For in Throyes a man who was not dead had set his feet on a path to coldness of heart.

A Path to Coldness of Heart

A Path to Coldness of Heart

Contents

One: Year 1016 After the Founding of the Empire of Ilkazar; The Price of Hubris

Two: 1016–1017 AFE; Mountains Far

Three: Winter, 1017 AFE; Scattered Views

Four: 1017 AFE; Dread Realm

Five: Year 1017 AFE; Spring Threatening

Six: Year 1017 AFE; King Without a Throne

Seven: Year 1017 AFE; Eastern Empire

Eight: Year 1017 AFE; The Desert Kingdom

Nine: Spring, Year 1017 AFE; The Lesser Kingdoms

Ten: Summer, 1017 AFE; In the East

Eleven: Summer, Year 1017 AFE; Legendary Confusion

Twelve: Year 1017 AFE; Kavelin: Shadow Dancing

Thirteen: 1017 AFE; Eyes of Night

Fourteen: 1017 AFE; Ghosts of Tangled Destiny

Fifteen: Summer, Year 1017 AFE; Sedlmayr

Sixteen: Year 1017 AFE; The East

Seventeen: Year 1017 AFE; Ghosts

Eighteen: Year 1017 AFE; Distracting Darkness

Nineteen: Year 1017 AFE; Chaos in Peace

Twenty: Year 1017 AFE; Peaceable Kingdoms

Twenty-one: Winter, Year 1017 AFE; An Era Ended

Twenty-two: Winter, Year 1017 AFE; Throyes

Twenty-three: Autumn, Year 1018 AFE; Weather Developing

Twenty-four: Autumn, Year 1018 AFE; Strange Attractors

Twenty-five: Late Autumn, Year 1018 AFE; Desert of Despair

Twenty-six: Late Autumn, 1018 AFE; Beyond the Resurrection

Twenty-seven: Winter, Year 1018 AFE; Spiraling In

Twenty-eight: Winter, Year 1018 AFE; Run in Circles

Twenty-nine: Winter, 1018–1019 AFE; Fire and Maneuver

Thirty: Year 1019 AFE; New Year Begun

Thirty-one: Year 1019 AFE; Knots at the End of the Rope

ONE: YEAR 1016
AFTER THE FOUNDING OF THE EMPIRE OF ILKAZAR THE PRICE OF HUBRIS

The prisoner clamped his jaw on a shriek. He had moved too suddenly, turning. He did swear softly. He could not work his muscles, could not build the strength to escape if his wounds did not heal. And they would not if he kept trying before the meat was ready.

A clatter rose outside. This austere suite might be his entire world for the remainder of his existence: a reward for having befriended a woman and having saved the life of a man.

It was the middle of the night. Darkness with stars filled the single foot square window high in the east wall, well beyond his reach. He should be sleeping.

He lay in bed, back to the doorway, feigning sleep, when the visitors arrived. Three, from the sounds of it: one large, one small, one delicate. Female, if fragrance did not lie.

“He heals slowly,” one said. “The physician blames his despair.”

That voice belonged to Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i, commander of Shinsan’s Western Army. It was by Shih-ka’i’s grace that the prisoner lived.

A second familiar voice said, “The physician should look closer. He’s clever. He’ll show you what you expect to see till you relax. Then you’ll be dead.”