The Poison Song

Book 3: The Winnowing Flame Trilogy

by Jen Williams

Genres: Fantasy

Synopsis

From British Fantasy Award-winning author, Jen Williams, comes the electrifying conclusion to the Winnowing Flame trilogy. Exhilarating epic fantasy for fans of Robin Hobb.

'Williams excels at eldritch world-building' Guardian on The Ninth Rain

All is chaos. All is confusion. The Jure'lia are weak, but the war is far from over.

Ebora was once a glorious city, defended by legendary warriors and celebrated in song. Now refugees from every corner of Sarn seek shelter within its crumbling walls, and the enemy that has poisoned their land won't lie dormant for long.

The deep-rooted connection that Tormalin, Noon and the scholar Vintage share with their Eboran war-beasts has kept them alive so far. But with Tor distracted, and his sister Hestillion hell-bent on bringing ruthless order to the next Jure'lia attack, the people of Sarn need all the help they can get.

Noon is no stranger to playing with fire and knows just where to recruit a new - and powerful - army. But even she underestimates the epic quest that is to come. It is a journey wrought with pain and sacrifice - a reckoning that will change the face of Sarn forever.

Join forces with the heroes of the WINNOWING FLAME TRILOGY as they strive to silence the Jure'lia's poison song once and for all.

What readers are saying about the WINNOWING FLAME trilogy:

'Brilliantly creative fantasy'

'Great pacing, top-notch writing, quality characterisation, plenty of action!'

'More action, scarier monsters and a more expansive story'

'Be ready for some great reveals and twists that may break your heart, but that will overall leave you fist pumping the air'

'The world building continues to blow my mind'

(P)2019 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Release date: May 16, 2019

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 320

Sample

‘Jam-packed with breathtaking inventiveness – giant flying bats! Dragons! Aliens! Vampires! In anyone else’s hands, that might be an unholy mess, but somehow it just works brilliantly’

James Oswald

‘Williams brings her dark and immersive narrative to life with vivid descriptive passages, a great line in sarcastic humour and human insight’

Guardian

‘A triumphant return to the world of Sarn . . . wickedly entertaining and balances its humour at all times with an emotional sense of consequence for each of its characters’

SciFi Now

‘Absolutely phenomenal fantasy – a definite must-read’

Adrian Tchaikovsky

‘There is so much to praise about The Ninth Rain: the worldbuilding is top-notch, the plot is gripping and the characters just get better and better. A sublime read’

SFX

‘The setting is diverse, different and intriguing. The characters feel real and you want to know more about their lives with every turn of the page. This is fantasy adventure at its very best’

Starburst

‘A gem of a book with overtones of the new weird and dashes of horror. I loved it from cover to cover’

Den Patrick

‘Even more epic in another slice of fresh, character-driven fantasy’

Peter Newman

‘A cracking story that grips you by the heart and doesn’t let go’

Edward Cox

‘A great read with heart and soul and epic beasties’

www.raptureinbooks.com

‘Great pacing, top-notch writing, quality characterisation, plenty of action . . . all make The Ninth Rain a truly enjoyable and absorbing read’

www.thetattooedbookgeek.wordpress.com

‘Brilliantly creative fantasy’

www.thisnortherngal.co.uk

‘My only grievance with the trilogy is this: it’s not published in full yet! . . . the wait will likely kill me’

www.liisthinks.blog

‘A fast-paced and original new voice in heroic fantasy’

Adrian Tchaikovsky

‘A fresh take on classic tropes . . . 21st century fantasy at its best’

SFX

‘Williams has thrown out the rulebook and injected a fun tone into epic fantasy without lightening or watering down the excitement and adventure . . . Highly recommended’

Independent

‘A highly inventive, vibrant high fantasy with a cast you can care about . . . There is never a dull moment’

British Fantasy Society

‘Expect dead gods, mad magic, piracy on the high seas, peculiar turns and pure fantasy fun’

Starburst

‘Absolutely stuffed with ghoulish action. There is never a dull page’

SciFiNow

‘An enthralling adventure’

Sci-Fi Bulletin

‘The Copper Promise is dark, often bloody, frequently frightening, but there’s also bucket loads of camaraderie, sarcasm, and an unashamed love of fantasy and the fantastic’

Den Patrick

Ink. And paper. In this tower built with the silence of women, I have been given back my voice.

The room is still a cell, in a way. The walls are still black stone and my window is still barred, but when the door – of old, blackened wood – is closed, I cannot be seen. There is a bed, a place to wash myself, and a small wooden desk, with ink and paper and pen.

