The Drowning Sea

Book 2: The Talmont Trilogy

by David Hair

Genres: Epic Fantasy; Sword & Sorcery

Synopsis

The Falcons have become the empire's enemy in THE DROWNING SEA, the unmissable sequel to THE BURNING LANDS

Romara Challys and her Falcons are Vestal Knights, who have shed blood to uphold the Triple Empire against the destructive Vyr Rebellion. But now, the Falcons have become the empire's enemy.

Having learned that elobyne, the magical crystal that empowers the knights, is catastrophically destructive, the Falcons vow to save their world. But speaking truth to power is perilous, and Romara is the empire's prisoner, facing a torture and death at the hands of her former masters. Her comrades, big-hearted Gram, the prodigy Soren, and the erling mage Elindhu, are seeking her rescue, but the forces arrayed against them seem insurmountable.

Meanwhile, her loyal second, Jadyn, and the mercurial thief Aura, are seeking the aegis, an alternative magic, following a path laid down centuries before. But hunting them are Vazi Virago, the Order's Exemplar, and the fearsome lictor, Yoryn Borghart; who want the aegis for their own devious ends.

The seas are rising, harvests are failing, refugees flooding across borders are sparking wars, and the destructive rebellion threatens civilisation. The End of All Things is coming, the priests and seers say. Coros is doomed.
If the Falcons can't save their world, who can?

'Full of nuanced, loveable characters whose complex relationships with each other and with themselves make The Burning Land a compulsively readable adventure not to be missed!' Sebastien de Castell, author of The Malevolent Seven

Release date: February 13, 2025

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 400

Sample

What Has Gone Before

 

 

 

The world of Coros is being devastated by an ecological crisis, with endless droughts, rising seas and failing harvests. The Hierophant, the God-­Emperor Eindil Pandramion III, ruler of the Triple Empire, claims on the advice of his mage-­scholars that this is nothing more than an entirely natural super-­cycle, and he reassures his people that it won’t last.

But at least one scholar disagrees. Nilis Evandriel has been declared renegade for declaring that the crisis is caused by elobyne shards, crystal pillars sited throughout the empire, which he claims are leeching life from the ground, the foliage and all living things. That energy is used to wield glyma, a magic power used by the mighty Vestal knights to defend the Triple Empire. It is also used by the shape-­changing vyr to wage guerrilla warfare against the empire. Neither will relinquish that power, and all the while, Coros spirals deeper into chaos.

Mastering glyma requires immense mental and physical control, which the Vestal knights deal with by demanding rigorous discipline of their knights and mages – and they are ruthless with those who fail. Most Vestals have an active career of only a dozen years, retiring when their control of the glyma begins to slip. In contrast, the vorloks (mages) and draegar (knights) of the vyr surrender to the maelstrom of the glyma, gaining stronger powers, like the abilities to incite berserk battle-­fury and shape-­changing among their followers – but their lack of control turns most into raging monsters who perish quickly.

 

Nevertheless, the Vyr Rebellion is growing, year by year, their campaign based on destroying the elobyne shards in devastating fires that are ravaging the countryside and speeding the ecological crisis. The future of Coros is at stake, and the battle lines drawn.

 

Romara Challys leads the Falcon Century, one hundred men-­at-­arms of the Vestal Order, alongside the glyma-­users of her ‘pentacle’: Jadyn Kaen (whom Romara loves); Ghaneen Suul; the veteran Abuthan Obanji Vost; and the mage, Elindhu Morspeth. The Falcons are currently stationed on Avas Island, helping to evacuate the islanders, whose homeland has been ravaged by vyr.

Amid the chaos, three fateful events occur. First, during a life-­or-­death mêlée, Romara loses control of her glyma. Her comrades cover for her, but she knows she must retire as soon as they get to safety.

Then Ghaneen is slain by the vyr – but a young refugee, Soren var’Dael, accidently sparks the dead knight’s elobyne blade to life, revealing himself to be capable of wielding glyma. Soren is taken from his family and inducted into the Order as an initiate.

Finally, the Falcons capture one of the attackers, Gram Larch. As the man showed no signs of shape-­changing, Jadyn and Romara decide to interrogate him – despite a rule that only the imperial lictors, the Justiciary arm of the Order, are permitted to question vyr. They are desperate to understand why the vyr are destroying the land.

Under questioning, Gram echoes the words of the renegade scholar Nilis Evandriel: that elobyne shards are destroying the world. But he also reveals a new thing: a spell, Oculus Tempus, which will, he says, prove Evandriel’s claims. It’s a spell on the ‘forbidden list’, one which even Elindhu doesn’t know how to cast.

The Falcons are evacuated to Gaudien, a port on the mainland. There they are debriefed by the lictor Yoryn Borghart, who has been tipped off about the illegal interrogation and threatens Romara and Jadyn with severe penalties. Romara expects her Order’s commander, Corbus Ritter, to stand by them, but he refuses, as he’s entangled with House Sandreth, enemies of Romara’s family. Elan Sandreth wants to force Romara into marriage to gain her family’s wealth, then have her locked up. He uses Jadyn’s arrest as leverage, threatening execution if Romara doesn’t comply.

 

Romara breaks into the dungeons and frees Jadyn, along with Gram and another prisoner, Auranuschka (‘Aura’) Perafi, a Nepari thief. Aura proves invaluable, using her underworld contacts to help the fugitive knights, along with Romara’s loyal comrades

Obanji and Elindhu and the new initiate, Soren, escape by ship.

Now outlaws, Romara and Jadyn decide to investigate Nilis Evandriel’s claims as a means of redemption. They sail to Solabas, and then head for Neparia, where Gram says Nilis Evandriel can be found. They’re pursued by Yoryn Borghart, Elan Sandreth and Romara’s former mentor, Tevas Nicolini. Borghart uses portali gates to enter the ‘Shadowland’ where time and distance are distorted, enabling rapid pursuit.

During the chase, Romara is increasingly drawn to Gram, but her relationship with Jadyn becomes strained. Their love grew in the regulated world of the Order, where passions are forbidden. Outside that environment, it begins to fray.

This is partly because Romara’s loss of control is mitigated by Gram; as a potential vorlok, he has the innate ability to leech glyma-­energy from her, preventing her from having a complete breakdown, but creating a co-­dependency. Meanwhile, Aura is revealed to share an unnamed precognitive talent with Jadyn.

Closely pursued by Borghart and the Order, the Falcons cross Semmanath-­Tuhr, a mountain valley peopled by erlings, the oldest inhabitants of Coros. They once dominated the north, but were driven out in ancient times; those who remain retreated to the wild, just a remnant of the once-­dominant civilisation.

When the Falcons are assailed by a wild erling, Jadyn kills it – and is accused of murder by the erlings. To prevent erling retribution, Elindhu is forced to reveal her deepest secret: she is in fact an erling herself – a ‘Rann’, or princess – and has been masquerading as human, using her people’s shapeshifting skills, to learn the truth about Nilis Evandriel’s claims. This severely strains the pentacle’s unity, but friendship prevails, mostly thanks to Obanji, who is quietly in love with Elindhu and doesn’t care what race she is.

 

The Falcons reach the village of Sancta Cara in Neparia, only to discover from the local vyr coven leader that Evandriel has retreated into the mountains, researching the Sanctor Wardens, an ancient order of knights who preceded the Vestal Order. Agynea tells them the Wardens used a type of magic known as the aegis, which doesn’t require elobyne, but they were massacred by the Vestal Order, centuries ago. She also speaks of ninneva, a state of grace that some vyr attain, that holds the glyma-­madness at bay.

Disillusioned by increasing evidence that their beloved Order is the iron fist of a tyranny, Romara’s pentacle press on, hoping to overtake Evandriel and learn the whole truth, but Borghart and his allies are gaining on them. The lictor kills Agynea and her people, after forcing her to reveal where Romara’s group are going.

The Falcons find a mountain-­top stone circle of eight thrones etched with ancient runes. The sun goes down as Borghart’s men are closing in – but somehow, they manage to open a mysterious portal, which transports them to the ruins of an ancient Sanctor Warden base. Jadyn and Aura discover they alone have been marked with runes on their palms – which further tests Romara’s bond with Jadyn. The universe appears to be driving them apart.

The Falcons follow the trail further and find the lost monastery of Vanashta Baanholt, where legend says the Sanctor Wardens learned the aegis. But as they arrive, they are surrounded by soldiers of the Vestal Order, led by Vazi Virago, the Exemplar (champion knight)

of the Vestal Order. She is there with her century to study, then destroy, the monastery.

