She put a hand on his arm, drew him to a stop, and his words died. She met his faltering gaze with steady, moist eyes. ‘Bear, we’re all growing up fast.’ One hand ran down his cheek, lingering at the scar on his lip, the broken bulge of his jaw. ‘I’m glad I can still recognize you. How are you, really? Are you all right? I’m so sorry I couldn’t … Things took so long to arrange …’

He put his hand on hers, then wrapped his arms around her, and wept for the first time in all of it, in all the weeks of captivity, misery, and doubt. He cried on his sister’s shoulder until he was a heaving, empty husk, and felt her sobbing against him in return. He realized he was talking, mumbling, forming the words ‘thank you’ over and over into her cloak.

‘We’re not out yet.’ Rennic shook his shoulder, drawing him gently away. Chel looked up in tearful defiance, but he saw his emotion mirrored on the big man’s face, his own eyes glazed with unshed tears. His voice was little more than a whisper. ‘We need to keep moving, little man.’

Chel sniffed, nodded, and on they pressed, the weight of the Shanties pressing down around them. He remembered the children he’d seen playing therein, their rhymes and songs.

We were supposed to be lucky.

***

Sab led them up into the hills, away from the slabs of the walls and the malignant gaze of the citadel’s tower. She’d recovered some of her poise, and chattered as they climbed, of what she’d seen within the citadel, of her covert operations for the Rau Rel. Chel paused for breath at the edge of the woods, looking back over the city beneath its pall of winter smoke, now thickened by the alchemical plume from their distant intervention. Below them, the main road wound around to the ruined old bridge, clad in ugly stacks of wooden scaffolding, then away toward the gates. Small structures lined the road, thin poles, dotted at the top with …

‘Best not look too close,’ Rennic muttered from beside him. One of his knees seemed to be giving him trouble. ‘You won’t want to risk recognizing anyone.’

Of course: they were heads. Dozens upon countless dozens, girdling the road like fence-posts.

Sabina was following his gaze, and Chel heard her breath catch. ‘The bastard,’ she hissed. ‘The unconscionable … Why didn’t you stop him?’

Chel turned, his mouth already framing an earnest defence, but her words were addressed to Tarfel. The prince stood slumped, panting and pink-cheeked from the climb, eyebrows raised and eyes wide.

‘Me? What could I do?’

‘You’re his brother! Who else can stand up to him?’