It doesn’t matter much either way. None of us are exalted. The whole room could turn on Yadavendra and he’d kill us all without breaking a sweat.

For a moment the glaive hovered above Vasin’s head, and it seemed that despite his bluster, Yadavendra was genuinely reluctant to kill his nephew. The moment passed however. She saw it in Yadavendra’s eyes, the twitch of a muscle, the slight narrowing of the iris, little heralds of the death-stroke to come.

On instinct, she moved first, taking two fistfuls of Vasin’s robe and pulling him backwards.

The sapphire blade stabbed the place where he’d just been, and Yadavendra came with it, closing the gap easily, raising the glaive a second time. Pari had long enough to wonder if Vasin’s body would be enough to stop the point killing her or whether he would skewer them both, when Arkav stepped in front of them.

‘No!’ she shouted, too late.

As the Sapphire High Lord lunged, Lady Yadva grabbed the end of the shaft. Unlike the others, her robe was sleeveless, to better show off her arms. One bicep was inked in gold, a many-limbed demon depicted in two pieces to celebrate the time she ripped it in half. Pari watched the image of the monster bloat and shake as Yadva’s muscles rippled with the strain. She had surprise and a good angle, but even with all of this, it took everything she had to twist the glaive from her father’s hands.

‘Traitor!’ he yelled, whirling round. His wing smacked solidly into Yadva, hurling her back across the room as if she were no more than a child. Vasin tried to take advantage of the High Lord’s confusion but, before he could act, Yadavendra had him by the throat and three feet off the ground.

Pari tried to think of what to do. She was unarmed, and there were no real weak spots in the armour she could exploit barehanded, at least none that would allow her to end the fight. She wanted to help Vasin but knew she could not hope to break the crystal gauntlet’s grip.

She put a hand on Arkav’s arm instead. ‘Run,’ she said. ‘Tell the others.’ She would buy him time. If Arkav could escape, he might be able to persuade the Tanzanite High Lord to have her reborn into a decent body.

But Arkav shook his head. ‘No, Pari. No more running.’

He set his jaw and began whirling the lantern on its chain like a weapon. Its light blurred, the trail getting longer until it met itself, becoming a multicoloured disc. Then he let go, and it flew towards Yadavendra, shattering on his chest plate.

There came a sound like thunder, that Pari felt through her teeth as much as in her ears. Yadavendra looked round in surprise just as Arkav brought the second lantern down on his head.