“I am envious,” the Butcher said, tone serious. “It took much longer for him to give me a nice remark.”

And me, Saska thought. Praise was hard to come by from the Wall, that was true. “Don’t get used to it,” she warned them. “It’s like trying to get blood from a stone with him.”

Sir Ralston seemed to sense that it was time to leave, with all three of them ganging up on him. “When will we have your answer? We expect to depart in days.”

“By which route?” the Baker asked. And for which purpose? his eyes inquired.

The Wall hesitated, glancing down at Saska. It remained a matter of contention, this route they would take to the north. By now they had expected to have heard back from Ranulf, but no, nothing, not a whisper, not a word. “We are still contemplating our best course. The hope was to travel north, across the Aramatian Plains and then through the Everwood, if possible.”

“Yes. And then?” The Baker peered at them. “The Everwood is not where your journey is to end. My brother tells me you plan to go much further north than that.”

“We do. Into Vandar.”

“Vandar.” The Baker’s eyes took on a reflective look. He tapped at his chin. “Why Vandar?”

“That is not your concern.”

“I beg to differ. It is of great concern to me. There is a lot of war in the north, Sir Ralston. And a lot of dragons as well.”

“War is where heroes are made,” was the Wall’s stiff reply. “Dragonkillers live forever.”

“And most who try…die. For every dragonkiller, there are a thousand dragon-diers. I have no interest in hunting dragons, if this is your quest. Marco, Garth, Stan. They already died for that.”

Saska dipped her eyes at those names. Marco of the Mistwood. Garth the Glutton. Slack Stan, with that wobbly jaw. All had died the day they went out onto the plains so she might hone her useless dragon-killing skills. There were others too, many others who had perished for her along the way. They all lost their lives because of me. And none of them knew why.

She was not going to make that same mistake again. The Butcher had helped train her, and he and his brother had helped shatter Krator’s coup. She owed them both for that. They deserved to know the truth.

“I’m the heir of Varin,” she said.

Silence, thick as mud. It filled that dusty basement room from sandstone wall to wall.

The Wall frowned down at her. His voice was a warning. “My lady…”

“The last of his direct bloodline, granddaughter to King Lorin,” she went on. “Blessed with godblood in my veins.”

“My lady,” the giant reached out. “That’s enough.”

“No,” she said fiercely, swerving away. “I’m fed up of hiding the truth.” She motioned to the sellswords. “If they’re to risk their lives for me, they deserve to know why. We can trust them.”

“But they haven’t agreed yet.” Sir Ralston spoke through gritted teeth. “You are too reckless. Still, too reckless.”

Too honest more like. And too damn tired of the secrets. “I have a destiny,” she said to the Bloody Trader brothers. “I’m part of some old prophecy that says I’m going to unite the Heart of Vandar, and help win the War Eternal.” Or end it. “Only Varin’s heir can wield the Heart Remade, it says…and I…I…” She looked at them, feeling foolish. Everything…all of it…it still sounded ridiculous to her. “We’re going north to try to gather the Blades of Vandar, reforge them, and save the world. Now, do you want to be a part of that? Or would you prefer to linger here, protecting a puffed up merchant instead?” She smiled, a false fixed smile. Somehow mocking the entire thing made it easier for her still. A child, she thought. I’m just a bloody child.

Sir Ralston took her by the arm, as though to reinforce it. “We’re leaving. Ignore what she said. The heat…the dust…it gets to her…” He said nothing more, as he tugged her toward the stairs. She resisted, pulling sharply away, then strode up the stone steps of her own accord. She could hear her gargantuan guardian breathing loudly behind her, each step a stamp, steel cracking against stone. When they’d gone up one level, he reached out and took her shoulder, turning her before she could go on. “What was that?” he demanded. “The Butcher I could understand, but the other one? This mission still depends on secrecy, Saska. By tomorrow half the city might know…”

“They won’t. I trust the Butcher and I trust his brother and anyone else who we decide to bring with us…we need to trust them as well.” She spun and continued on, speeding herself away from him.

