It was a gamble, because from what he’d seen in the council over the last days, Pilos wouldn’t put it past the Singer to order just that if one of his favourites proposed it – and Enet was the favourite of favourites. And yet her face betrayed her. She snapped her fingers and house guards stepped from the along the walls, clubs in hand. Betsu raised her fists and Tayan patted frantically at the air, trying to calm them all, his words lost in the rumbles of threat and the clanging tones of the song singing in the blood, the ears, the balls. Elaq shoved through the door, club in hand. He palmed a knife to Pilos and took his place at his shoulder.

‘We are done here,’ Enet snarled. ‘See they are returned to their room – and put a guard on their door. I trust them less than a snake curled around a child.’

‘Child? If you had children, your sour milk would send them to the Underworld before they knew so much as your voice,’ Betsu growled and Enet’s face suffused with blood.

‘Betsu, fucking peace!’ Tayan shouted, his voice so unexpectedly loud that everyone stilled. ‘We beg your forgiveness, Great Octave, and yours, Spear Pilos; our world stands on a cliff edge and the balance teeters with us. Malel and the ancestors have not prepared us for such, such reckless indifference to harmony. Perhaps in the morning, when we are all calm, we could try again.’ Tayan didn’t wait for their reactions, just dragged Betsu towards a doorway in the far wall, armed slaves striding after them.

‘Tomorrow is new moon,’ Enet called after them, her voice thick with spite. ‘You’ll be begging to surrender then.’

Pilos didn’t relax until the door shut behind them. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘that was—’

‘And you,’ Enet said, her voice the dry rustle of scale on scale, portending death. ‘Get out.’

Pilos hid his smile, touching belly and throat in mockery of obedience. ‘Under the song,’ he said and turned away before she could reply. He and Elaq slid through the door just before a platter of fruit smashed against it.

TAYAN

Great Octave’s estate, Singing City,

Pechacan, Empire of Songs

159th day of the Great Star at morning

The guard had remained outside their door all night, while a second stood watch by their window. The same young girl slave brought them fruit and steamed buns at dawn, and then they were left alone as the morning brightened and the rains came and then the afternoon began to fade.

It was new moon, the day of offerings, and Tayan thought – hoped, prayed – that Enet might have forgotten them. The estate had been busy all day, slaves rushing through the gardens with their heads down even further than usual, moving with a speed born of terror. Would Enet choose one of them as her so-called offering to the Drowned?