Romara persuades Vazi that her Falcons are there for the same reason. Vazi is excited to learn of Jadyn’s palm-­marks, which match sigils found in the caverns beneath the monastery. But Romara’s deception is revealed when Borghart and his men arrive. The Falcons flee into underground tunnels below the monastery, seeking a way out. Jadyn and Aura manage to open the huge locked doors trapping them – but they lead only to a ledge and a broken bridge over a vast void. Facing capture or death, the Falcons fight heroically, buying time for Jadyn and Aura to trigger a vestige of the aegis: the destroyed bridge reforms, but it bears only those with the aegis marks. Jadyn and Aura escape over the mystic bridge, but Vazi kills Obanji, Soren and Elindhu fall into the void, and Romara and Gram are captured.

 

 

Jadyn and Aura land on a tiny island off Neparia, where they find a note from Nilis Evandriel, urging ‘Those who Follow’ to journey on ‘to the centre of the world’.

The void beneath the ledge was an illusion concealing an underwater river – Soren would have drowned, but Elindhu keeps him alive. Exhausted, still perilously close to their enemies, they are rescued by an erling, Fynarhea of Semmanath-­Tuhr, who has been shadowing Elindhu to protect her.

Gram and Romara wake to captivity. Wounded and bereft, they take comfort in each other’s presence. Their captors, Vazi Virago and Yoryn Borghart, must confront the alarming fact that during that final confrontation, the aegis-­bridge momentarily bore their weight, hinting that they too might be capable of learning the forbidden aegis. To pursue Jadyn and Aura, they will need that power, but that risks falling into heresy themselves. 

 

Prologue

The End is Nigh

Salvation

Akka the Righteous is a just God, who offers eternal salvation. Elysia the Merciful, his Handmaiden, intercedes for us before His sacred throne, so that we the faithful may be raised up at the End of Days, and dwell in His light for ever. Unbelievers shall be cast into the Devourer’s Maw for all eternity.

Patriarch Vyne, at the coronation of Eindil III, 1454

 

On one level, it astounds me that people will give up their hard-­earned money for priests to squander on monuments and gluttony. But then again, I’m not surprised at all, because those who dare question the orthodoxy are derided, ostracised, beaten and murdered; all the while being threatened with eternal damnation. What chance do the rational have against these fanatics?

Nilis Evandriel, renegade scholar, 1469

Petraxus, Talmont

Autumn 1472

 

Eindil Pandramion III, the Hierophant, God-­Emperor of Talmont, Zynochia and Abutha, shifted uncomfortably on the Throne of Pearl, his thoughts trapped in a spiral of despondency, despite the circling priests with their swinging censers sending plumes of holy incense to the gilded ceiling, their sonorous voices begging Akka to cleanse His humble servant – Eindil himself – of all sin.

It was vaguely amusing, given it was theologically impossible for Eindil to sin. Scripture proclaimed him faultless, his every deed sanctioned by Heaven: a Living God, with dominion over Earth and Sky. Paradise awaited him, no matter what he did.

 

‘In Paradise, we are cleansed of desire, cleansed of all hunger,’ the priests chanted.

But I don’t wish to be cleansed of desire and hunger, Eindil thought. I wish to be desirous and hungry, so long as my desires and hungers can be sated. As they are, right here.

His life contained everything he wanted – or almost everything. He had gigantic palaces filled with every luxury imaginable, and thirty beautiful wives to choose from. He had myriad children and grandchildren to dote upon. Every man alive was subservient to him. These were things all wished for. But it was that which he didn’t have that consumed him.

Where is she? My Vazi Virago – where is she?

According to reports, the Exemplar was hunting heretics in the south. Her perfect face swam before his eyes, a divine visage wrought in burnished copper, framed by glorious ebony hair and the most lustrous golden-­brown eyes. A child of the Zynochian caliphates, so young and delicate-­looking, and yet she was the greatest sorcerer-­knight alive.

I am sixty years old, but when she is in my presence I feel like a stammering boy.

The day he finally possessed her would be the day he truly attained Akka’s Paradise.

A gong roused him from reverie, signalling the end of the morning’s blessing, and he gazed blinking upon this many-­pillared hall in his Holy Palace in mighty Petraxus. Hierophants had ruled Coros from here for two centuries now, ever since Jovan Lux revealed the sacred elobyne and united the three great powers, Talmont, Zynochia and Abutha, into the Triple Empire. Jovan’s holy blood ran in Eindil’s veins, but still he was afraid.

Will I be the last? Have we come to the End of All Things?

As the priests shuffled away, Eindil signed to Robias, his stentor, both herald and major-­domo, to approach. Robias was a typical Aquini, a race prone to baldness. His pate gleamed in the lamplight as he knelt to kiss the footprint of Jovan on the lowest step, then sat back on his heels and unfurled a scroll.

 

‘Good morning, Great One,’ he said. ‘Greetings on this Holy Day. May Heaven shine its light upon you. Let Elysia wash away all your pain and discomfort and Akka bless you

with insight and wisdom.’

It might be a Holy Day, Eindil’s weekly break from court duties and advisors, but with his empire afflicted by disasters and rebellion, he had to stay abreast of current events.

‘Ar-­byan, Robias,’ Eindil replied. May it be. ‘What tidings?’

Robias consulted his scroll. ‘Seven coursers arrived overnight, Great One. One came from the Caliph of Bedum-­Mutaza, with greetings and love, extending his formal invitation for his city to be your quadrennial residence. He assures you that all is prepared.’

One of the traditions established by Jovan Lux was for the reigning Hierophant to spend every second year in Petraxus, while the alternate years he would alternate between Dagoz, the capital of Abutha, and Bedum-­Mutaza, the centre of the old Zynochian Empire. The palaces there were magnificent, but Eindil was a child of the north; he loathed the heat and simmering resentment in the south.

Tradition was tradition, however. ‘That is well,’ he responded, for the court scribes to record. ‘I eagerly await my return to my beloved Bedum-­Mutaza, and the joy of seeing his Highness, my cousin, again.’

The next six missives were all bad. The island of Shyll, last of the empire’s possessions in the northwestern archipelago, had fallen to vyr rebels, with twelve elobyne shards destroyed. Grain riots in Mardium, Lerzia and Bespar, on the coast of the Inner Seas. An earthquake in Viromund, with hundreds dead and thousands displaced. And vyr attacks in southern Bravantia had burned out swathes of grain fields. The armies were already overstretched and the Vestal Order couldn’t be everywhere.

It was a struggle not to let his head hang.

‘Any word from Dagoz and Bedum-­Mutaza of rebellions there?’ Eindil asked.

‘Nothing official, Great One.’ Which told him, unofficially, that the news was bad and he’d learn more in a less public setting.

 

The foundation of the Triple Empire had ended open war on Coros. Talmont had elobyne, the sorcerous crystal that empowered the Vestal Order to rule any battlefield, but the north lacked manpower, unlike their heavily populated southern rivals, Abutha and Zynochia. Jovan Lux’s genius had been not to overthrow but to unite the powerful southern rulers under his ambit. As well as taking ten northern brides, he’d married ten Zynochi and ten Abuthan women, creating a multi-­racial elite who owned everything. Inside two generations, every throne on Coros was ruled by one of his descendants, and Abutha and Zynochia were as invested in the success of the Triple Empire as Talmont – and they were all yoked together by their dependence upon elobyne.

Open warfare might have ceased, but internecine vendettas, rivalries and resentment remained as toxic as ever, however. Empire politics were a perennial bloodbath, even for hierophants, whose reigns seldom exceeded ten years. Four had been murdered in the south by kin, hushed up as untimely illnesses so as not to alarm the populace. His reluctance to travel there wasn’t just based on comfort.

‘Is there no good news, Robias?’ Eindil asked tiredly.

‘Happiness comes from bird song, Great One, not coursers,’ the herald quipped.

No, then.

Eindil tried to appreciate the vivid morning sunlight streaming through the massive stained-­glass windows, creating shifting shafts of glorious red and green and blue light that penetrated the smoke of the censers, a magical display of Heaven’s Light.

All is not lost, that Light proclaimed. He wasn’t convinced.

But the day awaited. He rose and went to his Mentus Sanctorum to await this morning’s Confessor. It might be yet another pointless piece of ritual, but at least this one came with coffee. He trailed Robias through the maze of corridors behind the throne hall, barely noticing the grovelling servants, their faces pressed to the floors, out of the shadowy halls into the light.

