In one motion, he whipped out the garrote from his belt, lashed it at Makh’s grasp. The wire was as thin and strong as an artist of iron and the Decimate of fire could make it. It wrapped itself around the Archpriest’s wrist; snagged there. When Elgart heaved with his whole body, his garrote ripped through Makh’s flesh, through bone. It severed the old man’s wrist.

Makh screamed. Blood spouted from the stump of his forearm. In red spray, his hand and his cross fell to the grass.

Elgart tried to move again. He meant to grab up the cross and batter it against the boulder, damage it on stone until it broke. If he accomplished nothing else, he meant to shatter the rubies. But he was too weak to rise.

Amandis was fast enough. While Elgart floundered on the grass, she hammered one of her daggers straight through the Archpriest’s forehead into his brain. The Great God’s servant was dead before his heart stopped beating.

“Destroy it,” croaked Elgart. “Break the gems.”

He wanted to say, It is the instrument of his sorcery. But Amandis did not hesitate. At once, she snatched up the cross and smashed its rubies against the boulder. Pain haunted the burnt umber of her eyes. Makh had taught her to doubt herself.

A heartbeat later, Flamora sprang at Elgart, flung her arms around his neck. They sprawled together on the grass while she kissed him. Her mouth lingered on his like the taste of drugged wine.

He gazed up at the clear sky, the brilliant sunshine. His eyes were too dry for tears. He understood nothing that had happened since he had confronted the Archpriest. But he was alive. That was enough.

PART ONE

ONE

QUEEN ESTIE ON THE ROAD

Queen Estie of Amika had told her husband that she would not return to her realm. Surely, he knew that she had meant Maloresse and Amika’s Desire, her city and her castle-fortress. She had to go through Amika. Her road to the Last Repository crossed out of Belleger at Fivebridge. Past the Line River, it turned eastward toward the vast desert and the place where its newest stretches crossed the river’s gorge. There, the theurgies of the Repository had built a bridge in the desert long ago, a crossing for caravans like Set Ungabwey’s. Now it was sustained by a version of the same sorcery that kept the caravan-track through the desert clear.

In its way, the road was the crowning achievement of Estie’s reign. It had cost her a number of years, the hard sweat of hundreds of workmen, and finally her father’s direct opposition; but now it was complete: a comparatively direct link between Belleger, Amika, and the treasure-house of knowledge that was the Last Repository. Her road would take her to her goal with an ease and quickness that would have been inconceivable a decade ago.