Some of the men were bringing out the beef, two great slabs of it slung over the backs of their camels. Neyruu rose up at once upon seeing it, nostrils flaring, trails of smoke rising. The knights carried it only so close, before setting it down on the ground and retreating.

“Have you had any dragon attacks here?” Talasha asked, as Neyruu’s chest began to glow and brighten, a deep red-orange. A moment later she opened her maw and flame gushed out, cooking the meat to a crisp as she liked it. Then she feasted, ripping and swallowing. Talasha noticed how the sunwolves and starcats shrank back as they watched, hissing and growling.

“None to the city,” the moonlord said. “But there is a large refugee camp to the north that has been targeted. More so since Agarosh left.”

“The One-Eye? I thought he returned to the mountain long years ago?”

“He had, ever since Justo Nemati’s death. Justo’s grandniece managed to summon Agarosh to her service, however. A remarkable thing, my lady. And a remarkable girl.”

She looked up at him, her interest piqued. “Walk with me,” she said.

They continued to amble away across the moonlit plains, leaving Neyruu and Cevi to feast in peace. The moonlord’s host remained where they were, sensing that the pair wanted to be alone. Talasha supposed a nice walk beneath the stars made for a better council chamber than that pavilion. It stirs an anger in him just to look at it. She would prefer his mood stay mild.

Her thoughts turned over as they went, wondering how best to approach it. She sensed she could trust Iziah Hasham, as she would have done with Lady Safina. Speak freely, she told herself. This is no time to guard your tongue.

When they were suitably far enough away from the others, she said, “I was a prisoner of the Fire Father, Iziah. That’s why I look this way. Cevi, Neyruu and I have been in hiding for weeks.”

He stopped at once and turned to her. There was a look of surprise on his face. “Eldur?”

She nodded. Then she corrected herself and shook her head. “Not truly. Eldur in form, but Agarath in spirit. He wields the Bondstone, Iziah, atop a black wood staff. The Soul of Agarath has corrupted the father and founder. He…he has unleashed the Dread.”

The man’s eyes were a fierce grey. They narrowed. “We have heard rumours,” he said, in a deep, troubled voice. He looked at her again, brow descending. She saw suspicion in his eyes. “You were his prisoner, you say? Why? You are of his own bloodline, Talasha. The closest thing he has to kin.”

She nodded, thinking of her brother Tavash, and her cousin Tethian. Tethian had perished the day the Fire Father awoke at the Nest, slain in his confusion as he rose from his millennia-long sleep. It was an accident, and poor reward for Tethian’s work in bringing him back from the dead. Yet Tavash was different. He sent him to the Eternal Flame. He killed him for his crimes and blasphemies. Bloodlines mean nothing to him now.

Her answer was more simple than all that. “Because I betrayed him,” she said. “Because I lost my faith in his cause, Iziah. He gave me a chance to prove myself. A task. That’s why I’m here.”

Doubt swirled in his eyes, sudden as a squall. That had come out all wrong, a poor choice of words on Talasha’s part. “What task were you given?” the man asked her, guarded.

“He asked me to find the heir of Varin,” she said.

His eyes flared, just a little, but enough. In that moment she knew for certain. He knows. He knows of the heir.

She went right on. “I was imprisoned with King Hadrin,” she said quickly, to explain, lest he get the wrong idea. “He was taken captive by Eldur during the siege of Thalan and brought back to Eldurath. The Father fastened him to a plinth in chains, a plinth that bore the sea god’s Eye. Hadrin was made to search for the heir. I was made to watch him, and report on what I learned. I escaped instead.” She fixed him with her gaze, honest and open. “I do not serve the Fire Father, my lord. I broke from those shackles long ago.”

The moonlord was silent, searching, peering into her eyes. He fears me to be a spy, she knew, and why wouldn’t he after all that? Who better to fly down here in search of information than a princess well-liked and trusted, bearing a false tale?

She thought on her next words, choosing them more carefully. “I had a dream, Iziah,” she told him. “A dream of a memory, half-forgotten. When I was locked away with Hadrin, he would ramble on about his visions, mumbling as he stared into the Eye, sometimes whispering, sometimes screaming, and rarely was he lucid. I heard him mutter a hundred prophesies, but they were all broken, fractured, a word here and a word there. Out of context, I could not piece them together, and even after he spoke them, he would soon forget…”

She thought back on those long lonely days, those nights when she would be woken by his shrieking, the rattle of chains in the dark, the shadows twisting on the walls, cast by the light of the braziers. A shudder went through her.

“One night, he spoke of a girl,” she went on. “And the colours…silver and blue. At the time, I thought nothing of it. I had been sleeping when he awoke me. And when he was done…I returned to my bed. By morning it was nought but a shadow in my mind, one of many, crowding and formless. But later…only days ago, it came back to me in a dream. I could not say why, at first. Why that memory? Why that vision? But when I mulled on it, I realised it must be important. Silver. Blue. These are the colours of Varin, my lord, of Vandar. I wondered…could this girl he spoke of be the heir?”

His eyes gave nothing away. He was reading her as a scholar does a scroll, searching for any sign of deception. “Go on,” he said.

“There were other words that Hadrin muttered,” she said. “He mentioned a city of eagles, and a pyramid, and a dragon descending from the skies. I think that dragon was Neyruu, Iziah, bearing me. I think I am part of this vision, and that is why it came to me in the dream. It was a nudge, if you will, of fate. I was always meant to come here. I was always meant to help.”

