For a moment, Chel’s gaze travelled the horizon. ‘It was never about beating people down. I fight because … some things deserve to be fought for.’ With great deliberation, Chel tossed the knife away. ‘But sometimes it’s all right to stop fighting. Sometimes it’s all right to walk away.’

Rennic looked to the blackened heavens, baring his teeth in exasperation, agony. ‘We have to do what’s right!’

‘This isn’t it.’

Rennic pushed himself up against the crumbling rail, and Chel saw the cracks from their impact behind him. ‘How can you know? How can you always be so fucking certain?’

‘My father—’

‘Was a fool who threw his life away and doomed his family, and your quest for his post-mortem approval has damned us all!’

Chel felt a faint smile play upon his lips. ‘Loveless said much the same.’

For a moment, the rage left him. ‘Well, she knows whereof she speaks.’ The brows lowered again. ‘How can you claim any kind of—’

‘You’re right.’ Chel stood drenched before him, hands empty, rain plastered to his skin. ‘My father was a weak man, an accidental husband and parent, who wrecked his family’s lives with his own pursuit of righteousness.’

Rennic was silent, and now the fury was gone from his eyes. Rain flowed in streams from his brows and nose, his hair clinging flat and dark around his face. When he spoke, his voice was almost swallowed by the wind. ‘Then … how can you know?’

‘I … I can’t. I just have to have faith, in others, in myself. In Tarfel. He deserves a chance, the same chance you gave me, when you pulled me from a burning palace. That’s why you saved me, right? Because I reminded you of your younger self?’

Rennic was so sodden it was hard to tell if there were tears in his eyes, but it was possible.

‘Give Tarfel a chance to prove himself,’ Chel said, taking a slow, squelching step forward. ‘Give him the chance you gave me, the chance you never got. Tarfel could be a good king, a great king. He can do better, be better than any king we’ve seen in generations.’

‘You’re going to stand over him, are you? Bark orders in his ear?’

Chel paused. Rain was streaming down his face, he’d lost the feeling in his fingers and toes, but his eyes were back on the horizon, his mind cresting the clouds. When it came, his answer surprised him.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘He should make his own choices. But I’ll be watching.’

The big man met his gaze. ‘And if you’re wrong?’ he said in the quiet voice.

‘Then it’ll be my problem to solve once more.’

Rennic leaned back against the rail, a touch of humour back in his eyes. ‘Oh, really?’

Chel took another step, this time with confidence. ‘He goes the way of his brother … I’ll kill him myself.’