Lord Morwood gave a firm shake of the head, and directed a hard stare at Gershan. “We don’t know that for certain, my lady,” he said, turning to face her “Your auntie is missing, that’s all. She may have returned to the Blakewood lands, or…”

“Or what?” cackled Gershan. “Gone off to fight the war? She didn’t go missing, Morwood, she vanished.” He clipped his bony fingers. “Just like that.”

She went through the portal, Amilia thought, realisation dawning. And they know nothing about it.

Gershan put those spider-eyes on her, beady and black. “First your grandfather disappears, then your auntie, now you reappear out of thin air, all the way from Thalan.” He snorted. “Magic, you said just now. Since when did you Lukars become mages?”

“Mages?” she hissed, sudden fury surging inside her. Her eyes blazed, bright and green. “You call me a mage?”

The old man shrugged. He looked much like a mage himself, all twisted and rotted like Fhanrir, cruel-eyed and ancient. “Well, something’s not right, that’s clear. You’re being awful evasive, Princess.”

“Get out,” she said to him. “I have no need of you.”

He didn’t move.

“I said get out!”

He frowned at her, confused, a sneer plastered on his face. “Why? Spitting too close to the mark, am I? You got some secret to tell?”

“Just go. Now. Get rid of him, Lord Morwood. I cannot stand his face.”

“My lady…”

“I said get rid of him!” She threw her golden chalice, hard, hitting the creature square in the jaw. There was a sickening smack as his chin split open, teeth shattering, blood bursting from the ruin of his face. The Master of the Moorlands stumbled back in shock, reeling, reaching out to steady himself, and fell heavily to the floor. Where he hit there was no rug or rushes. His head whipped back, cracking against stone. Then stillness, silence. Just the pant from Amilia’s chest. “Drag him out,” she commanded, breathing heavily. “Put him on a wagon and send him back to the Moorlands. I never want to see him again.”

Lord Morwood stepped over, concerned, and knelt down. Blood was starting to ooze from where Gershan’s head had struck the stone, horribly red on white. Morwood pressed his fingers to the vulture’s neck, held them there a moment, turned his head so his ear was up against Gerhan’s nose and mouth, listening.

Amilia’s heart was slowly rising up her throat. “Is he breathing?”

“Faintly. He needs urgent medical attention.” Morwood stood and marched to the door, pushed it open and called in the guards. They sped inside at once, armour clanking, to lift the old lord and carry him away. “Careful. Careful,” Morwood told them. “Archibald. Go with them.” He ushered them all out of the door, steering them away until the two of them were alone. Amilia was staring at the patch of red blood. The fragments of teeth, yellow and brown, scattered upon the stone. One of the jewels had been knocked loose of the chalice. An emerald. Like my eyes.

Lord Morwood went to pick the chalice up from the floor, and the emerald as well, placing them aside on a table. “He may die, my lady,” he said, after a long moment. “I know you did not want to kill him, but…”

“Who says I didn’t? He deserves to die.”

“My lady, you don’t mean that.”

“He’s a creature. An ugly lecherous snake, like his sigil. Everything he says is poison.”

“Words, my lady. Elsewise he is harmless. If he dies…”

“I hope he does. He calls me a mage? Me?” The bile was creeping up her throat. She thought of the old man Talbert, who was not really a man at all, but a mage by name of Meknyr, a Shadowcloak who had taken on the guise of Sir Munroe Moore, who had tricked her and deceived her and led her into the mountains. “I hate mages,” she raged. “I hate them. Every one!”

She turned to snatch the jug of wine from the top of the balcony. A gulp, another, and the wine was pouring down her neck, red and warm, soaking into her shirt.

Lord Morwood came up behind her. A big hand gripped her wrist. “My lady…stop…”

She struggled, half-drunk from the wine, and tore away from him. “Get your hands off me. Don’t touch me!”

He backed away. “Princess, I’m only trying to…”

She pushed past him, away from the balcony, needing to give herself space. Echoes of memories haunted her mind. Her wrists bound to bedposts. The guards, watching on. Her husband, drunk on power, mad, crawling up between her legs… ‘I want a son, Amilia, you’ll give me a son…’

I killed your sons, she thought, snarling. I slew your seed a thousand times, and I’m glad they tore your child from my womb.