They will not know what they have given me. Winnowry agents are expected to write reports on their missions, and this is what the desk and its contents are for, but in it I see an extraordinary thing.

The curse of the Winnowry is silence and forgetfulness. So many women have entered these black towers, passing out of their lives and out of Sarn, into nothingness. Their lives end here, unremarked, and they are buried deep in the cold sand. Of them and their lives, their stories, nothing is known.

I have lived in that, have felt the slow creeping terror that I am forgotten by the world. Have watched women with pasts as colourful and as unique as tapestries turn to slow and silent stone as their humanity was leeched from them. Are you really speaking if no one can hear you?

But, ink and paper are now mine. In a small way these women’s stories will be recorded, and I will give them voices – even if they must be secret ones.

Extract from the private records of Agent Chenlo

‘Put that flame away! Unless you want to go back to your cell?’

The girl looked up at her, startled, and Agent Chenlo smiled to lessen the harshness of her words. These girls, she reminded herself, were not yet used to the licence they’d been given, limited as it was, and even less used to the idea that a misstep wouldn’t automatically earn them a freezing bath or a beating. The tiny lick of green flame that had been curling in the girl’s palm immediately vanished.

‘Put your gloves back on, Fell-Lisbet, and here, look.’ Agent Chenlo gently turned the girls to look back at the Winnowry. The small jetty they stood on was chilly and damp, and the little boat docked there smelled overpoweringly of shellfish, but the Winnowry remained its black, imposing self, looming over the fell-witches like a threat. ‘You see those windows there, that go all the way up the chirot tower? And those in Mother Cressin’s territory? A sister or a father may look out of those windows at any time, or even the Drowned One herself,’ she ignored the mutter at her use of this forbidden phrase, ‘and they could see us, huddled down here on this grey day. And winnowfire, even the tiniest flicker, will draw their gaze like that.’ She snapped her fingers for emphasis. She did not wear gloves herself today. ‘It is so bright, it is like a beacon to them. And do you think that if you are caught using your abilities without permission they will allow you to become agents yourselves?’

The girls shuffled and muttered as one, picking at their scarves and casting shy glances at the towers. They liked Agent Chenlo because she gave warnings before punishments, and because she called the winnowfire an ability and not an abomination – at least when she was out of earshot of the other agents.

‘Come on, let’s get those barrels on board, or we’ll be late. Quickly now.’

The girls returned to the task at hand. Today was the beginning of their introduction to the business of the Winnowry, the daily and weekly tasks that kept the order going. They would load the barrels of akaris up onto the little boat, and make the quick crossing to Mushenska, where they would be unloaded again. They would then accompany Agent Chenlo to the trading house, where much of the akaris would be sold in bulk to the highest bidders. A unique drug that could only be crafted within the intense heat of winnowfire, akaris gave its user a deep, dreamless sleep – unless it was cut with a variety of stimulants, in which case the effects were rather more lively. Officially, only the Winnowry could supply the drug, and thanks to this little monopoly, they could happily charge through the nose for it. Once the akaris had been changed into useful coin, Agent Chenlo and the novice agents would return across the channel of grey water, and that would be that. Small steps, but important ones: learning how to conduct themselves out in the world, showing that they could be trusted. If any one of the four girls stepped out of line, it would be up to Agent Chenlo to admonish them, which could mean anything from a severe dressing-down to having their life energy removed to the point where they passed out. She was authorised to kill them, if she had to, and she carried the silver-topped cudgel, normally worn by the sisters, at her belt, but Agent Chenlo had never had to use it.

She watched them for a moment, rolling the barrels up the gangplank, observed by the wiry captain and a spotty cabin boy. The barrels were heavy and sometimes the fell-witches found the work too difficult, weakened as they were by years spent in damp cells eating gruel, but this group were making the best of it. Satisfied that they’d be able to manage, Agent Chenlo turned away to look across the sea to Mushenska, and all of the familiar ordinariness of the day was chased away by the sight of an impossible shape in the skies over the city; a nightmare coming into focus. She made an odd noise, somewhere between a yelp and a gasp, and heard the captain shout something. One of the girls let out a little shriek.

A dragon was flying over the sea towards them. It was a magnificent thing, covered in pearly white scales, its wings bristling with white feathers. It wore a harness of brown leather and silver, and there was a young woman sitting on its back, her black hair flapping wildly in the wind and a furious expression on her face. Agent Chenlo turned back and shouted at the girls.

