‘Your apology is worthless. Find Rochant. That is my only hope now.’

‘I will. I promise.’

But she had already shut the door.

Vasin sighed and began to jog back towards the Godroad. Finding someone in the Wild was a fool’s errand, but he had no other option but try his luck. Grim thoughts about his mother followed after him.

Have I left it too late? Have I lost her already? He tried to remember her as she was, the strong leader, the quick mind, the absolute certainty. But those memories increasingly felt like a kind of dreamy nostalgia.

The smallest of the suns, Wrath’s Tear, was just starting to rise as he launched himself into the sky. The weak red light did little more than tint the horizon, and Vasin scanned the tree tops, hoping for a glint of tanzanite in the dark.

However, the forest gave nothing away, presenting him with miles of canopy, a vast green that would make an army impossible to find, let alone one individual.

The Godroad was a different matter, and he spotted the black silhouette marring its silvery blue perfection immediately, not on top of the Godroad itself, but propped against its side. A few minutes later he was coming into land, bounding the last steps to come skidding to a stop by the prone form of Lady Pari Tanzanite.

The last time he’d seen her, her body had been at the end of its years, whereas this one was in its prime. Though dressed simply, the sky-born skin and golden tattoos on her lips and fingertips marked her as Deathless.

She did not look well. Her face was puffy, one side of it discoloured by bruising, her clothes scuffed, dirty, as if she’d been rolled in the mud. Other than that however, she seemed fine. With the way her cloak was neatly arranged around her, it was almost as if she’d decided to take a nap.

Perhaps she has. With Pari, anything’s possible.

Gently, he set about waking her. She groaned and squinted up at him.

‘Lord Vasin?’

He nodded.

She put up a hand to shade her face from his armour’s aura. ‘You’re too bright, you know.’

‘I think you’re the first person to ever say that to me.’

She laughed. ‘I was talking literally. My last memory was of being in the forest. Did you bring me out here?’

‘No, I found you on the Godroad.’

She sat up and looked around. As she did so, a black feather fell from her cloak. Pari picked it up and twirled it between her fingers.

‘Why is it,’ asked Vasin, ‘that every time I see you, you look to have come fresh from a brawl?’

‘Life just has a way of happening to me, my dear. Though in my defence, I only see violence when travelling through House Sapphire’s land.’