The gardens were awash with roses, the scents dispersed by the playing fountains. Statues of nymeths and huirnes cavorted lasciviously along the path to the meditation chamber, a wonder of marble lattice-­work. A coffee pot steamed on a stool beside the low but ornate throne and Robias was already pouring as Eindil sat.

 

He had just taken a first sip when a white-­robed and hooded figure emerged from the garden – and Eindil realised it wasn’t a Confessor.

Assassin, was his first thought – and Robias began to signal the nearby guards. But the hooded man raised his head, showing just enough of his face for Eindil to recognise him. His fears of untimely death vanished – but not his fears of worse.

‘Leave us,’ he told Robias. ‘Take the guards out of earshot. All is well.’

If Robias heard the fear in his voice, he didn’t react, signalling the soldiers to withdraw, then sitting on a stone seat within calling range.

Eindil took a shaky breath. ‘Father,’ he said hoarsely. ‘How do you fare?’

The newcomer sat opposite him and lowered his hood, revealing a man in his prime – no, beyond his prime, for Genadius Pandramion II had never been so flawlessly perfect. His skin was smooth and unblemished, without even a hint of stubble; his thick hair was perfectly styled, blond again, as it had been in his youth. His frame was muscular, lithe. Only his eyes, grey and unwavering, gave any hint of his true age.

He’d died thirty years ago, aged seventy.

‘I am well, my son,’ he replied, his voice free of the rheumy tones Eindil remembered. ‘And you?’ Their conversations had always been stilted and formal.

‘I grow old,’ Eindil said wistfully. ‘The Sunburst Crown is heavy.’

Genadius nodded. ‘I remember it well, the weight of the world crushing my skull. I was grateful to pass it on.’

The Church taught that hierophants did not die as mortals did. So beloved of Akka were they, that they were taken bodily to Paradise. There were no tombs of past hierophants, only memorials. Eindil’s father had been dying in his bed one night, his body gone by morning.

And now this.

Eindil had thought it religious nonsense before he ascended the throne and met such ‘Alephi’ – the Undying – on previous visits to Nexus Isle, where it was said all the dead hierophants now dwelt in harmony, serving Jovan Lux.

 

But he’d never been visited by an Alephi – or Serrafim, as the Church named them – here in the palace in daylight. ‘Why are you here, Father?’

Dear Akka, does he know it was I who poisoned him?

‘I come to tell you that the

 time is nigh,’ Genadius replied. ‘The End of All Things approaches.’

His words confirmed all his suspicions. Coros was destroying itself. An Age of Fire was upon them, bringing death, plague, war, fire and flood. The soil was drying, the snows melting and the seas rising, while the pitiless sun burned the land black.

Nothing can be done, the priests said. This is fated.

‘What must I do?’ Eindil asked fearfully.

‘To quote Scripture: “The Serrafim shall mark the Faithful for Elysium, the sanctuary of the faithful,”’ Genadius replied. ‘One man in a thousand shall live, and the rest shall burn. The end cannot be stopped: all you can do is decide whom you wish to save.”’

Eindil reeled. Is it so far advanced? ‘How shall I know who to save?’

Genadius smiled coldly. ‘That’s up to you. My advice: if you like them, trust them or desire them, preserve them. If you like their singing or their art, or their cooking, save them. But remember: One man in a thousand. And though I say “man”, I include women, for what is forever without them?’

It was a crushing responsibility – and who knew that Paradise would be so venal? But Scripture also said, In Paradise as it is on Coros.

‘Where is Elysium?’ he asked. ‘Will we be taken up into the skies?’

‘No, my son. Paradise will be revealed to you. We are building it right now, a holy place the unwashed and blighted can’t reach. Within it, we will dwell in eternal bliss, while outside the walls, the wretched sinners will wail and gnash their teeth. That is how life is: the deserving are rewarded, while the undeserving perish.’

Eindil shuddered. ‘One man in a thousand?’

‘Aye.’ Genadius rose. ‘Be strong, my son. Protect the elobyne at all costs, for on it our salvation rests. Even if the whole of the world rises against us, hold firm. It is sad, but not all can be saved. Harvests will fail and disasters multiply, but hold the course and know that all is according to Akka’s will.’

 

‘His will be done,’ Eindil echoed, his mind churning. ‘Father, what’s it like—?’

Genadius smiled his reptilian smile. ‘I have no discomfort, no pain. No illness nor imperfection. Food and drink are optional – glyma-­energy provides me with all I need. I am perfected, as you will be.’

‘Was Mother also saved? I would love to see her!’ Memories of her kindly face, her long, soft grey hair scented with camellias, washed over Eindil. She had been a giver of life and love when his father was distant and cold. All these years later, he still felt her absence – none of the grasping whore-­brides he’d wed could fill her place in his heart.

Genadius shook his head. ‘She was not worthy.’

‘But you said, “choose who you will”,’ Eindil blurted. ‘You could’ve saved her.’

‘But I didn’t,’ Genadius said dismissively. ‘She is gone forever, my son. Even I cannot restore her. But mourn her not. Think only of the Paradise of Elysium that awaits us.’

With that, he rose and swiftly vanished into the depths of the lush garden.

He could have saved Mother . . . Why wasn’t she ‘worthy? Eindil wondered.

Scripture might say she was with Elysia, but clearly she was just dirt now, and the Elysium the Alephi were creating would never welcome her. He would never sink into her arms and find true peace again.

But he could make his father pay.

Eindil bade Robias bring him a blank scroll, ink and a quill. On the parchment he wrote the first name of those he would save: Vaziella al’Nuqheel, known to the world as Vazi Virago, Exemplar of the Vestal Knights, the greatest knight alive, and his only dream. She would be his avenging angel.

Let the world burn, so long as in the end there is just her and I . . . standing over my father’s corpse. Ar-­byan.

 

Part One

TO THE HEART

 

1

Scattered and Lost

Akka’s Blessing

The Rich say, ‘Look, Akka has blessed me with wealth.’ The Beautiful say, ‘Look, Akka has blessed me with beauty.’ The Happy say, ‘Akka has blessed me with happiness.’ By extension, one might be tempted to see the poor and ugly and miserable as cursed. But Akka is a loving God, and at the End of All Things, the Righteous shall be given all that they lacked in life. Do not envy your betters, but live in Righteousness. Rejoice in your lowliness, for nature has made you lesser only in this life, not for eternity.

The Teachings of Jovan Lux, 1282

Cap San Yarido, Neparia

Autumn 1472

 

It was morning, bright and blue, but all Sier Jadyn Kaen saw was grey. He sat on a boulder beside the sea, beneath an abandoned half-­ruined lighthouse on a tiny islet, gazing across the waters at a shabby little port at the southeastern tip of Neparia.

Auranuschka Perafi, his travelling companion, was asleep in the tower. Not long after their arrival via the Shadowland, she’d collapsed on the bed and winked out like a snuffed candle. But Jadyn was too overwhelmed by revelations, impossibilities and loss to sleep.

Their opposite reactions were typical – Aura often felt like another species to him – but now they were bound together by the aegis, the power the ancient Sanctor Wardens had once wielded, even though neither knew what it was or how to use it.

He looked again at the note they’d found in the tower above.

 

 

To those who follow. If you are a fellow seeker of truth and enlightenment, marked by destiny, as I have been, then you are my soul-­kindred, a pilgrim on the road towards revelation.

Journey on, my friend, knowing that I have gone before. We are treading a path laid down long ago by wiser men than me. Perchance, we shall meet along the way.

Seek the Shield of Heaven, where earth kisses sky at the centre of the world.

 

It was signed by Nilis Evandriel, a man Jadyn had crossed half the known world to find. This was the closest he’d come to the elusive scholar, while he’d lost everyone he loved.

I saw Obanji die; Elindhu and Soren fell into the void, and Romara and Gram are surely prisoners, slated for torture and death.

Going on without them felt impossible, but he was marked for the aegis – by scars burned onto his palms – and so was Aura. There was no going back in any case: the path that had led them here was closed. There was only onwards, and he was increasingly certain that the fate of Coros was at stake.

There’s no doubt any more – elobyne shards are destroying our world, and millions will perish, but our rulers care only about their grip on power and wealth and their own safety.

It was enough to make him weep.

He didn’t, though – Vestal knights were made stoic – so he just stared glassy-­eyed at the glistening water, too tired to think. He’d been awake for almost three days, after all.

With a groan, he rose and walked back into the lighthouse.

