‘Out of love.’

They rode past another heap of stones, and Arathan saw a scatter of finger bones along its nearer edge, bleached white by the sun. They made rows like teeth. ‘That makes no sense. Did she not love you in return? Was it in the name of love that you chose to break her heart? No, sir, I see no wisdom from you.’

‘Is this how you baited Tutor Sagander?’

‘I never baited him-’

‘Behind your innocent guise you make every word a weapon, Arathan. This may have worked with Sagander, since he refused to see you as anything but a small child. Among men, however, you will be known as dissembling and treacherous.’

‘I do not dissemble, Father.’

‘When you feign ignorance of the wounds your words deliver, you dissemble.’

‘Do you always send away the ones you love? Must we always journey through the ruins of your past? Olar Ethil-’

‘I was speaking of belief,’ Draconus replied, with iron in his tone. ‘It will make your path, Arathan, and I say that with certainty, because it is belief that guides each and every one of us. You may imagine it as a host and you may well feel the wayward tug of every conviction, and convince yourself that they each summon with purpose. But this is not a mindful journey, and the notion of progress is an illusion. Do not trust the goals awaiting you: they are chimeras, and their promise salves the very belief that invented them, and by this deception you ever end where you began, but in that end you find yourself not young, not filled with zeal as you once were, but old and exhausted.’

‘What you describe is not a worthy ambition. If this is your wisdom’s gift then it is a bitter one.’

‘I am trying to warn you. Strife awaits us, Arathan. I fear it shall reach far beyond the borders of Kurald Galain. I did what I could for Mother Dark, but like you she was young when first I gave my gift to her. Every step she has taken since then she believes to be purposeful and forward. This is one anchor we all share.’ He fell silent, as if made despondent by his own words.

‘Is that how you view love, Father? As a gift you bestow upon others, only to then stand back to watch and see if they are worthy of it? And when they fail, as they must, you discard them and set out in search of the next victim?’

His face darkened. ‘There is a fine line between fearless and foolish, Arathan, and you now stride it precariously. The gift of which I spoke was not love. It was power.’

‘Power should never be a gift,’ Arathan said.

‘An interesting assertion, from one so powerless. But I will listen. Go on.’

‘Gifts are rarely appreciated,’ Arathan said, and in his mind he was remembering his first night with Feren. ‘And the one who receives knows only confusion. At first. And then hunger… for more. And in that hunger, there is expectation, and so the gift ceases being a gift, and becomes payment, and to give itself becomes a privilege and to receive it a right. By this all sentiment sours.’

Draconus drew up. Arathan did the same a moment later and swung Besra around to face him. The wind seemed to slide between them.

His father’s gaze was narrow, searching. ‘Arathan, I think now that you heard Grizzin Farl’s warning to me.’

‘I don’t recall, sir, if I did. I don’t remember much of that evening.’

Draconus studied him a moment longer and then looked away. ‘It seems,’ he said, ‘that every gift I give is carved from my own flesh, and by every wound and every scar upon my body, I map the passage of my loves. Did you know, son, that I rarely sleep? I but weather the night, amidst aches and sore repose.’

If this confession sought sympathy from Arathan, he judged himself a failure. ‘I would evade that fate for myself, sir. The wisdom you have offered me is not the one you intended, so I cannot but view it as a most precious gift.’

The smile Draconus then swung to him was wry. ‘You have reawakened my pity for Sagander, and I do not refer to an amputated leg.’

‘Sagander’s iron stakes pinned him to the ground long ago, sir. Legs or not, he does not move and never will.’

‘You are quick to judge. What you describe makes him no less dangerous.’

Arathan shrugged. ‘Only if we walk too close. He is in my past now, sir. I do not expect to see him again.’

‘I would think not,’ Draconus agreed. ‘But I wonder if I have not wronged him. You are far from easy company, Arathan. Now, a house awaits us.’

Following his father’s gesture, Arathan looked ahead. Plain in sight, as if conjured from the ground less than a hundred paces distant, was a low structure. Its long roof sagged in the middle and a few gaps were visible as black holes amidst the lichen-covered slate tiles. Beneath the projecting eaves, the stone walls were roughly hewn and streaked with red stains. The yard around the house was devoid of grass and looked beaten down.