‘Go! Get on the boat now. You,’ she gestured at the captain, ‘get them to the city. Cast off immediately.’

The man opened his mouth to argue, and she raised her hands in a clear threat. ‘Do it, captain, or I will sink your miserable boat myself.’

The novice agents were all either staring at the dragon – it was so close now, so close – or staring at her, their eyes wide. Agent Chenlo clapped her hands together once, sharply, and the spell broke. As one, the young women ran up the gangplank, and as they disappeared below decks, she felt a surge of relief. From the towers, bells were ringing as various people sounded the alarm all at once.

Chenlo hesitated on the jetty, uncertain what to do next. Knowledge of a number of recent events jostled for her attention, but one fact was clearer than anything else: as unlikely as it seemed, the dragon had to be a legendary war-beast from distant Ebora, and the young woman riding on its back had every reason to be furious with the Winnowry.

She began to run towards the main buildings. The dragon got there first, crashing into and through one of the high, spindly towers. Black chunks of rock exploded into the sky as the very top of the structure was smashed to pieces, and then, with a roar, the dragon turned, coming round for another attack. This time the monster landed on the tower that housed the sisters’ quarters, latching on to it with claws and tail. It brought its nearest talon up to a long window, sealed with glass and lead, and smashed it quite neatly. Agent Chenlo saw the woman on its back shouting something, and then, after a moment, she leaned forward and sent a barrage of winnowfire in through the newly gaping hole. Chenlo, still staggering towards the gates, felt her skin turn cold, as though she had been doused by a great wave of seawater. It was late in the morning, and most of the sisters would be at their duties, yet she doubted very much that the tower was empty.

Activity erupted at the chirot tower. A trio of agents mounted on bats flew out of its open roof, rounding quickly on the dragon, which was just lifting off from the sisters’ tower. Down on the ground, the doors leading to Tomas’s Walk sprung open to reveal several panicked-looking sisters, their faces smeared with soot. Behind them it was clear that the interior of the tower was ablaze, and one of them, a woman Chenlo knew as Sister Resn, ran up to her, the silver mask of her order still clutched in one hand.

‘You! Get up there and stop them!’

Chenlo spared her a glance, then looked up to where the other agents were engaging the dragon. Bright orbs of green fire danced across the sky, and were met with jets of violet flame.

‘Have you lost your mind? That’s a dragon! They’re going to get themselves killed.’

Sister Resn’s face turned red under the soot and her wet mouth creased with outrage.

‘You dare to speak to me this way, Agent Chenlo?’

Chenlo shook her head in annoyance, unable to look away from the scene playing out around the towers. The bats were circling, brought into line by their agent riders, but it was clear they were terrified of the giant flying lizard. The dragon stopped breathing fire for a moment and surged forward, bringing its long tail around in a whip-crack movement that connected with the nearest bat, striking it from the sky. It fell out of sight, its rider struggling with the harness. The woman was still shouting, and one of the remaining two agents turned her bat and fled, heading directly out to sea. More sisters and fathers streamed out of the furnace rooms, several of them half dressed, while the dragon circled higher. One of the fathers was Father Eranis, every inch of smugness wiped from his jowly face.

‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ he spat. He wasn’t wearing any shoes, and his bare feet looked like ugly sea creatures against the sand. ‘That fucking lunatic has come home.’

‘Come home with a dragon,’ said Chenlo faintly. The last agent had been chased from the sky. ‘What did you think would happen?’ Taking advantage of their distraction, she turned the full contempt of her gaze on the fathers and sisters gathered behind her. ‘Sending Tyranny O’Keefe, of all people, to steal from Ebora? To steal the kin of, Tomas save us, actual fire-breathing dragons? As if Fell-Noon didn’t have enough reason to hate the Winnowry already.’

Eranis looked at her blankly, just as though he hadn’t been present in the many discussions where Chenlo had argued, again and again, that their plan was outrageously risky. She opened her mouth, unable to resist giving them another piece of her mind, when the dragon dropped down towards them. The fathers and sisters scattered, most running down across the sands, with a few heading back to the furnace. Chenlo stood her ground, wincing against the winds that battered her as the great white dragon landed in the courtyard, outside the enormous doors to the main Winnowry building. All those women, she thought, with a surge of terror, cooked alive in their cells.

‘Wait! You must wait!’