It was only a short climb, but it felt like ascending the Qor-­Espina. At the top he found Aura still dead to the world, sprawled across the only bed. He glanced in the mirror through which they had arrived, which reflected a hollow-­eyed man with unruly brown hair, his boyish face too lined for someone yet to turn thirty. His cloak was ripped and bloodstained, his green erling tunic little better.

 

He unbuckled his shoulder scabbard and propped his two-­handed flamberge against the wall, feeling too fragile to deal with any kind of glyma use just now, even to veil himself. It’d break

me, the way it broke Romara.

Thinking about her and Gram in captivity was too painful to bear.

He replaced Evandriel’s note on the desk where they’d found it, then looked at the sleeping woman. Aura was Nepari, with thick black hair and coppery-­olive skin blemished by old nicks and cuts, though she was only about twenty. Awake, she was lively, full of cheek and curiosity, but she’d lived the sort of life that ‘good folk’ deplored, stealing and duping the unwary, even earning money with her body when all else failed. Her morality was not his. Yet fate had thrown them together and her smile sparked something inside him that made him feel like a moth circling her flame. He hoped she might put aside her worst traits and become the person he sometimes glimpsed behind her cloak of deviousness.

As if sensing his regard, Aura’s eyes flickered open. For a moment she flinched at waking to find someone looming over her, then her face cleared. ‘Oh, just be Jadyn Knight. Buenos dios. You have sleeped? No?’ She rolled against the wall, leaving room on the narrow bed, and patted it. ‘Come, lie.’

His ingrained decorum and prudery flared up. ‘I can’t.’

She tsked at him. ‘Why? No glyma inside you now, so no danger. Come, lie.’

She was right that he was drained entirely of glyma-­energy – and he wasn’t a Knight of the Order of the Vestments of Elysia Divina any more, in any case. But his need to control body and mind remained. Glyma use required total control, and that always failed during sex, with fatal results for the partner. For that reason Vestal knights took vows of chastity. He couldn’t tell if Aura really wanted to bed him or was just teasing, but the loss of Romara and the others was like a stone in his belly. All he wanted was to grieve. Alone.

‘You go back to sleep,’ he told her. ‘I’ll be downstairs. It’s cooler there.’

With that he turned and tramped down the stairs, found a spot against the wall, rolled his cloak into a pillow and closed his eyes. Even though he was drowning in grief, he floated away into the dark.

 

 

Poor Jadyn Knight. Aura strove to return to sleep, but his stricken face kept dragging her back to wakefulness. She’d wanted to comfort him, just to hold him, nothing else, but his Order’s ingrained strictures, even though they no longer applied to him, were a barrier she couldn’t overcome. It was as if misery was his only joy.

Stupid man, why do I care?

But she did: he’d saved her life, and she’d saved his. They’d laughed and cried together, shared wondrous things, and she knew in her bones that if she had to throw herself between him and danger, she would. He was honest, caring and dependable, all words she’d once despised – but no longer. And in tantalising moments, she’d seen strength and passion too. If she could just free him from all the chains wrapped round his soul, she knew they could make each other happy, if only for a time.

Before the Order finds and kills us . . .

All her lovers – and there had been a number, though not so many as everyone thought – had been his opposite: wild and exciting, but unreliable and self-­serving, men who stirred her blood and loins, but lacked a heart. Even Sergio Landanez, her greatest love, had been a faithless scoundrel, yet she’d been infatuated, utterly in

love – right up to the minute he’d sailed away, stranding her in Port Gaudien. It still felt inexplicable.

So much had happened since then: she’d been the prisoner of a mad lictor who played cruel games with her; then she’d travelled with Vestal knights, and even discovered the potential to use a lost magic. Looking back, she wouldn’t have changed anything.

Except maybe that Jadyn Knight cares for me . . .

At first, she’d amused herself playing with his affections, because he was so naïve and sheltered that she couldn’t resist some mischief. But she now realised he was a rare true soul in a harsh world – and the aegis had knotted their paths together. He and I are fated to be, she mused. I just have to be patient. I can do that.

 

With that, she rose, tiptoed to the ground floor, past the snoring Jadyn, his boyish face finally at peace, and clambered down to the rocks to seek shellfish. She pulled out her knife – one of six secreted up her sleeves, down her boot-­tops, in her bodice and between her shoulder-­blades – and found a few promising-­looking clams. As she foraged, boats came and went from the little fishing village across the waves, but none came near.

The tide was receding, she realised, and as she studied the water between the islet and the beach, she grinned. There was a sandbar below the surface.

In hour or two, we can walk to the shore.

She gathered the clams in her skirt and headed back to the tower. Jadyn was still so deeply asleep she was able to start a fire using driftwood and a flint she found beside the hearth without him even stirring. She boiled the clams in a billy she’d found in the tower’s tiny kitchen. When they popped open, she shook him awake. ‘Jadyn Knight, be lunching time.’

He came to blearily, smiled at her dreamily, then she saw the memories hit as his face fell and his eyes welled up. He looked away, brushing at them. ‘What is it?’

‘Food,’ she said brightly. ‘Che marisco – seafood, si?’

‘Si, I see the seafood, see-­nora,’ he quipped tiredly.

‘Idiot. Come, eat.’

She drained the clams and took the billy outside, where they sat with their backs to the lighthouse shaft and gazed at the distant coast. ‘Oh, look,’ Jadyn said. ‘There’s a sandbank running all the way into the beach.’

‘Am knowing. Soon be low tide. We . . . what is word – “wade”? – si, we wade for shore.’

‘For sure, we’ll wade for the foreshore,’ Jadyn replied, winking.

‘Stopping now, not funny. When you be speaking seven languages like Aura, Jadyn can make word jokes.’

‘Sorry.’ He flashed his heart-­melting grin and indicated the shellfish. ‘Are they safe?’

‘Not knowing. You go first.’

 

He snorted wryly, but took a clam, shucked and ate it. She waited for him to turn green and vomit, but instead he reached for another. ‘They’re tasty.’

‘So Jadyn liking Aura’s clam,’ she giggled, making him blush. ‘What, joke not funny?’

‘Not proper,’ he mumbled, looking away.

All too soon the meal

was over, but their bellies still felt empty. Aura sighed in disappointment, then faced him, feeling a touch mischievous. ‘So, Aura be learning Talmoni language. Have question. Jadyn help?’

‘Of course.’

‘There be Nepari word, generamoro, which is love for parents,’ she told him. ‘What is word in Talmoni?’

Jadyn frowned. ‘Um, we just say “love”.’

‘Ah, si. So, word in Nepari, filiamoro, is love for brother. In Talmoni?’

‘Um, we just say love again.’

‘And sotreyamora, love for sister?’

He wrinkled his nose. ‘Aye, that’s “love”, too.’

‘And divinamoro, love of God?’

‘Love.’

‘And amaratomori, the love of passion, wild and uncontrolled sexing?’

He coloured again. ‘Love.’

‘And the mascomora, the love for pet dog?’

‘Uh, “love”.’

She gave him a look. ‘Is big word for small word, this “love”. Neya precisamento! No wondering Talmoni cannot express true feeling.’

He shrugged. ‘I guess not. But that makes it a safer word. If love can mean anything from care to respect to, er, passion, then no one has to define it precisely, so we can imagine the best and carry on.’

‘Or imaginate worst,’ Aura pointed out.

‘True.’ He looked away. ‘Aura, I don’t want to talk about love, or anything else. Thanks for the meal.’

Then he stood and drew his sword, and she felt a frisson of fear – not of him, but for him.

‘Jadyn? What you doing?’ she asked anxiously.

 

 

What am I doing? Jadyn examined his flamberge thoughtfully. It was beautifully made, the grip long-­handled, for two hands, the wavy-­edged blade flat-­planed with ripples in the steel-like water. It was hugely valuable – and deadly, especially the milky crystal orb set in the pommel. If he drew on that orb now, energy would course into his system, filling his muscles and tendons with glyma-­energy and vitality, and his nerves with jittery, edgy anger. And just like that, he’d be back to where he started this journey, fighting himself, battling the demons of fury, always on the edge of being consumed by blood-­fury, like the vyr they fought.

He’d wielded a flamberge for ten harrowing years. He’d killed those the Order told him to, and helped preserve an empire he’d now decided to bring down. Owning it somehow felt perilous, marking him out as something he no longer wanted to be. And there was clear evidence that the glyma and the aegis were at least partially inimical; to pursue one, he increasingly suspected, was to undermine the other.

