Urusander sighed. ‘You will find a soldier’s fear in your time, Osserc. I never doubted your courage with blade in hand and self-preservation the wager.’

Even a compliment from his father could sting in its utterance. Before he could muster a reply, however, his father continued. ‘Osserc, why did you ever imagine that I would give you the Legion?’

The question struck like a blow against his chest. Osserc felt his knees weaken and he almost reeled. ‘But — Hunn Raal said-’

Urusander’s brows lifted. ‘Hunn Raal? He’s like a lame dog I can’t keep from under my feet. He’s an Issgin — of course he does nothing but sniff my heels for any scrap he can find. The Issgin yearn for a return to the court, and he’s the closest of their brood to that and no doubt he imagines himself almost within reach of it. He rode to bring word to Mother Dark? He seeks an actual audience with her?’ Urusander shook his head. ‘The man is a drunk with a drunk’s bloated self-image — Abyss knows, drunks think themselves clever, and measure the prowess of their wit by the genius of their rationalizations. Of course, the first fool they deceive is themselves. There will be no audience with Mother Dark. Not for Captain Hunn Raal.’

‘But I am your son! Who else should inherit the Legion?’

‘Inherit? Is Kurald Galain’s only standing army a thing to be inherited? Like a keep, or a precious bauble? Is it a mine? A forge? A fine horse? A throne? Have you understood nothing? One cannot inherit the Legion — one must earn the right to the privilege of commanding it.’

‘Then why didn’t you prepare me for that? I could earn nothing here in this keep while the rest of you were out fighting! You have doomed me, damn you!’

Urusander leaned back at his son’s tirade. Then he said, ‘Because, son, for you I wanted something better.’

Osserc did not even recognize the room he found. It was small, crammed full of rolled-up tapestries from the rooms above. The bare stone floor was littered with moth carcasses and the air was rank with the smell of mould. Locking the door he threw himself down on a musty heap piled up along one wall. Shudders took him as he wept. He hated his weakness: even rage unmanned him. He thought back to Renarr, and saw anew the look in her eyes — which had not been tenderness. It had been pity that he saw. Even now, he suspected, she was spinning the tale to her giggling friends.

He wrapped his arms about his folded-up legs and rested his forehead on his knees, still fighting the tears, but now they marked his shame, his helplessness. His father held to glory as a miser clutched the world’s last coin. There was nothing here for Osserc; nothing for a son chained to childhood.

He would seal me in wax. Place me upon the highest shelf in some dusty room. To lie there, like some preserved memory. My father remembers innocent days and yearns for a return to his own childhood. But as that cannot be, he would make me what he once was, and keep me there: Vatha Urusander before the wars.

I am his nostalgia. I am his selfishness made manifest.

I will leave here. Tonight. Tomorrow. Soon. I will leave and not return. Not return until I am ready, until I have made myself anew. Indeed, Father, I am to inherit nothing from you, nothing at all. Especially not your weakness.

I will set out. Seeking truths. Seeking my place, and when I return I shall blaze with triumph, with power. I shall be a man such as… as Anomander himself. You think me not clever, Father? But I am. You think me unwise? You are to blame for what wisdom I lack, but no matter. I shall find my own wisdom.

I shall leave Kurald Galain.

And ride alone into the world.

To such bold claims, he saw in his mind his father’s face, and that look of disappointment as the old man said, ‘ Alone, son? Weren’t you listening? Your fears will run with you, like a pack of wolves howling to bring you down. The only true solitude, to any man, to any woman, to any thinking being, is death.’

‘I know that,’ he whispered in reply, lifting his head and wiping at his cheeks. ‘I know that. Let the wolves close in — I will kill them all, one by one, I will kill them all.’

His head pounded; he was hungry, but all he could manage was to lie down upon the rolls of cloth and close his eyes. Pain had its own teeth, sharp and eager, and they sank deep into him. Bite by bite, they could tear him away — they were welcome to all that was lying here — until nothing was left.

The shell was gone, shattered by an old man who had tried to convince him that a cell was a palace, and imprisonment a gift. Even Hunn Raal had lied to him. Hunn Raal, an object of contempt to the man whose very life he had saved. Was it any wonder the fool drank to excess?