She was talking to him. High Lord Sapphire. That was his title now. He felt dizzy with the truth of it.

Umed cleared his throat. ‘High Lord, your name must grow with your stature. What should we call you?’

The name came to his lips instantly: ‘Vasinidra.’

There was a pause. This was his first statement as High Lord, an honouring of his mother, an implicit criticism of what had been done to her.

Yadva looked shocked, Gada more so, and Umed, nodding, blinking hard to stop the tears from forming, said, ‘Then, from this day forth, Lord Vasin shall become High Lord Vasinidra. All hail Vasinidra!’

‘Vasinidra!’ shouted the others.

He took this in, noting that Satyendra, back on his feet, seemed dazed. Standing next to Yadva, it was incredible to think that one so small had been able to hold his own against her at all. Though, now he came to think of it, perhaps he wasn’t as short as all that.

‘I feared we’d have to get you a matching tattoo on the other side of your head.’ He put a hand on Satyendra’s shoulder. ‘Thank you. I won’t forget what you did here today.’

He guided Satyendra to Rochant’s throne. ‘Sit. Rest. You’ve earned it.’

‘What about the rest of us, High Lord?’ asked Umed. ‘Have we earned the right to rest too?’

Vasinidra favoured his uncle with a grim smile. ‘For today, yes. But not for long. We must prepare to hunt.’

‘Hunt where? I have heard of no sacrifices being made.’

‘That is because they were made long ago and ignored, much to our shame. We go to Sorn. It is time to clean out that old wound and let it heal.’

Despite her rapidly swelling face, Yadva perked up. ‘You mean to hunt the Scuttling Corpseman?’

‘I do.’

She laughed and wiped the blood from her cheek. ‘Maybe you won’t be such a bad High Lord after all.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Refreshed and free of the burden of the Red Brothers, Sa-at had made good time catching up the others. They carried Rochant between them, travelling in short bursts. Crowflies flew ahead, keeping out a compound eye for trouble. Now they were in the shadow of a huge mountain range, and beyond it, he could see a great block of grey in the sky. It was Rochant’s castle. The base of it looked like natural rock but on the top it had smooth walls and pointed towers, and Sa-at had never seen anything like it before and was so excited he immediately started to jump up and down. ‘You live up there? In the clouds?’

‘Yes,’ said Rochant. ‘I wasn’t exaggerating.’

Sa-at had lots of questions he wanted to ask Rochant, but it was hard to talk and carry him at the same time, so he focused on the important ones. ‘How does it fly when it doesn’t have wings?’