Detta clubbed Rix in the face and, as the man sagged, took control of him from Ilandeh. With a brief nod, she stepped back and then vanished into the garden.

‘Great Singer? Shall I take the ejab to the offering pool?’ Pilos asked, trying to keep any tension other than concern for the Singer from his voice. He considered letting Xessa get up, letting her tear Enet apart for him, but he couldn’t risk it – she was more likely to go for the Singer, and, no matter what had happened, what he had become, Pilos could not allow that to happen.

‘Great Singer?’ Pilos asked again as he wrenched Xessa’s arms behind her back. He kept his face averted from his lord. Lord of the Underworld, a small, hysterical voice supplied. He quashed it with savage speed.

‘No,’ the Singer rumbled. ‘Leave them all with me and get out.’

Pilos went cold, both at the proclamation and the Singer’s voice. Where were those rich harmonics that fluttered through his words, that bent the song to his will? Why did he sound so weary and yet so, so hungry?

‘Holy lord?’ he managed. ‘The danger—’

‘I will deal with this.’ And now there were harmonics and more. The song reeled and blared out of control, rising to a pitch that set Pilos’s teeth on edge and could not be denied. All the stability the Melody’s chant had provided it was gone in a heartbeat. Everyone standing, slave or eagle, fell to their knees.

‘All of you out, now,’ Enet said. ‘The holy lord will see the Tokob are punished according to their crimes and the Chorus will ensure his safety here in the source.’

‘You cannot mean this, Great Octave,’ Pilos tried, desperate. ‘Enet, please.’

Enet’s face was blank, as though she was staring at an insect. ‘You have brought violence into the holy lord’s presence and allowed unrestrained god-killers within steps of his person and the holy Setatmeh who swim in the offering pool. You have placed his life in danger with your reckless actions. You are hereby stripped of your status as High Feather and as Spear of the Singer. You are ejected from this council and the Singer’s presence. Yet the holy lord is merciful, and so you may keep the deaf god-killer to punish yourself. Now leave.’

Pilos gaped for less than a heartbeat, and then he hauled Xessa to her feet and threw her into the arms of one of his eagles. ‘Shut her up. Get her out of here.’

‘High Feather Pilos, Great Octave,’ the Toko peace-weaver began. ‘Please, my people are—’ An eagle uncoiled a short whip and lashed him across the shoulders. He fell, howling, and Pilos saw how the Singer twitched – not at the sound, but at the line of blood on Tayan’s back.