The sun was at its apex when she burst out onto the baking streets of Aram. A litter awaited them, pulled along by several strong oxen; a painfully slow way of moving about the city, but with Krator and Mar Malaan and others still at large, Sir Ralston had insisted that Saska remain hidden away.

The oxen were drinking from water pails, slurping greedily. Two soldiers attended them. The rest of their Nemati escort - spearmen mostly - lingered in the shade, awaiting the return of their princess. Sir Ralston marched forward, hailing the captain, passing on orders as another soldier opened the curtain for Saska to climb in. Rolly followed her a moment later, the entire carriage groaning under his weight. A call came outside and the host moved into formation. A second later they were lurching forth, oxen trundling, mounted spearmen trotting ahead and behind, men afoot walking at their sides.

The air was still and hot behind the drapes. Saska unfurled her silver shawl and tossed it on the bench beside her. Beneath it she wore her godsteel armour, over padded garments soaked in sweat. Her plate showed many wounds, many slim scratches and cuts and scars, and beneath a few of those her flesh was stitched and bandaged. Her fight with Cedrik Kastor had not come without cost, though they were flesh wounds only, shallow and of little concern. A few cuts to see him die, she thought. It was a trade she would have made any time.

Sir Ralston’s armour was much the same as hers, dented and rent from his brutal bout with the Emerald Guards, Sir Bernard and Sir Lothar, with minor wounds cut into the meat beneath. “We make a pair, don’t we?” she said. “Maybe one day I’ll have as many scars as you, Rolly.”

“I hope that day never comes.” Sir Ralston’s body was like a tapestry of trauma, covered in burns, pits, lesions, tears, from fang and claw and fire and steel. No man living had endured what this man had. No man living could, Saska thought, without succumbing to the sweet release of death. “That was reckless,” he said again, brooding, as the carriage bumped along the cobbles. “I will have to return to them later, make sure they keep it to themselves. I know why you did it, and I understand, but…”

“I’ll be more judicious next time,” she promised, wanting to move on. The entire topic was like a noxious fume to her; when in it she felt suffocated, unable to see through the gloom, unable to take a breath. She reached across and opened a curtain, letting a wash of hot air flow in. Dust came with it, and ash, kicked up by the hooves of the horses and the oxen and the boots of the marching men. Even here, near the docks in the south of the city, the ash had spread to coat the cobbles. She wondered, as it stirred in through the curtain, whether it had come from wood or bone. Hundreds of buildings had been burned to cinders and thousands of men had died, cremated when the wild inferno swallowed them all up whole. Now the streets and squares all the across the city were coated in the embers of the dead. Their ashes are sprinkled everywhere, she thought. The city has become a cemetery, every square and street an urn.

But none were the ashes of the man who was to blame.

None were Elio Krator.

She closed a fist. “I still don’t understand how he could have escaped,” she said, frustrated. “We saw the fire, Rolly. I can see how a man in godsteel plate could survive it, but…”

“The inferno was not all-consuming. There were patches where it did not catch, and Krator must have been in one of them. Take solace from the fact that Cedrik Kastor is dead. In time, Elio Krator will follow.”

But not with me there to watch, she thought, as she had when Joy mauled Lord Cedrik to death, ripping at his throat and clawing at his guts, eviscerating and emasculating and tearing him apart. The scene had been so horrific that many of the men standing by had been forced to turn away, and several had even retched, heaving the contents of their stomachs into the dirt.

But not me, Saska thought. She had stood closer than anyone, and had watched with gleaming eyes. For all the girls you abused in their cells, she had thought. I will watch you die, my lord.

No sight had ever been sweeter.

She clenched her jaw. “I want him kept alive for me,” she said. “If he’s found, I want him chained up and locked away so I can see him die when I return. Like he did with my father. I want to watch as he’s beaten to death.”

