She heard the door shut and was left alone in a heavy silence. Just her and all the lies. Some she’d told, some she’d been told, some she’d told herself, until she’d no idea what was true any more. Until she’d no idea if there was such a thing.

Vick picked up the ring, turning it around in her fingers. Who could’ve dreamed she’d one day wear it? The great stone shone in the lamplight, full of purple sparks. From the prison camps of Angland to the pinnacle of power.

Then she caught sight of something in her bag. The worn gilt on the

spine of The Life of Dab Sweet. She pulled it out, and it fell open on

the table at that favourite page. That favourite picture. The great plains, grass going on for ever. A place where you can make yourself anew. Where you can go as far as your dreams can take you.

Rubbish, most likely. A made-up drawing in a book full of lies. But there comes a time you have to say no to what you’re given and reach for what you want.

The truth was Vick had always wanted to be loyal. But not to nations, or ideas, or causes. To people. Orso was gone. Sibalt was dead. Tallow had never even existed. If she’d ever had a debt to Glokta it had only been in her own mind. One she chose to keep because she had nothing else. So she pronounced it long since paid.

She tossed the ring spinning across the squares board, threw the bag over her shoulder and walked out without a backward glance.

She flung the door shut and it banged from the frame, wobbled back open a crack. She didn’t even bother to close it.

She thought of a wide sky over a far country.

She smiled as she strode off into the night.

The Only Crime

“So, short steel in my… left hand?” asked Savine.

“Yes, then your front foot at the mark—”

“This mark?” She worked her shoe into the chalk line on the palace lawn as though she had never seen one before. “How exciting!”

“Isn’t it.” Jurand was teetering on the edge of impatience as he stepped to his own mark, weighing his steels. “Then when I say begin—”

She darted at him with no warning and no mercy, the way her father taught her. Jurand was a skilled swordsman. No doubt he was quicker and far stronger than her, and it was a while since she had held a steel. She could never have beaten him in a fair bout. But who wants to fight those?

His long steel was not even up when she caught it with hers, blade flickering, metal scraping, jerking it from his unready hand. She stepped sharply around him as he stumbled, planting her heel behind his where it could trip him. He made a soft oof as her shoulder thudded into his breastbone and sent him crashing onto his back, his short steel bouncing away across the well-tended grass.