He moved close, leaning over the pallet, his face approaching his brother’s. Only Chel and Vashenda could see them now. Corvel’s breathing was coming in rattling rasps.

‘Your Imperial Majesty,’ Tarfel said, ‘you look spent. Perhaps we should pray.’ Tarfel rested his cupped hands on his brother’s chest, the manacle chains spooling over him. Corvel’s breathing grew shallow and tight, and panic clouded his staring eyes. His mouth moved, tongue flicking over bloodied lips, but no words came out.

Chel glanced at Vashenda, then at the others in the pavilion. They seemed oblivious, wilfully or otherwise.

Tarfel leaned in close, his head bent over his brother’s chest, his back to the main pavilion. Ostensibly he was praying, but Chel saw the movement of his lips, the shape of his words.

‘Do not fear for your empire, brother. You will soon be dead, and in your place …’ The prince paused, allowing the full weight of his chained hands to rest on his brother’s struggling chest. Corvel’s eyes went wide, fresh blood livid at his mouth, the thin cords of his shrunken neck proud and trembling.

Tarfel leaned a little further over his shaking brother, the chains pressing down on his shrivelled chest.

‘… I will destroy your every deed. I will scrub you from the archives.

It will be as if you never.

Lived.’

Corvel breathed sharply, once, twice, gasping for air, sightless eyes wide and white, roving in their sockets, then fell still: an empty, lifeless sack of bones. Tarfel stepped back as if in shock, dragging the manacles from his brother’s collapsed body, then cried, loud enough for the rest of the pavilion, ‘Brother? Oh, Shepherd’s mercy, my brother, my last and only brother, how could it be?’

Chel was staring at him, his mouth dry. Had he just witnessed Tarfel killing his own brother? Corvel was motionless, what little colour had lit his cheeks now departed, leaving behind a cooling waxen husk. Chel looked to Vashenda, but she ignored his glance. Instead, she stepped forward, entering the inner pavilion. She walked past Tarfel, slowly approaching Corvel’s pale and wasted form. She made the sign of the crook and said a prayer.

‘The king is dead.’

‘No!’ The cry came from the back of the pavilion. Pushing himself forward came Esen Basar, Chel’s ducal nemesis. ‘He killed him! Kill the whelp, kill him now!’

Nobody within the pavilion moved, guardian confessors included. Vashenda raised an eyebrow, and Tarfel suddenly looked as pale and nervous as ever.

‘Very well, I’ll do it myself.’ The young duke pulled a dagger from his belt. ‘Justice for the king-slayer!’ He charged across the pavilion, Tarfel in his sights.

‘Sand-flower,’ Vashenda said with a meaningful nod.