The Wall’s eyes were inexpressive. “You had your vengeance with Kastor. Let this one lie, my lady.”

“Let it lie? He killed my father, Rolly. My grandmother is dying because of him.”

“Your grandmother’s illness is not the sunlord’s doing. She is old. When the body grows old and frail it is more vulnerable to these maladies.”

“A malady hastened by his betrayals. Don’t try to tell me the stress of all this hasn’t sped her decline. The doctors say she could die in weeks, even days. She might have lived on for years if it wasn’t for him. And now, when I leave, I probably won’t ever see her again. My own grandmother…my last living family…who I’ve only just met.” She exhaled, loudly, shaking her head. “It makes me want to wait. To stay with her, until…”

“We cannot stay. You know that.”

Of course I know it, she wanted to shout at him. She knew it. Her grandmother knew it. Everyone who knew her damnable destiny knew it. But it didn’t make it any easier. She opened her lips to say a version of all that, then stopped. She’d said it all before and more than once, and if she was to say it again, the Wall was not the person to hear it. He earns his name in these exchanges, she thought. Her giant protector was inclined toward emotional detachment, and if she needed to vent, Leshie was the answer.

She turned her eyes back outside as they rattled along through the city, looking at the boarded doors and shuttered windows, the empty stalls and stands in the squares that only recently bustled with life. No longer. In the days before the battle, Lord Hasham had decreed a period of martial law, and for large parts of the city it was still in place as they tried to root out the malefactors and clear the rubble and the dead away.

It would take weeks, months, years to make Aram what it was. And there was still the chance that further disaster would come to her. Saska could not forget her dreams, forget the spreading fires and burning forests, the mountains spouting flame. The world was firmly in the jaws of the Ever-War now, and it wasn’t going to get any better.

They crossed the Amedda River, which cut down through the city to empty into the bay. Many bridges spanned its width, some simple walkways barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast, others great stone monstrosities upon which entire towns seemed to have grown, shops and taverns, winesinks and brothels, even little courtyards where tradesmen sold their wares.

Or used to. As with everywhere else, the bridges were quiet, the tradesmen gone, only soldiers walking the streets. It made for mournful viewing. Saska used to like looking down at the bridges from the top of the palace. Now, from up there, all she saw was death.

The palace itself was busier than she’d ever known it, though. In the vast entrance hall at its base, Lord Hasham had set up a bustling command centre, from where he issued his orders. There were hundreds of soldiers here, ever coming and going on patrol, sorting weapons and armour and dragging in new captives for interrogation. Those were taken to the palace’s western side from the main hall, where several dark stairways led down into the dungeons. Saska had not asked what sort of methods were used to extract information from them, but she didn’t imagine they would be pleasant. It was said that Iziah Hasham had several prized torturers at his disposal, and was not unwilling to use them.

The litter came to a halt at the bottom of the wide bronze steps, glimmering under the blaze of the sun. Saska did not waste a moment in escaping that suffocating wooden cell, dashing out through the curtains and scaling the steps to enter the relative cool of the atrium. Her ears were assaulted at once by the great echoing cacophony within; soldiers marching, steel ringing, voices shouting out commands. To the left of the doors, she sighted the Strong Eagle giving orders to a group of some thirty men, all wearing the scale-mail shirts and eagle half-helms of the Aram City Guard. He seemed to be issuing an instruction over a particular building that needed searching. A tip-off from a spy, perhaps, or information extracted from one of the prisoners in the dungeons. The Wise Eagle was here as well, Saska observed, leading a prayer with a host of some fifty soldiers, all kneeling before him with their heads lowered and hands pressed together at the palm. She could guess at what was troubling them. During the battle, Aramatians had been forced to fight and kill Aramatians and it had not sat well with many. The Wise Eagle, in his purifying glory, had come down to cleanse them of this sin.