Moreover, he felt he needed to make a gesture of commitment to the aegis. So he drew back his arm – and threw. The flamberge caught the sunlight as it arced out over the waves and plunged in with a splash, vanishing in a wash of ripples.

Aura came to her feet, 

wide-­eyed. ‘What?’ she spluttered. ‘What is doing?’

‘I didn’t need it any more,’ he told her. ‘I will only use the aegis now.’

‘E Cara! You not even know what aegis is!’ She stared at him, utterly aghast, then sagged. ‘Stupido,’ she muttered. ‘Stupido.’

‘Why? I don’t want it, and it’ll draw unwanted attention. So it’s better we don’t have it.’

She patted her empty belt-­purse. ‘You have money? No. You sell sword, make money. Then we have horses, sleep in tavern, buy new clothings? But no, stupido hombre throws sword into sea! E Cara mia!’

Watching her work herself into a rage was often diverting, but he wasn’t in the mood. ‘There’s no one in that village over there who can give us what it’s worth, and it would mark us out. We’re better off without.’

 

‘Si, that village be scum-­puddle! But big port next bay, half-­day travel. Sell easy!’ She gave him an exasperated look. ‘Imbecilio! How now we pay for travel, eh?’

‘We’ll work our passage.’

‘Work?’ She stamped her foot. ‘Si, man can work, sail ship. But woman like Aura – beauteous, wondrous woman – men want for whoring only! Maybe you want too, eh? Make whore do whoring!’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘You’re overdramatising. I’ll do the work, and I’ll protect you.’

‘With what?’ she shrilled. ‘Your big sword?’ She flung up her hands. ‘Am not dramaticoso! Am resonating and calming, you stupido knight-­wit!’ She pointed out to sea. ‘Dive in, find! Or Aura do!’

‘Go ahead. But I’m not going after it.’ He gestured dismissively.

Aura hissed, then tossed up her hands. ‘Fino. Then we go, si? Break mirror, burn note so no one can follow, then go?’

Jadyn thought about that, then shook his head. ‘I’m not so sure. If Nilis Evandriel hadn’t left that note – or if he’d sabotaged the mirror-­gate – we’d have been stranded and probably died. In good conscience, I can’t do that to someone else.’

Aura gave him a pitying look. ‘You saw Exemplar Woman and Bad Lictor? They stand on bridge – only Aura making bridge break stops them follow us. We must close pathing.’

‘No, remember what we were told about the aegis? It’s a state of grace. I believe that in finding the aegis, we will also find enlightenment – which means that Vazi Virago and Yoryn Borghart will too. So I’m prepared to take the risk.’

She gave him a raw look. ‘This be Exemplar Woman and Bad Lictor: woman who kill friend Obanji, capture others. Man who torture Aura. They not en-­lighted. They be evil.’

She might be right about that, he admitted to himself. But she might also be wrong.

‘I’ve decided.’

‘Why you decide?’ she flared. ‘Why not Aura decide? Because she be only a woman?’

‘No! Because . . . well, I’m more experienced—’

 

‘Experienced?’ Her eyebrows shot up. ‘You be naïve halfwit.’ Then she threw her hands up. ‘Whatever, eh. Man decide, woman obey, same as always.’ She spun, stomped her way down to the water and began wading towards the other shore.

He cursed and hurried after her.

The receding tide was strong and Aura with her slighter build was soon struggling. Jadyn offered his hand – which she refused with an exasperated hiss – as a rogue wave hit them and took them both under. Soaking wet, they stumbled ashore.

‘What use be magic that not keep Aura dry?’ Aura fumed.

‘To be fair, the glyma would’ve been little help either,’ Jadyn started, but Aura was off.

‘Huh – we have no food. Magic provide? No, cannot. Have no blanket, no money. Magic provide? No. Have no horse, not even other clothings. Magic provide? No, magic useless—’

‘I wish there were a spell to conjure such things,’ Jadyn told her. He gazed along the beach in the direction of the fishing village. His belly was rumbling and his throat dry, but the chances of walking into a foreign place in their current state and not being assailed were remote. ‘How far to that big port you spoke of?’

‘Am not knowing – have only sailed, not walked,’ Aura grumbled. ‘Only peasant walks.’

‘Fair enough. East or west?’

She looked at him, her face resigned. ‘East.’

‘Come on, then. We’ll wash and refill the water bottles at the first freshwater stream, work our way around the village and find that port.’

 

Neparia’s coast was rugged and unforgiving, the soil thin and arid. Powerful storms could blow in at any time from the vast expanse of ocean to the west, claiming ships and crews. But to survive, let alone prosper, people had to gamble on the whims of the sea, so settlements clung on tenaciously.

Jadyn and Aura saw many abandoned farm buildings but few people as they passed inland of the fishing village. The stony paths were punishing to walk on, the heat was sapping and their salt-­encrusted clothing chafed their skin. When they finally found a freshwater stream, they took turns to stand watch while the other bathed and rinsed clothing, then put them back on wet; they would have to dry on their bodies as they walked.

 

Just before dusk, they found a track leading down to a ramshackle port, where a mass of houses clung to the rocky bay like limpets around a rock pool. Jadyn paused on the ridge above, worrying that Aura was right: without something to barter, how could they secure a room or passage? His goal now was Bedum-­Mutaza – surely the ‘centre of the world’ in Evandriel’s note – but it was a thousand kylos east of here.

Neparia was Aura’s homeland, though, and her strut returned at the prospect of interacting with her own people. She combed her fingers through her drying hair, preening. ‘Church give food for poor,’ she told him. ‘Preach at us, boring, but we eat.’

With that she led the way down the slope towards the town, where they found people snoozing in the shade, no one paying any attention to them. They slaked their thirst gratefully at a well in a plaza, then trudged into an Akkanite Church, where there was indeed a small refectory serving what turned out to be a stew of seafood and unleavened

bread. A preacher was droning; Jadyn didn’t need Aura to translate to know the man was speaking about Akka’s love. The lay people serving had kindly faces, but he kept his head down and let Aura do the talking.

The food was plain but filling, and there was a public dormitory for the homeless. Aura warned they were dangerous places at night, but he saw little other option.

‘We do better,’ she replied. ‘Come.’

She led him to the docklands, where sailors of all races and colours were drinking and carousing, and went swaggering through the crowds, flashing her perky smile at anyone glancing her way. The prostitutes manning curtained booths had long queues outside, and impatient men called out to Aura as she swayed past. When one tried to grab her, Jadyn seized the man’s collar and lifted him off his feet.

‘Neyen,’ he growled.

 

‘No problemo, no problemo,’ the sailor squeaked.

Jadyn dropped him, the man went for a knife, so Jadyn kicked him in the jaw – thwack! – and he was down and unmoving. Those watching took a step back, but Aura bent over the stricken sailor and shamelessly removed his purse.

‘You can’t just take his money,’ Jadyn protested, regretting his violent response.

She slipped her arm through his. ‘He want to spend on me – now he do. Come.’

Muttering a pointless apology to the unconscious sailor, Jadyn allowed her to lead him into the nearest tavern, where Aura stopped at the door, her eyes went wide.

‘E Cara mia!’ she squeaked.

‘What is it?’

‘Neyessa – non se posso!’

The large, dim taproom was noisy, thanks to a raucous band in one corner. The air stank of burned food, spilled beer and effluent from the alley outside, which clearly doubled as a pissing chamber. Jadyn couldn’t work out what Aura had seen, until she jerked from his grasp and stalked towards a booth where five men and a woman were drinking.

‘Do you know them?’ he called after her, but she ignored him.

The six strangers looked up and the only woman, a blonde Vorska with startling blue eyes and perfect skin, went white as snow. The rest, a mix of races, all looked stunned – one of them, a young Abuthan, made a warding gesture as if dispelling a ghost.

Then the man at the far end of the table rose. The rakishly handsome Nepari with curling black pigtails and sculpted whiskers, his silk shirt open to the waist, went from shock to gimlet-­eyed calculation in an eye-­blink.

Then he ululated, shouting, ‘Aura! Mia bella! Mia angelica! Se tei? Se vero tei?’

With that, he launched himself over the table, knocking over cups and spilling wine, landed at her feet and lifted her to the ceiling, roaring triumphantly.

 

‘Sergio!’ she shrieked, bouncing in his arms. ‘Mia Sergio – e vero, seti mai—’

She seized his face and kissed him with utter abandon, while the men with him pounded the table. The

rest of the room began cheering, despite having no idea what was going on.

Jadyn finally realised, though. This was Sergio – her lost love.

