Pari did so. The shadow within the amber slowly resolved itself, only becoming clear when her face was an inch away. Something had eaten the flesh from the body and dissolved the clothes. Hard bony plates had grown to replace them, bulky and angular around the chest and shoulders, and stick thin where the lower spine met the hips. In places the original skeleton could be seen, a nodule of collarbone peeking from the black, finger bones and their yellowing tendons, oddly preserved. The top half of the skull remained, held within a carapace hood, the teeth jutting out like a ledge.

‘Delightful,’ said Pari.

Nidra gestured to the hill with her sapphire dagger. ‘They’re all like this, more or less.’

‘More or less?’

‘Some are more … covered than others.’

‘I think House Sapphire needs to come here and purge this place.’

‘Good luck convincing Yadavendra of that.’

‘Surely even he would want to do something about this?’

‘He might, but my brother never does anything suggested by anyone other than Rochant, and especially not someone from another house.’

‘I’ll just have to convince him it was his idea then.’

Nidra snorted and began to move further up the hill. ‘Easier to be rid of him and have another take charge. Quicker too.’

They made the rest of the climb in silence. At the top, she saw the forked tree where Samarku had once been but there was no sign of him now. Though one of the branches bore an unsettling resemblance to a human arm. With Samarku gone, the trees were no longer the strangest thing at the top of the hill. A ridged oval of amber now stood in the middle of it. As she approached, she realized that the lower half of the structure was buried beneath the ground. It was thicker than the one she’d just seen and it was harder to discern what lay within. Her instincts more than made up for her eyes however.

‘The Corpseman is in there, isn’t it?’

Nidra nodded.

‘You seem awfully calm about that, my dear.’

‘Better it be in there than out here. I’ve thought about trying to kill it, but it’s awake. It’s probably aware of us.’

Pari saw the truth of this and stopped. She didn’t feel under threat but she did feel … unwelcome. She considered trying to attack the Coprseman while it was in this state but dismissed the idea. Somehow she didn’t think that it was helpless, and with just the two of them, without armour, she didn’t fancy their chances.

‘I think we should go.’