He nodded slowly. There was a change in his eyes, those dark silver eyes reflecting the light of the moon. The barren earth about them was mottled in moonlight too, clouds spotting the skies. A wind was picking up, warm from the coast, sifting through Hasham’s feathered cloak and the long jet hair that hung at Talasha’s back. He believes me, she thought.

Eventually, the moonlord spoke. “How much does the Father of Fire know, my lady? Does he set his eye upon us? Does he know…of Varin’s heir?”

“He is aware of their heir’s existence, from the prophecies. There was a belief that it was not literal. A spiritual heir, rather than one of true blood. I was there, in the company of his lords and captains, when it was declared that Amron Daecar was this likely man. Eldur gave Ulrik Marak an explicit command to kill him.”

Hasham gave a grunt of interest. “A battle I should like to see. Was Lord Marak successful?”

She shook her head. “I could not say. I have been weeks in the wild, Iziah. Hiding. Running. What has happened in the north, I do not know. Amron Daecar may yet live. Yet with Drulgar returned…” She had no way of knowing what sort of damage the dragon had wrought. The whole of the north might be aflame by now, Amron Daecar dead and Elyon, her liberator, too…and Lythian her sweet captain as well. The thought was a cold knife in her gut. “I was freed during Eldur’s absence from the city, but have little doubt he will be hunting me. This heir and I have that in common, Iziah. Whether I like it or not, I am tethered to her fate.” She paused, searching his eyes. “She is this girl you spoke of, isn’t she? The grandniece of Justo Nemati? Lady Safina’s granddaughter?”

She saw the answer in his gaze, though he said nothing. King Lorin’s granddaughter as well, Talasha thought. The last of the Varin kings must have had a secret son, who in turn came here and sired a child by Princess Leila. There had always been rumours about the death of Safina’s daughter, and one of the whispers spoke of her death upon the birthing table. To die in childbirth was common among Bladeborn, it was said. An omen, she thought. The mother is a sacrifice for a great new life to come into this world.

Her heart was beating hard in her chest. A girl. Just a girl of eighteen, nineteen, if her history was correct. Princess Leila Nemati had perished toward the end of the last war, so she could not have been any older. Had the child been kept in secret since then? Protected by her grandmother, and Lord Hasham, and others of influence and power, a secret cabal of oathkeepers? She was driven by a great curiosity now, wondering how deep this all went. There were other rumours too. Of Lady Safina’s friendship with King Godrin of Rasalan. Of the King’s Wall, Sir Ralston Whaleheart, fleeing south with a young companion in tow. It’s all connected, she thought. How long has this been in the making?

Hasham was staring down at her with those hard, searching eyes. “It is said the thralls of the Fire Father bear a red mist in their gaze. An echo of the light that burns in his own. A light of Agarath.” He stepped closer and reached out with a tough, callused hand to cup her chin. “Your eyes always had a red quality to them, my lady, but of a natural, burnished brown. I see no mist, no flicker of thralldom within them. I am going to trust you, Talasha, as I trust my instincts. Now tell me…was there anything else in this vision?”

“Yes,” she whispered. Burn them, she thought. She told Lord Hasham the rest of it, the words that had not made sense to her. The rift. The plains. The silver scar. Shadows and death. Creatures in the night.

He listened intently, and his eyes moved east.

Then he spoke of a girl called Saska.

24

Their party had swelled by four.

Two more horses rode along with them, one-half mad, one half-blind, with a half-starved dog and half-dead knight by name of Sir Lenard Borrington.

The young knight was slumped in the saddle of Jonik’s piebald palfrey, a fresh bandage about his chest, cloak of thick wool heaped over his scrawny shoulders to shield him from this unseasonable chill. He shivered all the same, swaying, mumbling to himself as he drifted in and out of consciousness, a state he’d been in for days. Jonik walked beside him, watchful, to make sure he did not fall, leading the horse along by its rope. Gerrin went a few paces ahead, Harden behind on the spirited stallion, leading the other horses. The big mastiff plodded along at Jonik’s side.

“We’ll find you a new home, boy,” Jonik said to him, scratching him by the ear. He had marks on his neck, the skin rubbed raw from his time tied up outside the outhouse. “When we reach the border, they’ll find a place for you. No one’s going to treat you badly anymore.”

“You sure about that, lad?” Harden grunted from behind him. “Might be best if we just keep him ourselves. He’s taken to you, don’t you think?”

The dog did seem to like him, that was true, and more than he did the others. When Jonik slept at night, the dog would lay beside him. When he took his watch he would sit on watch with him. And when Jonik walked, the big mastiff rarely left his side. He sees me as his saviour, Jonik thought. If he was to live up to that mantle, he would have to let him go. “I like him as well, Harden,” he said. “But it won’t be safe for him with us. You know that.”

“Aye,” the man admitted. “Nice having him around, though. Had a dog like him once before. Well, was my second wife’s dog, really, but he was mine for the time I was with her. Good dog, he was.”

“Did he have a name?” Jonik asked. He was always learning something new about Harden. It was only recently that he found out he’d been married before, let alone to four separate women.

The sellsword scratched the tight-packed bristles of his chin, stiff and grey as he was. “You know, I forget. Something dog-like. Wolfy or Patches or Mr Barks, something like that.”

“All those names are completely different,” Jonik pointed out.

“Aye. Was a long time ago. Wasn’t with her long, the second wife.”

“I knew a dog called Toby once,” Gerrin put in, slowing to join them. “Maybe we should call him that?”

Jonik shook his head. He had not named the hound because he knew they wouldn’t keep him. Annoyingly, Gerrin had forgotten what Burt and Betty had called him, and the dog bowl they found inside the inn, which had once been inscribed with his name, had become so worn that the letters were unintelligible.