Sometime in the heart of winter, when neither Inger nor Credence was watching, Michael disappeared. He reappeared only rarely, at random, in unpredictable places. As Derel Prataxis had observed on his deathbed, Michael Trebilcock had his own shadow empire and shadow government. He simply slipped off into that shadow world, where his own people served with unquestioning loyalty, both to him and to the dream. They were almost everywhere, and were as spectral as he.

He became an invisible boulder in the stream of war, unseen but felt, and feared by everyone. No one could fathom his motives, but he had to be accounted for in every plan. He remained there, like that rock. Backs had to be watched. Unwritten rules, apparently benefiting Kavelin as a whole, had to be observed. He who ignored Michael did so at his peril.

Michael’s war was intended to buy time. He knew something the other principles did not. Only Kristen, Sherilee, and Ragnarson’s children shared the secret.

Buying time. Awaiting a chance to wake the cruel storm that would be put paid to relentless ambition and bickering for all time… that was what Michael called the inevitable. The cruel storm.

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.