He wasn’t sure why he was so shocked, or why seeing her kissing another man made his gut twist, when his feelings for her were entirely fraternal. He glanced at the others at the table. The Abuthan boy was watching the reunion mockingly, his disdainful expression odd until Jadyn noticed that his legs were entwined under the table with the older man beside him, a silver fox with hard eyes. Silverhair had the look of the Order about him.

The other two men were ruffians, a giant young Pelasian and a Nepari who looked like kin to Sergio, although his features were coarser. Neither seemed pleased, and the blonde woman was clearly aghast: Sergio’s new lover, or someone who wished she was, Jadyn guessed.

Their eyes met, hers narrowed, then she called in a cold, clear voice, ‘Auranuschka, won’t you introduce your handsome companion?’

Jadyn had never felt less handsome, but her words were no compliment, just a means of gaining Sergio’s attention – and they worked. The tall sea captain peeled his mouth from Aura’s and looked at Jadyn warily.

‘What’s this, amora?’ he asked in Talmoni, presumably for Jadyn’s benefit. ‘You have a new man?’

Aura tore her eyes from Sergio’s face, her chest heaving and face red. For a moment she appeared to have forgotten Jadyn’s name, then she said, ‘Be nobody, whatever, just servant.’

Her words hit Jadyn like a gut-­punch, and Sergio took in his sickly reaction with a dark smile. ‘It’s good to meet you, Nobody Whatever,’ he drawled. ‘Want a drink? You look like you need one.’

‘Aye,’ Jadyn managed. I surely do.

Aura waved a semi-­apologetic hand, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from Sergio.

 

The group made room for them and Sergio placed Aura at his side, opposite the Vorska woman, who was hurling eye-­daggers at them both. Drinks were ordered, along with bread and oil and Zynochian dukkha, and despite the churning in his stomach that definitely wasn’t jealousy, Jadyn ate ravenously.

What was I thinking? he thought. I knew she never gave a damn about me. The times she kissed me – that was just a cruel game. Despite this, he found himself glancing at her constantly, as if seeking reassurance that she was just toying with this rake. But none came: she was hanging on every word her beloved Sergio said, her face adoring.

 

Aura knew she was behaving terribly, but she couldn’t help it. Seeing Sergio again hit her so hard that all rationality vanished. She’d been rehearsing this reunion in her mind for months, but now it was actually happening, nothing felt real. If someone had shaken her awake and she’d found herself back aboard his ship, she wouldn’t have been at all surprised. Sergio, the most handsome, audacious, clever man alive, her soulmate and lover, her conspirator and collaborator, was back in her life as if he’d never left.

But the truth was, three months had passed, and nothing was the same.

That fateful day in

Gaudien, Sergio had sent her with Gostan, one of the crew, to pick up some contraband. But watchmen had burst in on them, Gostan had been killed and she’d had to use all her ingenuity to escape. When she returned to the rented apartment she shared with Sergio, he’d cleared out – along with every coin they had, all her jewellery and possessions – even her clothes. By the time she reached the port, the ship had already weighed anchor.

Worse, her name was now on the Justiciary proscriptions: the list of those who had a bounty on their head. She’d gone into hiding, doing whatever it took to survive, but she’d been caught eventually. That’s when she’d come to the attention of Lictor Borghart, who’d had no compunction about abusing her – until Jadyn Knight’s friends had broken in to rescue him, and she’d managed to tag along.

 

Now I’m Magic Girl on a Quest, she reminded herself. Sergio is my past, not my future.

But why Sergio had abandoned her remained a mystery, one she had to solve.

Jadyn was looking utterly wretched, which was foolish: he was supposed to be her servant – had he forgotten that?

‘It’s amazing to see you all,’ she said in Nepari, beaming at young Ossaman, the Abuthan amatoruno – a lover of the same gender – and his hard-­faced partner, Largan Rameleau, an ex-­knight. She patted the shoulder of Tonio, Sergio’s muscular brother, fully aware he disliked her, and winked at Grigio, the Aquini sailing master.

Was it one of you who sold me out to the Watch? she wondered.

But she doubted that. They’d all been reliable. But Marika was another matter. It was her man, Gostan, who’d been slain that day, but they’d had a violent relationship. Marika was a useless sailor, too, so for her to be here at all meant she was screwing one of them – and it wasn’t hard to work out who.

She must have latched onto Sergio the moment she lost Gostan, Aura realised. Perhaps even persuaded him to abandon me. But that implied she’d been preying on Sergio even before Gostan died, and for all his roving eye, she’d never felt Sergio was being unfaithful. Impossible, surely?

Though she’d been wrong about men before . . .

‘What happened in Gaudien?’ she asked him. ‘Why did you sail away without me?’

The narrowing of Sergio’s pupils told her he was about to lie. ‘I only found out afterwards – I had to think of the crew and the ship,’ he said, not quite managing to meet her eye. ‘Gostan was dead, the Watch were storming the port and you were missing. So we had to run. They pursued us down the coast, so I couldn’t return to northern waters, though I wanted to, but . . .’ He spread his hands. ‘You were already dead. Everyone said so.’

Liar, she thought, but somehow she managed to stay silent. Her eyes went to Marika. Meeting that cold gaze was like crossing blades.

I bet you sold out Gostan and me to clear your path to Sergio.

 

But accusing the Vorska woman without proof would get her nowhere.

‘Aura, what happened to you?’ Tonio asked.

She gave a storyteller’s version: daring escapades replacing the bad times, skimming through her strange incarceration by Borghart, somehow forgetting to mention that Jadyn and his people were Vestals.

‘It’s good to see you again,’ Ossaman said half-­heartedly, when she was done.

‘But things have changed,

’ Marika put in sharply.

‘It’s true,’ Grigio agreed. ‘Everyone’s moved on from those days, Aura. We exchanged our ocean-­going cog for a coastal trader. We’re honest merchants now, running the route from here to Bedum-­Mutaza.’

‘And Sergio and I are together now,’ Marika said possessively.

‘It’s so,’ Sergio confirmed. ‘We’ve put our, um, shady past behind us.’ He shuffled uncomfortably. ‘I can’t take those risks any more. Marika is carrying our baby.’

‘Una bebe?’ Aura blurted, truly shocked now. ‘How?’

‘Oh, the usual way,’ Marika snickered. ‘Or maybe one of the unusual ways? We do get up to all sorts, don’t we, Sergio darling?’

Sergio gave her his ‘shut up, woman’ look, which Aura noticed without pleasure. He’d always told her to protect her womb whilst fertile, rather than risk pregnancy. ‘Our life has no room in it for children,’ he’d told her.

But he’s knocked Marika up instantly, she thought resentfully. Why her?

‘The old life was growing too risky,’ Grigio was saying. ‘Losing Gostan and you in Gaudien was the shock we needed to turn respectable, before our luck ran out.’

All of a sudden, she felt as wretched as Jadyn looked. This dreamed-­of reunion tasted like ash shovelled down her throat.

It also roused her two inner voices: Akka the Skyfather and Urghul the Devourer. If Sergio plies the coastal route, then he’s about to head east, the direction Aura must go, the Devourer noted, her scratchy voice redolent with malice. And he owes her.

He does, Akka added, for once in agreement with the Queen of Evil. But can Aura trust these rogues?

 

Probably not, Urghul sniffed. But who else can she buy passage from?

True, Akka answered.

Go on, girl, ask – no, demand it!

Demanding anything from Sergio usually achieved the opposite – but Aura knew well how to twist him round her finger – or she used to. ‘Dear Sergio, I’m happy for you. And as it happens, I’m seeking a ship to sail east. If you transport me to Bedum-­Mutaza, then all is forgiven and our debt repaid.’

‘What debt?’ Marika demanded.

Sergio hesitated, his eyes flickering to Marika. ‘There’s no, uh . . .’

‘You owe me,’ Aura stated. ‘You sold a ship I helped buy.’

‘We’re not smugglers now, girl—’ Grigio began.

‘She’s not coming aboard our ship—’ Marika snapped.

But Sergio was still captain. He raised a hand for silence. ‘It’s a stain on my honour to have left you behind, Aura. Though it wasn’t my fault,’ he added quickly. ‘Of course we’ll take you east.’ His eyes flickered to Jadyn, who was listening to the torrent of Nepari uncomprehendingly. ‘Just you, or does this one come too?’

Aura smiled inwardly. ‘He comes – he has skills I require.’

‘What skills?’ Marika asked archly, sensing a weakness. ‘Fanny riding?’

