Visions blazed in my head. “Then if I could find fuel that gives off no smoke at all,” I said, “the skies might clear. Do such firestones exist?”

He smiled in spite of his pain. “I don’t know. You’re the diviner.”

On the way to my room, I passed one of the high balconies that overlooked a temple courtyard, its towered walls, and the western sector of the city. Beyond the city, still dim in the ashen dawn, were the mountain slopes where the funeral pyres burned. I saw a pyre raised above them all, surrounded with banners. It was Zune’s.

On the towers of the temple courtyards, priests were raising the bright inauguration flags, and from every window ledge and balcony were hung scarlet and gold tapestries emblazoned with the firelord’s sign. The city, too, was being decorated. Banners streamed across the streets, and the main road into Kasimarra, my triumphal road, was ablaze with the fires of thousands of torches. I knew that in the great hall splendid carpets were being rolled out, and high on a shining dais, surrounded by fire, a golden throne was being prepared.

But in the streets, the people grieved and threatened, and the air was full of menace. From the distance, and growing closer, came rumblings of disorder and violence.

I went to the holy place high in the temple, and stayed there a long time. When I went to my room to bathe and prepare myself for my inauguration, Laken was waiting for me. My ceremonial robe that she had made was flung across my bed, carelessly, and my inaugural speech, so painstakingly recorded on parchment, was torn in pieces on the floor.

“It has been cancelled!” she cried, furious, the moment she saw me. “Maelmor has said there will be no inauguration ceremony! He breaks with traditions centuries old, and revokes our greatest rite.”

My heart went cold. “He cannot do this,” I said. “I won the battle. I must be made Firelord. The people cannot live without a diviner.”

“No one disputes that,” she said. “But listen, woman! Can you not hear the hysteria outside? It is still two hours before the ceremony, and already soldiers are settling riots. Hundreds of citizens are dead, trampled or beaten to death. The temple gates are splattered with blood. If Maelmor has a civic ceremony for you, the whole city will be in chaos. There will be a small private rite, he said. Just him, ten priests for witnesses, and you. Lord Amasai has been arguing with him this past hour, saying you must have all the honour that is due to a firelord, and he will fight to win that for you. He threatened Maelmor. Oh, I have never seen such doings in the temple, not in all my life!”

“Where are they now?” I asked.

“Maelmor and Amasai? In the priests’ apartments.”

“Take me there.”

“Woman, I cannot! Those apartments are–”