Fell-Noon turned, and Chenlo was reminded of how young the rogue witch was – barely older than the novice agents she had been training. She was wearing strange Eboran clothes, and the bat-wing tattoo on her forehead, a twin to Chenlo’s own, looked out of place, as though someone had scrawled it over a painting of a mythical figure in a book.

‘What must we wait for?’ asked the dragon.

Chenlo blinked. She knew, of course, that war-beasts could speak, but actually hearing that fine, cultured voice, being regarded by those burning violet eyes . . . that was something else.

‘Please,’ she held up her hands, too aware that such an action from a fell-witch was almost always a threat. ‘Please, Fell-Noon, the women in there have done you no harm. I know you must be angry . . .’

‘Angry!’ The young woman grinned wolfishly. ‘You don’t know the half of it, Winnowry dog.’

‘I urge you not to strike those who share your own miserable past!’

At this, Fell-Noon looked faintly puzzled. She shook her head.

‘I’m not here for them,’ she said.

With that she turned away from Agent Chenlo and she and the dragon moved closer to the enormous doors. She raised her arms, fingers spread, and an arc of green fire, so bright it was nearly white, burst from her hands. It hit the wood and iron of the doors and seemed to burn all the brighter, until Chenlo had to turn away, the heat and light crisping her hair and skin.

Such winnowfire, she thought, as the stench of burning wood and melting metal reached her. It burns hotter than anything I’ve ever seen.

There was an odd, crumping noise, and where an enormous door had stood for hundreds of years there was suddenly a gaping hole, wreathed in flames turned orange and red. Hot pools of molten metal snaked across the sand and grit towards her boots, and hurriedly she stepped out of the way. The dragon and her rider stepped through into the echoing space beyond.

‘Are all human structures so miserable?’ asked Vostok.

Noon shrugged, distracted. They stood in a part of the Winnowry that she had only seen once before; on the day they had brought her here, when she was eleven years old. It was generally known as the processing office, where girls, often very small ones, were made ready for their lives of imprisonment. Their clothes would be taken, along with any other possessions they might have on them. Clingy parents or relatives were removed and sent out a separate door, and the girls were told the rules: you will not touch another person, flesh to flesh, unless you are given permission; you will give the remainder of your lives in service to Tomas the Drowned, the figurehead of the Winnowry’s tyrannical order; you will work to heal the breach your very presence has made on the world; you are an abomination, and you will never forget it.

It was a dark and forbidding space, empty of any comforts or windows. There was the wide stretch of the foyer, and a line of doors on one side, where the Winnowry sisters kept their records and documents. In the centre of the space was a driftwood altar, where the girls were stripped and washed, and anointed with pale, powdery ash before being dressed again in the clothes of the Winnowry. Looking at it, Noon felt a fresh surge of rage close her throat.

‘What is it?’ asked Vostok, her voice lower than it had been. ‘I have not felt such turmoil within you before, bright weapon.’

‘It’s this fucking place. It brings everything back.’ Noon took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. Somewhere, beyond this processing space, she could hear a great number of women – talking, shouting. They had heard the tower being smashed, had likely heard the sisters’ and fathers’ panicked exclamations. Some of them had probably even seen Noon and Vostok arrive through their tiny, smeared windows. ‘It’s like . . . it’s like a trap is hovering over me, waiting to put me back into my cell.’

Vostok tipped her long head to one side. She took up much of the space, looking like a great marble statue against the black walls.

‘Nonsense. This place could not hold you now. You will always be free. Remember why you came here.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’ Noon climbed down from Vostok’s harness, and stalked over to the nearest door. She threw it open to find a room oddly like a kitchen. An alcove sheltered a blackened stove, and a great steel bucket containing long, pale branches of wood sat to one side of it. There was a huge sieve on a table and a great clay bowl underneath. It was, she belatedly realised, where they burned the wood to make the powder they covered the fell-witches with. Cowering behind the table was a pair of sisters, one still wearing a blank silver mask.

‘You,’ Noon addressed them tersely, ‘get me the keys. For the cells. Hurry up.’

The woman with the bare face cringed, but the one with the mask came around the table towards Noon, the heavy cudgel held in one hand.

‘Abomination!’ she spat. Her eyes, just about visible through the eye slits of her mask, were wild. ‘What have you done? What poison have you leaked into the world with your selfishness? In Tomas’s name, I command you to repent! You must be purged, child.’

‘Idiot. You’re all so bloody stupid it hurts.’ Noon lifted her hand and sent a blossom of winnowfire towards the woman, who danced backwards abruptly, letting out a little shriek. ‘Did you forget we can do this?’ She sent another small fireball, faster this time, and it landed on the woman’s wide skirts. In seconds she was aflame, throwing herself onto the floor with a series of desperate screams. Noon watched her trying to douse the flames for a moment, a tight feeling in her throat, before she turned to the other woman.

