Messengers appeared at the gallery’s arch, first a couple, then half a dozen, each panting and wide-eyed. They clamoured their indecipherable reports over each other, struggling to be heard. The Keeper remained unmoved, the lines on her face the ancient furrows of a petrified tree. Then she spoke a single command. From the hush that followed, Chel read shock on the faces of those present, then the messengers bolted, disappearing back into the darkness whence they’d come.

He and the prince turned back toward Matil and Kosh, eyes searching for explanation. Matil stood as stiff as her mother, one hand on the rail.

‘What—’

‘To close the city gates,’ she said.

Already the cries and bellows from beneath were reaching them, their passion and fury carrying them above the wind. Traffic on the bridge had stalled, with half the camps yet to reach it, struggling away from whatever lurked in the pass.

‘That’s madness! They’ll crush each other! You can’t just shut them out!’

‘The Keeper has spoken.’

The man at the tube yelled again, his eye pressed to its aperture.

‘Still I cannot see the signals,’ Matil translated automatically.

Chel squinted out toward the bleached bulk of the mountain pass. ‘The dust is clearing, even if the smoke lingers. Surely they’re visible now?’

The man yelled again, his voice ragged with hysteria.

‘I cannot see the signals. I cannot see the towers.

‘The towers are gone.

‘The fortress is gone.’

The balcony exploded in shouts as retainers and stewards blustered and screeched, while Matil stood very still at the rail. Chel felt numb, noticing only very distantly Kosh’s hand on the tall woman’s arm, the look of concern in her wide black eyes. He turned back toward Tarfel, whose ghostly pallor had returned, then in the midst of the chaos, from the corner of his eye he saw the Keeper falter. She took half a step to one side, staring at one of her hands in apparent disbelief, then her mouth began to droop in the most peculiar fashion. Despite the bedlam encircling her, Chel felt like he was the only person watching her as she wobbled on her feet, closed her eyes and collapsed to the stone.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Chel sat at one edge of the rotunda, the late afternoon light streaming through the narrow windows casting thick bars of dancing motes before him, staring at the plum stone in his hand. If he concentrated on it, he could almost ignore the clamour of bells, shrieks, and cries from beyond the windows, the angry shouts echoing around the towers, the frantic jingle of hurrying troops. Behind it all, the wind was a constant, howling, moaning, a trapped and miserable animal.

The door flew open, and Lemon struggled into the rotunda, her arms piled with small boxes. Foss was right behind her, carrying a pair of crates that clinked and tinkled with each step.