She hadn’t been awake when it happened. Not since that moment at the side of the road, when Sir Munroe Moore’s armour had rippled to mist and the Shadowcloak Meknyr had shown his true face. ‘Beware the silver man’, the dwarf Black-Eye had warned her on the boat. ‘One day, he’s going to change’. Those words had haunted her ever since he’d said them, yet not until that moment had she known what he meant.

After that, it was fragments only. Faint shapes and blurred recollections. Meknyr had put her into a deep sleep, though it only ever lasted so long, and when she began to come around she would blink and see snippets of the world. A cold pine forest, the trees bearded in frost. Ravens in the branches, watching. A glimpse of a high valley and mountain pass, eagles circling. Snow, falling down in sheets, heavy as godsteel plate. She had seen the black towers, high and blunt and dreaded, enshrouded in white mist. Seen the soaring peaks and prominences, their slopes draped in blankets of snow. But of her arrival at the fortress, nothing. Nor the procession into the refuge, and the cold stone slab, and the opening of her legs, the extraction…

She turned her head, unable to think about it any longer. Tell me it was necessary all you like, Jonik, tell me it was fate…I will hate those mages forever for what they did to me.

I never had a choice.

Lord Morwood was watching her worriedly, a deep frown etched into the flesh of his forehead. “My lady,” he began once more.

She cut him off. “My auntie is dead,” she said.

His frown deepened, confusion thickening.

“She is down in the crypts right now, wrapped in linen. The putrefaction has begun to set in, my lord. I suggest you summon the embalmers.”

The poor man was utterly befuddled. “The crypts? How is it that she’s…”

“Later. I will explain it all to you later. Where my auntie went, how I came to be here, all of it. But first, I did not come alone. I have several companions who will be returning to me soon, and they will need to be fully apprised of all of the latest tidings from beyond our borders. They have a quest of some importance to attend. Discretion is important to these men.”

Lord Morwood seemed to understand, bless the man. “They intend to pass through the city unseen?”

“They do. Though in what direction, I don’t yet know.” Jonik’s task was to gather the blades, she knew, a thankless and fruitless task that would probably just get him killed. My grandfather attempted the same for decades, she thought. Look where that got him. Whether Jonik would want to travel down through the city levels and into the south of Tukor, or through the mountain passes at the rear of the palace - a route that would take him down into Vandar via the southern reaches of the Mistwood - Amilia didn’t know. That would depend upon what they learned of the locations of the remaining four blades.

Morwood rubbed at his jowls with a meaty hand. “Might I ask who these companions of yours are?”

Amilia saw no reason to deceive the man. “One you may know, from years ago. Sir Gerrin, a former Emerald Guard. He served under my grandfather.”

“Gerrin.” Morwood considered it, nodding. “Yes, I know of him. He was one of the king’s sworn swords, for a time. And the others?”

“A sellsword named Harden,” Amilia said. “He’s Vandarian, from the Ironmoors.” And looks it, she thought. The men of the Ironmoors were known to be grim and spare. “And my cousin,” the princess finished.

“Your cousin?” Morwood asked. His face contorted in thought, trying to think of who that could be. Amilia didn’t have many cousins. “One from your mother’s side? A Kastor?”

“No, my father’s,” she said. “You’ll know him as the Ghost of the Shadowfort, Trillion, though his real name is Jonik. He is Auntie Cecilia’s son.”

The man’s befuddlement could not have been more acute. “Her...her son? I…I had no idea that she…” He wiped at his forehead, shaking his head. “Her son?” he said again, as though repeating it would somehow make it easier to believe. “The Shadowknight who crippled Amron Daecar? Who killed Sir Aleron in the Song of the…” He trailed off, staring at her. “Your betrothed. Your own cousin…he…he killed him?”

She nodded. “He did. Though under duress, my lord. I do not hold him to account for that.” She paused, wondering if she should tell him, then decided there was no harm. All the world will know soon enough. “It was not only my betrothed Jonik killed,” she said. “He also killed his own brother. Jonik is the son of Amron Daecar.”

Lord Trillion Morwood, stout old Commander of the Watch, all but fell backward onto the floor. “My gods, is that…is that quite true, Amilia? You are not having a twisted jape with me?”

“No jape, my lord. It is much to get one’s head around, I know. Believe me. I have only recently learned of all this as well.”