‘The keys?’

The woman nodded rapidly and led her to another room. It was well-lit and neat, with over a hundred iron keys hung on the walls, each carefully labelled.

‘Give me the keys for the bottom-most cells on the south side.’ When the woman hesitated, Noon shook her head. ‘I don’t have to burn you alive, you know, I could just feed you to the dragon.’

The woman turned white, and pressed a set of five keys into Noon’s hand. As she did so, Noon touched her face with her free hand, draining the sister’s life energy, and she dropped to the floor in a faint. ‘This is the end of it all,’ she said to the woman’s unconscious form. ‘I’m ending it all here.’

Back in the foyer Vostok was amusing herself by standing across the hole that had once been the front doors. There were Winnowry agents out there as well as a handful of sisters and fathers, and every time they drew closer to the building, Vostok would lower her long head and shoot great spears of violet flame towards them, scattering them all back. Eventually, Noon knew, they would gather their remaining agents together – perhaps calling back those who were in Mushenska too – and make a more determined assault. She did not have much time before everything became a lot more complicated.

Letting Vostok continue to hold the front doors, Noon went to the passage that led to the prison. This was the heart of the Winnowry. Here she found a pair of novices, young men who inevitably reminded her of Lusk, the novice who had helped her escape, so long ago. They were easily persuaded to unbolt the doors before they ran off and locked themselves in one of the office rooms. Taking a deep breath, Noon pushed the heavy iron doors aside, and stepped into the gaping space beyond.

It was bigger than she remembered, and strange. To her left, the southern bank of cells began, reaching up and up into the echoing void, a spindly web of steps and platforms rising with them. To the other side were the northern bank of cells, and there she could see women, all of them standing at the bars with their faces raw and shocked. The same set of grey clothes, over and over, the same crude bat-wing tattoo on the broad plane of every forehead. She wondered what she looked like to them. High above everything, crouched in the ceiling, were the huge water vats, which the sisters would turn on the witches if they got out of line. A shocked silence hung in the vast space, so heavy that Noon almost felt it as a pressure against her face.

‘Who are you?’ someone called down from the uppermost cells, and the shout shattered the silence into chaotic pieces. Someone else shouted, from much closer, ‘She’s Fell-Noon! The rogue witch!’ and then someone else cried, ‘But she’s dead! Agent Lin killed her, they said so.’

‘Listen!’ Noon raised her hands and shook the set of keys. ‘We’ve got to be quick. I’ll open the five nearest cells, and then those women can go to the lock room and get the rest. You have to let yourselves out.’ There was a rising cacophony at this, and Noon found herself shouting over them. ‘The way is free, for now! Help each other, and be fast.’

With that she turned to the nearest cells, and ignoring the look of shock on the woman’s face, rammed the first key home and turned it. Throwing the door back, she nodded to the woman. ‘Go, down the corridor. It’s the room with the door left standing open. Start getting the keys! This is your only chance.’

The woman nodded and fled, and Noon moved onto the next cell, then the next. A great roar was filling the prison as the women clamoured to be freed, and Noon found that her hands were shaking. It had never been this loud in here; before, the women had always been afraid to be loud.

‘Go,’ she said to the woman in the fifth cell, just as the first one was coming back, her arms full of iron keys.

‘There’s a fucking dragon out there,’ she said, her voice faint.

‘Good, brilliant, very observant. Can you do this? Can you get them out?’

The witch was joined by the others, and they began taking the keys from her arms, set expressions on their faces. Satisfied that she’d done what she could, Noon left the echoing space behind, relief surging through her, and headed back to the foyer. Vostok had broken through part of the wall to give herself more space to target the agents, who were keeping out of her reach on the backs of the giant bats.

‘Bright weapon?’

‘Nearly done!’

Finally, Noon headed for the Sea Watch tower, arming herself with a fresh supply of Vostok’s life energy as she passed by. Through another set of doors and out into the small stony courtyard that existed between all of the towers. Paved with grey slate and dotted here and there with bat guano, it was as miserable a place as Noon had ever seen. Sometimes, women were left out here overnight as a punishment, with no protection from the rain and the cold.

