‘As agreed.’

Ruumi gestured. ‘Pikul will attend to your fee, and show you out.’ The aforementioned guard was already waiting at the hallway’s end, stone-faced, impossibly silent, bundles of furs piled over one shoulder.

Loveless held her gaze. ‘And the bonus for prompt completion?’

Ruumi put one hand to her throat. ‘Of course. As agreed.’

Rennic looked like a man torn, pulled between two drifting boats. ‘Is this … Will you …’

‘Time to go, Master Rennic,’ the nearly-queen said, and a ghost of her smile rolled across her face as she ushered him toward the waiting Pikul.

Chel steadied himself against the wall with one hand. The screaming had faded, but the air seemed thick with blood and the echoes of horror, and he couldn’t wait to get out.

‘I’ll get Tarfel.’

***

Pikul led them from a stubby side gate, hidden in the bowels of the fortress, and into the stinging cold of the night. The sky was black with cloud, starless, the drifting curtains of hazy light of their arrival lost beneath silver-veined sheets of jet. As they descended toward the harbour, Chel saw lights sparkle in the dark block of the fortress, increasing in number. He expected bells to start ringing at any moment, and hurried his progress down the winding icy path, his breath shards of golden fog in the light from Pikul’s torch.

A vessel awaited them at a lightless black-wood jetty, long, low and rigged. The helm started at their approach, standing straight and hawking a gobbet of chewed leaf over the side. It seemed they’d been expected: the helm and a lone crewman were already making ready, and the vessel looked packed with crates and barrels, as if for a long voyage. Wrapped in their new furs, they boarded under Pikul’s grunted direction, casting glances of varying suspicion at the smoothness of their exit.

As the crew went to cast off, Ruumi descended onto the jetty, one hand raised in farewell. She was dressed in furs, her bearing regal. At last, she looked triumphant.

‘Farewell, my friends. I regret that our time together was so short. Prince Tarfel!’

The ropes were cast, the gang withdrawn. The vessel began to drift away from the jetty, loose chunks of floating ice bumping its hull. Tarfel roused himself from his half-slumber and pushed to the rail. ‘What?’

Her smile widened. ‘At the first moon of northern spring, I shall set your south-west aflame. Be ready!’

His expression frozen, he nodded, one hand raised in presumed gratitude. ‘I never actually agreed to—’

The very-nearly-queen moved on to Rennic. ‘Safe travels, Master Rennic. I enjoyed our meeting.’

‘Uh, likewise.’

Already Ruumi was shrinking, a dwindling figure beneath the dancing light of Pikul’s torch, the sole light on the darkened harbour.

‘Farewell, mercenaries of the north,’ she called. ‘Find your small enemies.’