‘No, he’s an ex-­Vestal,’ Largan said shrewdly. He switched to Talmoni. ‘Hey, “Nobody Whatever”. You’re ex-­Order, aren’t you?’

It took a moment for Jadyn to realise he was being spoken to, in words he could understand. ‘Aye, retired.

 But the land I was allotted was shit, so I hit the road.’

It was an old tale, the poor knight discarded by the powers that be; though Jadyn wasn’t a good liar, Largan appeared to believe him.

‘Do you have a flamberge?’ he asked.

‘I surrendered my sword,’ Jadyn replied. ‘Too risky.’

‘Then how do you protect her ladyship?’

‘With whatever’s to hand.’

Jadyn glanced down and they all followed his eyes: he had a dagger tip against Largan’s ribs. The Talmoni’s eyes went glacial, then he smiled, as if at a good joke.

 

‘I’m Largan Rameleau, once of the Wildeboar century.’

‘Sier Jerome Baen, of the Styrbeest century,’ Jadyn replied, sheathing the dagger calmly.

Aura smiled to herself, because Jadyn had managed a fluent lie. I’m such a good influence.

‘Nice to meet you,’ Largan said. ‘But don’t ever draw steel on me again.’

There was a tense moment, then Jadyn said, ‘Of course.’

Everyone exhaled.

‘More drink,’ Sergio shouted. ‘We sail at dawn – and no one’s going to sleep before then!’

He was good as his word, and evidently his new respectability had come with some sterling profits, because he bought the best wine and co-­opted the tavern’s band into mutilating all his favourite songs, insisting Aura dance with him, under the pretext that Marika couldn’t, though she was only a couple of months pregnant.

The hours slipped away in false conviviality.

Around the third bell after midnight, the Night Watch arrived, clearing out the taverns and robbing anyone too drunk to resist. Sergio paid them off with beer, then took the surly Marika’s arm and led them along the docks to a two-­masted trader, which was being readied for the tide. Some of the crew recognised Aura, but many were new faces to her. She wasn’t surprised; sailors came and went all the time. The wind was rising: by dawn they would be underway, part of a convoy for mutual protection.

Aura and Jadyn were told to bunk down in the crew’s mess. Aura made a point of greeting those men she knew, hoping she could rely on old ties to keep them safe, but she could already name those who would cause trouble.

It’s like I can see inside their heads, she realised. It must be the aegis.

That gave her hope that if things went wrong, she might have some warning. Not that it was likely to matter, if trouble came when the ship was twenty kylos offshore, leaving them surrounded by would-­be killers.

 

 

Jadyn stood with Aura at the prow, watching the sun rise over the sea, as the grandly named Duce di Mundi sailed out of port and swung eastwards. The wind was favourable, but Aura was too full of misery to appreciate it.

‘He want bebe, why no with Aura?’ she whined.

Jadyn looked surprised. ‘Is that something you wanted?’

‘He say world too cruel for bebe,’ she muttered, glaring along the deck to where her inconstant lover

stood directing his crew. ‘But he knock up Bitchface Marika. Me not understanding – we had love.’

‘Let it go,’ Jadyn advised. ‘We’re on a journey to something better.’

‘Better than love? Not thinking so. Love is . . . love. Can Jadyn give love?’

Startled, he blurted, ‘Maybe I can give you the aegis?’

That shut her up. With a torn expression, she mumbled about seeing to their bedding and hurried away.

Did I just win that bout? he wondered numbly. Not that it mattered. He hated seeing her miserable, and travelling with her former lover felt like a big, big mistake.

And about mistakes, I hope I’m right about leaving that mirror and letter behind us. It still felt unfair on others the aegis might call, to cut the thread of clues behind him. But please, Akka and Elysia, let those who follow us have good, not evil, in their hearts . . .

Qor-­Espina Mountains, Neparia

 

Yoryn Borghart woke before dawn and went to his balcony overlooking the unnamed lake above which Vanashta Baanholt, the last refuge of the Sanctor Wardens, was built. It was cold, the snow-­clad peaks hemming them in, despite it being summer.

The chill in the air matched his mood. As a lictor, an investigator into heresy, he craved black and white situations, but all too often life came in inconvenient shades of grey. Making those uncertainties vanish was part of his art.

But now, I am part of the doubt.

 

Two nights ago, in the lowest chamber of the mines beneath this ancient structure, he’d cornered a group of renegades. They were seeking the heretical power called aegis, which appeared to involve some kind of precognition – although the Sanctor Wardens who had first wielded it evidently hadn’t seen their own end coming.

Somehow, cornered and about to be captured or killed, the renegade knight Jadyn Kaen and the thief Auranuschka Perafi had conjured a bridge across a void and escaped. He could just about come to terms with that, although failure was never acceptable, least of all for him. But what troubled him more was that for a few seconds, that mystic bridge had borne his own weight – and that of the Exemplar, Vazi Virago. That surely implied that he and she also had the potential to wield the aegis.

I know my own soul. I have never deviated from the Path of Righteousness.

So how could this be? And more to the point, what should he do about it? He had no desire at all to be marked by some other form of magic. Indeed, his enemies in the Justiciary – which was practically everyone he knew – would beat a path to his door to accuse him of heresy. No doubt Vazi Virago had the same issue: as the youngest Exemplar and only the second female to win that honour, she was already the target of a welter of jealousy and hate. Indeed, had he not been in the same position, he’d have been the first to turn on her. Her doll-­like beauty offended him,

as did her incredible martial skill. The glyma was a great leveller, enabling smaller but skilled practitioners to defeat bigger, bulkier fighters, but Exemplars were supposed to be men, not women, and certainly not women who looked like her.

Despite her beauty, he wasn’t moved by her. She had all the charm of a spitting cobra, and in any case, his sexuality was something he kept in a tightly locked box, as any lictor should. Sexual release, like hate and love, the strongest emotions, could trigger uncontrolled flares of glyma-­energy, with disastrous results. As a consequence, the Order was a cauldron of seething emotions and desires – you had to know when to leave, before it broke you. But it was different in the Justiciary: rape was a legitimate torture technique, written into the statutes. No one cared if prisoners survived – and the moment of climax, as fatal glyma-­energy surged from him into the woman, was such an exquisite pleasure that it had become addictive. It gave him the best of both worlds.

 

It had been his intention to end Auranuschka Perafi that way, until he’d discovered her precognitive spark. The ensuing voyage of self-­discovery had given him the means to explore his own potential; he now knew for certain that the instincts that had so often led him to resolve an investigation were indeed more than guesswork and luck.

I have a form of precognition, and now I finally know why: I have the potential to wield the magic of the old Sanctor Wardens.

But then he’d dreamed that Aura was a danger to him, so he’d signed her death warrant – only for her to escape that same night, with the similarly Gifted Jadyn Kaen. It was surely no coincidence.

The sound of boots on the steps heralded the advent of Vaziella al’Nuqheel, known to the empire as Vazi Virago. She was clad in silver-­plated, beautifully embossed armour, fitted perfectly to her slender frame. Her classical Zynochi face, copper complexion framed with crisply curled black hair, was eye-­catching, and she moved effortlessly, with grace and poise. He’d seen her fight and was in awe of her fusion of the glyma and the blade. To see her as a woman was folly; she was a lethal killing machine disguised as one of the Serrafim: glorious, but chilling.

And she’s got this aegis Gift too . . . That’s surely why she’s so good.

‘Exemplar,’ he greeted her warily, putting his right fist to his heart. ‘Did you sleep?’

‘A little,’ she said, stifling a yawn.

‘Have you decided on our next step?’ It rankled having to defer to her, but she was one of the few people within the Order who outranked him.

‘I have,’ Vazi replied. ‘Those renegades killed four of my five knights and almost killed my magus. I’m pulling everyone out and sending them to the nearest portali gate, while you and I pursue Kaen and Perafi. I’ll leave Arghyl Goraghan in charge, with Centurion Prade and my squire, Bern Myko, to support him.’

 

It was as he expected. ‘But what of us?’ he said quietly. ‘How will we proceed?’

In other words, did

she still hold to their earlier decision to pursue the aegis, even if it resulted in being branded a heretic and cost them all they had?

 

How will we proceed?

Vazi Virago – her name had been Talmonised to suit the north – had seldom felt doubt: she knew what was best, and did it. But this moment felt pivotal.

