“He presided over fate, my lady.”

“Then fate is suffering. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” She turned at last from the statue of Thala and met his steel grey eyes. Her garb was simple, warm, plain, the same colour as her long brown hair. In the contours of her face he saw shades of his mother, who was her aunt, and in the hue of her eyes as well, an arresting emerald green. My mother, who gave her life so we could live.

Two days. It had only been two days since then, but already the world felt different.

“I’m not trying to tell you anything, my lady. Only that we’re all part of something bigger.”

“As written in this famous book of yours.” She turned, gesturing to the high stone plinth. “I had hoped to find it here, cousin. What do you call it? The Tome that Doomed a Thousand Souls?”

Ten thousand would be closer. “The Book of Contracts,” he said.

“I wanted to see it, flip through its pages, perhaps even find my own name. I was part of the final contract, after all. My own name, my own fate, written in ink thousands of years ago.” She smiled bemusedly. “Odd, isn’t it? There is so much more to this world than I ever knew. So many layers beneath the surface, like an onion, waiting to be peeled.”

And when you do, Jonik thought, you cry. He doubted his royal cousin had ever peeled an onion in her life, let alone felt the sting of cutting and preparing a hundred of them, as he once did here as a boy when he took his time in the kitchens. “There is much beyond our sight and understanding,” is all he said. “As to the Book of Contracts, its use is spent. There is no sense in keeping it on display.”

“I disagree. Have you visited Ilithor before, Jonik?”

The question stumped him. He frowned and shook his head. “Not yet. But when we leave…”

“There’s a monument there…well, there are many, actually, but I’m thinking of one in particular. A statue, little more than a plain monolith really, that has carved into its walls the name of every Emerald Guard who has perished in his service to the crown. Brave men who died for their country, often in wars in which little was won. One might say they died for nothing, those men. Yet the monument stands and people come to honour them, every single day.” She turned to the empty podium, up the short stone stair. “The book might have been something similar. A monument to those who have died for this cause. Yet instead it’s been hidden away. That says a lot, don’t you think?”

“It says whatever you read into it. There have been secrets here, and lies, but that time is now passed. The order has served its function.”

“As has its Steward.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Perhaps they have been entombed together, the mage and his favourite book.”

“He never wanted this duty,” he told her. “The Steward was as much a slave as any of us. And he made a sacrifice too, Amilia.”

He had learned that only after. Learned that Hamlyn’s life force had been spent by his final, fated toil. That in performing the transference he had given up his own life so that his friend and king could live. There was something tragic in that to Jonik. Ilith and Hamlyn were as brothers, once before, performing their miracles together, working wonders across the world. That Hamlyn should perish the very same day that Ilith arose had struck a chord with him. He tended him for thousands of years. He watched over him. And he never even got to look into Ilith’s eyes, as they opened. He never got to speak to him, or say goodbye…

Amilia Lukar was looking at him with eyes of green flame. “Sacrifice implies choice, Jonik. Hamlyn had the luxury of having one. I didn’t. I was brought here against my will by that Shadowcloak in the form of Sir Munroe Moore. Talbert,” she said, spitting the name out. “I was tricked and bewitched. And they stole a child from me.” She turned her eyes away sharply, clenching her jaw.

She had suffered a great crime. Jonik understood that. “My lady…”

“No. I don’t need your sympathy or your pity. I’d have aborted the child myself anyway, so what does it matter? I slew Hadrin’s seed a dozen times back in Thalan. What’s one more? Perhaps they did me a favour. But I never had a choice.”

And I did, Jonik thought. He could see the accusation in her eyes, hear it sizzling on the tip of her tongue. Aleron. I might have refused to fight him, refused to kill him. I could have done a dozen things differently back then. But no, I chose to live… “What I did back in Varinar…”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” she cut in. “I’ve told you already. It’s not the sword you blame, but the man who swings it, and you’re just a sword, Jonik, a pawn in the game like me. We don’t move ourselves around the board.”

He nodded, eyes down. “But we can,” he said quietly. “From now on…we can. The future is unseen, Amilia. From here…”

“Nothing changes. The world is still at war and I’ve seen what the devil looks like. I looked into his red eyes, Jonik.” She looked into his. “And do you know what I saw?”