‘Fucking place,’ she muttered, feeling a shiver work its way down the back of her neck. The Sea Watch tower was the official name for the space where the Drowned One kept her rooms; you were sent to her chambers only if you had been especially bad, or if Mother Cressin had taken a particular interest in you. At the bottom, Noon blew the doors off their hinges and stepped inside. It was all too easy to imagine the old woman crouched at the top of the tower like some ancient, wrinkled spider, smelling of old salt and watching over her precious Winnowry. The spiral staircase within was lit periodically with oil lamps, and the sea-wards side of the tower was punctured with tall, narrow windows, yet the place remained gloomy and damp. At the very top she paused, eyeing the door with some unease. It stood open, just a crack, so that she could see a tiny slither of the room beyond. Had she ever seen it partly open like that? She thought not.

Cautiously, Noon moved onto the landing, her hands held in front of her. Just as she’d decided that Mother Cressin had already fled, the door crashed open, revealing the sizeable form of Fell-Mary, the old woman’s personal bodyguard. A wall of green flame shot towards Noon and she half dived, half fell back down the steps immediately behind her. Several old wounds cried out in indignation, and she bellowed a few swear words.

‘It’s over!’ she shouted. ‘The women are freeing themselves, and there will be boats arriving for them soon. It’s over.’ There was silence from the landing. ‘Fell-Mary, you don’t have to babysit that awful creature anymore.’

Still there was silence. Noon poked her head around the corner, only to see Fell-Mary bearing down on her, her enormous hands reaching for her throat. This time, she lunged forward and grabbed the woman, skin against skin, and for the briefest moment felt the tug of a strong fell-witch trying to pull her life’s energy from her.

Bad idea. I’m stronger than you.

Putting everything she had behind it, Noon tore the woman’s life force out of her body, easily batting aside her own feeble attempt to do the same to Noon. At once she was filled with that vital, buzzing force, so much of it that her fingers tingled, while Fell-Mary collapsed to the floor, her eyes rolled up to the whites.

‘I bloody told you,’ she said, aggrieved. From within the room, there came a dry, rasping sound – the Drowned One’s idea of laughter.

‘Come in, Fell-Noon. Let me see what you’ve become.’

Noon summoned a pair of fiery gloves around her fists and stepped into the chamber. It was as cold and as miserable as she remembered. Narrow windows looked out across the grey sea, bare pieces of furniture made from driftwood were scattered to the corners, and a huge iron and glass tank filled with seawater dominated the room. The smell of salt was overpowering.

‘The rumours that have come over the Bloodless Mountains are true, then.’ Mother Cressin sat in one of her driftwood chairs, her skin the same chalky pallor as the wood. She looked wizened and tiny, a half-formed thing found under a rock, and for a moment Noon felt a sense of unreality threatening to overwhelm her. Why had she ever been frightened of this small, defenceless, cruel woman? She herself was the weapon, after all. ‘You belong to the Eborans now. Do they know what they’ve let into the heart of their world?’

Noon came fully into the room. Distantly she could hear the roar of Vostok’s fire, and the shouts of men and women. Soon, the boats she had paid for in Mushenska would be arriving at the small jetty, and she would need to be there to lead the women to their freedom. Time was getting away from her.

‘I’m giving you one chance to leave now. Get out and go. Get one of your agents to fly you away on a bat, or swim for it, I don’t care, but your time here is done. This whole shit show,’ she gestured around the room, taking in the entirety of the Winnowry, ‘is over. I’m ending it now.’

‘So you are truly ready to unleash evil on this world? For hundreds of years, the Winnowry has been the thin barrier between the abomination of these fallen women, and the sanctity of the outer world. In Tomas’s name, we have kept them hidden and safe, given them a chance to make up for what they are, and cleansed Sarn of their taint. You end that, and you will tear this world apart, and all for your own demented pride.’

‘I don’t give a shit about any of that fucking nonsense. Because that is exactly what it is – nonsense you and all the nasty little people who came before you made up to justify the torture and exploitation of women.’ Noon laughed, a sour bark of amusement. ‘Using us to make your drugs, offering tiny scraps of freedom to the women who would work for you. It’s just so fucking obvious. You couldn’t even come up with any good reasons! Oh, some man said it once, he was half mad from being drowned but, sure, let’s found an entire order of misery on his say-so!’

The Drowned One stood up, her feet encased in papery white slippers. The faint mocking expression had vanished, and there were two points of pinkish colour on the tops of her cheeks – the first time Noon had ever seen any colour in that dour face.

‘The fell-women are dangerous,’ she said, her voice low and tight with a boiling fury. ‘Th