A few days ago, she’d have said her future was assured: whilst in the Order, she would accrue glory and status, then before her perfect glyma-­control slipped, she’d retire and make a powerful marriage. There were caliphs of immense wealth queuing up for her, and indeed, the Hierophant himself desired her. He might be old and withered, but he gushed over her like a love-­struck boy when she was at court. Repulsive, but she didn’t need to be in love.

I could be First Wife before I’m forty, and my children could rule the Triple Empire. But unless I fully possess the aegis and can use its precognition accurately, I’ll be nothing but a dynastic broodmare. I need to be more than that. I must rule, through him.

Of course, a lot could go wrong: she could lose control of the glyma; or be crippled or slain while on duty. Disease could take her, or an accident at sea; such things happened to anyone. But she’d always had a nose for danger and how to avoid it. Even in the deadliest melees, she’d found an instinctive path to survival and victory.

And now I know why. I have this aegis in some form.

Nevertheless, she feared the tag of heretic. She’d helped hunt down knights who’d been tarred by that brush, running them to ground like old boars, and she dreaded her own life ending the same way. So what to do?

She faced Yoryn Borghart – a chilling man, shaven-­skulled, with a cruel face, a bristling goatee and teeth like a carnivore. By reputation, he was a ruthless seeker of truth, someone who took pleasure in torture and pain – but she felt a kinship with him. They were both implacable and self-­serving.

 

Him, I can understand, she thought. But can we talk frankly?

The risks were huge: if he turned on her once they returned to civilisation, he had the rank to bring accusations that could destroy her. To bring down a heretical Exemplar would surely be the pinnacle of his career. But he was hell-­bent on capturing the fugitives, especially the Nepari woman. He’s fixated on her, Vazi thought. Maybe I can exploit that.

‘I hold by my decision,’ she told him. ‘I hate all heresy, and anything that undermines our glorious Triple Empire. You believe Kaen and Perafi are a threat to our empire, and I concur. If they escape, how many more such snakes will arise? They must be stopped.’

She watched his face carefully, but could glean no clue to his thoughts. ‘But how can we follow them, when only a heretic can walk that bridge?’ he asked eventually.

‘Heresy is an evil of the heart,’ she replied, quoting Jovan Lux himself. ‘It exists in our weaknesses and doubts. But power is a tool, for good or evil. I know my heart to be pure.’

He put his fist to his heart. ‘And I know mine to be likewise.’

He’s with me, she decided. ‘Then it’s simple: we will do whatever it takes to pursue them. One must know evil to recognise and defeat it.’

‘I agree, Exemplar. And I believe I know how to retrace their steps and unlock whatever gates they have passed through. It all started at a stone circle three days’ ride from here.’

‘Are you sure?’

He smiled coldly. ‘I visited our prisoners earlier and administered a dose of an opiate to Romara Challys, then used a mind-­melding technique on her during her delirium. It can be 

unreliable, and confessions obtained this way are inadmissible, but what I learned confirms my guess: this stone circle is the start of the path to the aegis. It will lead us back here, but with the crucial difference that we’ll be able to open that bridge ourselves.’

‘Well done, Lictor,’ she praised, thinking, So easily, we dip our toes into this heresy, because we both want it so badly.

 

She’d been born with a sense of destiny and an unquenchable thirst for advancement. She knew that she was destined for greatness, so anything she did to attain that goal must be justified. To possess and perfect the aegis, which appeared to be concerned with precognition and foresight, would be priceless in her ascent.

To see my enemies’ moves, whether moments or years ahead, would give me an advantage over all-­comers. There’d be no limits to my rise – and it will all be on my own terms.

‘One thing,’ she said. ‘What about your friend Sandreth and his new bondsman?’

‘Elan Sandreth and Tevas Nicolini aren’t my friends,’ Borghart sniffed. ‘Sandreth wants to go back north and claim his “wife’s” estate. They can go, for all I care.’

Sandreth claimed to be married to Romara Challys, but Vazi was certain that was a fiction. He was a born liar, if ever she’d met one – and not someone she wanted to set loose, lest he started bragging about finding Vanashta Baanholt. But eliminating a highborn was complicated. ‘That’s fine, provided they swear silence regarding this place.’ Fear of me should still their tongues.

‘I’ll trust your judgement on the matter,’ Borghart said, bowing his head.

She faced him squarely. ‘Regarding the matter of trust: we’ll be travelling together, so there will be some ground rules. I command, and you obey. Do not mistake my gender or youth for weakness. Do not think of me as a woman at all. I will not develop feelings for you, so do not waste any you have on me. My destiny is to save the Triple Empire by destroying the Vyr Rebellion, and Akka and Elysia will raise me to immortality. My fame will last a thousand years. Be loyal to me, and so might yours. Am I understood?’

He probably thought her pompous and egotistical, but he smote his chest and declared, ‘I am yours to command, Exemplar.’

She didn’t trust his display, but she approved of him feeling the need to make it.

‘Good. Then let us begin.’

 

 

Tevas Nicolini was an ex-­knight, an Order veteran with decades of service, but these days he preferred to blend in with the troops – which was why he was saddling two horses, his own and Elan Sandreth’s, amid eighty-­odd Vestal men-­at-­arms. Forty years old, balding and hard-­faced, he felt old among them. But he had a flamberge over his shoulder, wielded legally now, thanks to his bondsman contract with Sandreth, so everyone gave him a wide berth.

An hour ago, the Exemplar had summoned her magus, Arghyl Goraghan, the last survivor of her pentacle, and told him to muster the remaining men of her Golden Dragon century and leave Vanashta Baanholt. They were forming up now.

Lictor Borghart had sought

them out and told them in no uncertain terms that if they ever returned to Vanashta Baanholt – or even spoke of it – they’d regret ever drawing breath. He’d demanded they swear an oath of silence, and Elan agreed instantly.

Tevas had echoed the nobleman with alacrity, but couldn’t help wondering, Why is it necessary, when the Exemplar’s supposed to be destroying it?

But he’d been there when the mystic bridge in the mines below took Virago and Borghart’s weight – and then vanished again, almost sending both into the void. When he’d heard Jadyn Kaen challenge the Exemplar to take up the aegis herself, he’d realised, She’s got the same heretical streak as Jadyn.

It was a fascinating thought, but not one he was prepared to voice. Borghart – who likely had the same trait himself – would murder him in an eye-­blink.

So yes, we’ll leave. But what will you be doing, Exemplar – and you, Lictor?

It was probably better not to know. Borghart was a power-­mad slaughter-­whore, and for all her beauty, Tevas doubted Vazi Virago was any different.

Elan Sandreth, thirty-­something, with his blond hair thinning and his youth faded into premature middle-­age, came sauntering through the crowd, accompanied by Arghyl Goraghan. The obese mage had long, unkempt grey hair, dun robes and a torc, a bronze ­ceremonial necklet from his native Foyland. He’d been left in charge of the century, an unusual circumstance, but Jadyn and Romara’s people had gone through the Exemplar’s pentacle like a reaper’s scythe and all the knights were dead.

 

He couldn’t help a moment of pride. I taught Jadyn and Romara well.

‘So, Tevas, are we ready?’ Elan called jovially. He and Goraghan looked like they were getting on well.

Tevas turned to the last six surviving Pelasian pirates, weighing them up. Scum, but his scum. They all looked like they just wanted to go home, a feeling he shared. ‘Sure, we’re ready,’ he answered for them. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘Arghyl knows a portali gate near here. We’ll follow the river downstream to get out of the mountains, then head north towards Foyland.’

‘Foyland? With due respect to your homeland, Magister Goraghan, Foyland’s a mess.’

‘Oh, I know dat,’ Goraghan drawled. ‘But I’ve got kin dere, an’ dey’ll help us out.’ He looked up at the monastery. ‘I’ll take dese heretics to Folkstein, while the Exemplar destroys dis place.’ His voice had a faint edge of sarcasm. ‘After all, what makes more sense than t’ put a magus in charge of soldiers, and a knight in charge of dealin’ wit’ sorcery, eh?’

He disapproves, Tevas realised. The scholar in him wants to know more. ‘Ours is not to question,’ he said, a little sternly.

‘Good advice, t’be sure.’ Goraghan gave him a lugubrious look, then proffered a flask that reeked of whisky. ‘Take a good swallow, fella. Plenty more where dat came from.’

He took a grateful slurp and returned the flask. ‘Happy to lighten your load.’

‘Excellent,’ Goraghan grinned, before turning to the waiting soldiers. ‘Mount up, ye rabble. Let’s be riding, northwest to da river an’ on downstream. We’re goin’ home!’...