He shook his head. His voice was stiff. “No, my lady. What did you see?”

“The end. Fire and brimstone, ash and fume and death. Then darkness. A lightless void into which we’ll all be swallowed up whole. So go ahead and try to help, if you want. But don’t ask me to do the same.”

She stepped away, brushing right past him, and began making for the exit. Beyond, the refuge opened out like a honeycomb, a hundred halls and chambers delved deep into the rock of the mountain.

Jonik stood his ground a moment, then followed. He had more to say, a great deal more, yet now did not seem the time. Later, he thought. Perhaps back in Ilithor, back in her home, she would be more amenable to listen to him, and help.

Their footsteps whispered upon the stone, scuffing softly, the only sound. High ceilings lurked in shadow above them, and statues marked the way. They looked down upon Jonik with their judging eyes; heroes of the past, kings and champions, men who had fought in wars and won them, battled through decade-long Renewals. But not this, the Last Renewal, Jonik thought. None of you fought through this…

They had not made it far before a cloaked figure emerged from a corridor, shambling along in that awkward way of his, clinging to life like a limpet. Though Hamlyn had perished of his final toil, the same could not be said of Fhanrir. As with the other three mages here - Dagnyr, Agnar, and Vottur - he remained to serve. “For as long as I still draw breath,” he had said, in Ilith’s presence. A part of Jonik had wanted to skewer the creature for his lies and deceptions, but now that part of him was dead.

It died the day my mother did. The day I gave up the Nightblade.

“Fhanrir,” he said, as the creature appeared.

Amilia stiffened at the sight of him, shifting a little closer to her cousin. She almost grabbed his arm.

“Frighten you, do I?” Fhanrir hissed. A rotting tongue moved over rotting lips, dry as bone. Through a hole in his fleshless grey cheek the inner workings of his mouth were visible. Amilia recoiled. “Thought we were past all that, girl?”

“She’s royalty,” Jonik said. “You should call her…”

“I’ll call her what I like. A thousand royals have come and gone in my time. Kings, queens, princes, princesses….people. They’re just people, boy. None of you are special.”

The mage had not softened at Ilith’s rebirth. If anything he’d grown more truculent and hateful, cursing that he was still alive. Cursing that he still had to serve when Hamlyn, his trials complete, had finally earned his rest.

“What do you want, Fhanrir? Did you come to say goodbye?”

The creature made a clacking sound. “Why bother? You’ll both be back.” He looked at Amilia and smiled that horrid smile. “No, came to give you a message. Our master would like a word with you, before you go. You’ll find him in his forge.”

Something about the word rankled. Master. But could he deny it? No, I have given myself up to his service, the same as these mages. If there was a man they should all follow, a light to lead them against the spreading dark, who better than Ilith, he who built the world? Or whatever version of him remains, in the body of his heir.

“Fine. Thank you for telling me.”

Fhanrir awarded that a snorting sound, turned, and shambled back off.

Jonik turned to Amilia. “You know the way to the portal door?”

“I think so.”

“Then go. You’ll find Gerrin and Harden there, with Cabel. And my mother. We plan to take her body home with us. To bury, in the palace.”

She nodded. “Of course. She should come home.” Her eyes swept around them, through the cavernous, soulless hall. “She doesn’t belong here.”

“I had hoped you would find somewhere for her, with your ancestors. I don’t know Ilithor, my lady. But you…being her niece.”

She touched his arm. “I’ll make sure she is given a tomb to befit her. We can have a wake as well, if you like. Something small, to remember her.”

I never knew her, Jonik thought. Not really. “Perhaps,” is all he said.

She nodded at him and turned. “Then I’ll see you at the door.”

They parted, stepping away in opposite directions. The last time Jonik walked this route had been in very different circumstances. He and his men had been rushing along in search of his mother, intent on leaving the fort behind once and for all. Instead they had found her dead, her blood being mopped up by a half dozen Shadowknights, cloaked and armed. In the chaos and confusion of what followed, Jonik had slain several of them himself, the mage Meknyr included, before sprinting back outside into the snow with the Nightblade screaming in his head. If it hadn’t been for the arrival of Ilith in his reborn form, he would have been lost.

I’d have taken it up and disappeared. The King of the Night. Lost forever.