‘You are my Chosen,’ he said. ‘Enet, Great Octave, Spear of the City, and Chosen of Xac. Never leave me.’

‘I promise, holy lord,’ Enet murmured, packing the screams down inside, into the void left by her dead child. Her murdered child, who had died so that his mother might create … this.

‘I will arrange for a new council to be assembled in the coming days. When you have rested.’ She put her hand on Xac’s knee. ‘You have done mighty work here today, holy lord, and now it is time to rest, to absorb the power that you loosed and weave it into a song that none of us will ever forget. Come, my love. Let me bathe you.’

‘Don’t go,’ he begged as she stood and Enet bit her lip to stop it curling. Disgust mingled with a heady fear. She walked the edge of a precipice. She helped him to his feet and planted a kiss on his gore-streaked forehead.

‘Never.’

THE SINGER

The source, Singing City, Pechacan, Empire of Songs

I am the song. Song. I am the … I am the song and the song is good. The song is glory and war. I am war. I am the song. All will kneel, will kneel, will kneel before the song. Beneath the song. Under the song.

I am the …

I am …

Am I the song? Am I the song, Enet?

The song requires blood. Enet says. Blood. Bloodsong. Songblood. I am the song and the blood.

My song, my blood. Enet says.

I am the song. I am the blood. I am …

Enet says.

Enet.

I am the song and the song is blood.

Song. I am the song.

I am the … I am …

Am I?

I am the blood.

I am the blood and the blood is Enet.

Enet says.

Enet is the song.

XESSA

Sky City, Malel, Tokoban

29th day of the grand absence of the Great Star

She didn’t understand this type of warfare. She didn’t understand any of it: the tactics, the strategies, the retreats that became attacks or counter-manoeuvres. And she didn’t know how to fight people, either, not hand to hand when they had knives and spears, when they didn’t move like her enemies usually did.

Xessa’s opponents came at her from beneath. They were animals with claws and teeth, and while one had tried to pull her spear from her hands, she’d never learnt – or had to learn – to do the same. You couldn’t disarm a Drowned. You didn’t need to block high because their nature wasn’t to slash overhand. You knew the fight against a Drowned, even if you didn’t always come out of it unscathed. Xessa didn’t understand anything about this. The Tokob who’d had basic training in spear and bow work knew even less, and they were dying in droves, their presence barely slowing the Melody in each day’s battle.