Apparently not.

“Matriarch, you would do well to recollect the stakes of our conversation.”

A sneer—an open sneer! And for the first time, Esmenet glimpsed it, the look that is the terror of all those who command positions of power: the look that says, You are temporary, no more a passing affliction. Suddenly she understood the staged calculation behind her throne and its position above the auditory floor. With one look, it seemed, the old woman had thrown it all into stark relief: the truth behind the hierarchy of disparate souls. Recognition, Esmenet realized. Power came down to recognition.

It was all naked force otherwise.

“Matriarch!” Maithanet boomed, drawing into his voice and aspect all the magisterial authority of the Thousand Temples.

Sharacinth opened her mouth in retort—not even the Shriah could cow her, it seemed. But whatever breath she possessed was sucked from her lungs …

Instead she wheezed and stumbled back, raised a hand against the sudden, immolating light that had sparked into existence above the floor before her. It danced and spiked outward, so brilliant it rendered everything dim. Crazed shadows swung from her ankles across the far corners of the Auditory. The point grew and sparkled, chattered with incandescences that possessed intensities beyond the gaze’s conception …

Esmenet lowered her forearm, blinked at scalded eyes.

There he stood, tall, magnificent and otherworldly, exactly as she remembered him. A white silk tunic fell loose over his armour, embroidered in countless crimson tusks, each the length of a thorn. His beard was braided gold, his mane was long and free-flowing. The two demon heads hung bound to his right hip, mouthing curses without breath … There was a mad density to his aspect, a hoarding of reality that denied the world the sharpness of its edges and the substance of its weight.

It seemed the earth should groan beneath his feet. Her husband …

The Aspect-Emperor.

Sharacinth stood like a shipwreck survivor leaning to the memory of tossed seas. Two paces behind her and to the right, Maithanet lay supine across the shining floor. The Shriah of the Thousand Temples kneeling.

Esmenet knew enough not to watch Kellhus assume the Mantle to her right. Confidence, which in all complicated situations is nothing more than the pretence of premeditation, is ever the outward marker of power. There could be no appearance of improvisation.

“Hanamem Sharacinth,” he said, his voice at once mild and permeated with the tones of imminent murder, “do you think you merit standing in my presence?”

The Matriach nearly fell over trying to throw herself to the floor. “N-no!” she sobbed in old woman terror. “M-Most Glorious … Pluh-please—”