‘No, you didn’t, but you stopped it getting any better. If we could have docked, we could have got some of those people off, and we could have got supplies. There are people hunting us now, people looking for you – people who will shell fleeing ships on their own side to get to you. So now we all have to run. That little one you were talking to, what do you think happens to her if the people hunting you find us? Have you ever seen what that kind of violence is like?’

‘Yes,’ said Mersadie, holding the bodyguard’s cold gaze.

After a long moment, Aksinya nodded.

‘Perhaps you really have, but it makes no difference. I am bound to protect my master and his family. That’s it. This ship and the people on it are not mine to shield. That can be no other way.’ She took a step closer, and now she was so close that Mersadie could feel the thread of the other woman’s breath. It smelled like metal. ‘But you… you have pulled the fates of everyone on this ship, and made them yours. I do not know, and I don’t care, why the master believes you, but I want you to know that whatever happens to him and these people won’t be his fault. It will be yours, teller of stories. It will be yours.’

Aksinya turned and walked away down the dim passage.

‘Go back to your quarters,’ she called back at Mersadie without looking around. ‘He will want to talk to you soon.’

Mersadie Oliton stood still for a second and then followed.

Battle-barge War Oath, Supra-Solar Gulf

The armada split as it plunged towards the sun. Battle groups began to pull onto separate paths, first the smallest, which rode at the edge, then the larger ships, one layer of formation at a time peeling apart like a knot of rope unwinding into threads.

Far out, circling the dividing fleet, the White Scars saw the formation of enemy ships begin to change. They made kills then, driving in to pick off smaller frigates and gunboats as they broke from the safety of the herd. But the reformation of the armada went on, recasting the single fleet as many without it slowing down.