‘Wait.’ Sherzal held up a hand and stopped in a section of corridor that seemed no different to any other. ‘You’ll like this too, novices. My father showed it to my brother and me long ago … before our sister was born.’ She tossed her knife out in front of her. It jerked in the air, becoming a shower of bright pieces that fell to the ground in front of one of the dark doorways. A surprisingly musical tinkle accompanied the destruction. ‘You’ll like it less if you disappoint me. It can be used with more subtlety to unpleasant effect. Well … unpleasant for the person being peeled. It’s quite fun to watch.’ She went to the wall and tapped out a rapid, changing beat. A panel slid back and she pressed her finger upon a glowing disc inside. ‘Safe now!’ Even so she motioned the guardsmen through before her.

Ruli glanced to the left as she stepped over the pieces of Sherzal’s knife. A dark room, the same on the right. Just as her eyes slid away a flicker of light offered a confusion of hard lines and stark shadows. A circle? Nona made her friend’s gaze linger for one more heartbeat, piercing the darkness with Ruli’s shadow-work. A great ring, taller than a man and leaning against the rear wall?

Sherzal stopped again ten yards on and waited for them all to pass before tapping the same pattern on the wall. For a moment the corridor behind them filled with faint lines as if a hundred glass blades were criss-crossing it. They faded from sight in moments. ‘That annoying friend of yours can do something similar, no? But in the days when our people built the Ark we knew how to make mere mechanisms that would do as much! Our forebears could take a few cogs and gears, mix in some wires and lightning, and have a device that could do anything!’

An echo of Nona’s hatred for the woman curled Ruli’s lip. Which of them clenched her hands into fists neither could tell.

Patience, Nona said, as much to herself as to Ruli. I will find you.

Sherzal resumed the lead. A hundred yards on the corridor terminated in a white door. Safira came to join the emperor’s sister at the front. Sherzal stepped forward and the door slid away to reveal a large white-walled chamber. Six white doors stood spaced around the perimeter. A huge circular silver door had been set into the floor at the centre of the chamber, its single hinge thicker than a man’s leg. Around it stood a trio of the emperor’s guards, their breastplates enamelled in green and gold.

‘If you would,’ Sherzal nodded towards Safira. ‘Oh, wait!’ She raised her voice and turned towards the three men. ‘Unless you’d like to join my cause and pledge to my service, of course. I’m much more agreeable to work for than my brother.’

The men drew their swords together.

‘Oh well.’ Sherzal motioned Safira on. Four of her guards followed the woman out towards the centre of the chamber.

Nona blinked away the vision as the blood began to spray. Safira was every bit as dangerous as Kettle. She settled back into her own flesh, surprised by how dark the night had grown.

Nona steeled her will and summoned her flaw-blades. Even in this tranquil garden just a stone’s throw from the walls of the emperor’s palace she could now hear the clash and roar of the battle in the streets. Her sisters would be crossing blades with the enemy. She felt Kettle’s urgent query along their thread-bond and closed it off with a shake of her head.

The iron casket surrendered before her blades and the Noi-Guin shipheart rolled out onto the grass. No part of her wanted to touch it. Nona remembered Abbess Glass, her hand above the candle flame, flesh melting from her bones, refusing to withdraw despite the agony.

‘Damnation.’ She reached out and picked up the glowing ball. Immediately its cold fire ran along her bones and the whispers began inside her skull. Touching the shipheart didn’t hurt. It was more like being forced to remember being hurt.

Rather than climb out one-handed Nona scowled at the wall between her and the palace. With the shipheart to augment her rock-work the bricks and mortar surrendered in moments. She swirled the rising dust around her, lifting it behind her like the wings of a dragon. Theatre was her only real key to the palace if she wasn’t prepared to kill her way in.

Crucical’s ring of guardsmen had tightened so much that their backs were literally against the wall. High above them the light of a burning city danced across battlements. The palace, while fortified, was far from being a fortress. The city walls and the emperor’s armies were his defence. When the Scithrowl came against his home it would not take them long to force an entry.

Half a dozen guards came forward from their positions, more starting to advance to either side. The officer among them, a gerant standing at least eight foot tall, levelled her spear at Nona’s approach. The gleaming point trembled as the fringes of the shipheart’s aura rooted out the woman’s private terrors.

‘You can stop where you stand or die a step in front of it!’ Sweat beaded her dark brow but duty bound the officer to the spot. Her subordinates, however, took several paces back.

‘I am Sister Cage, and this is a shipheart.’ Nona’s augmented wind-work let her voice carry all along the line, overwriting the sounds of the as-yet-unseen battle. ‘It belongs to Emperor Crucical and the Ancestor has bidden me to bring it from the Convent of Sweet Mercy to aid him.’ She pressed with her marjal empathy, willing them to accept her word, and took another step forward. ‘Will any among you take this burden from me and deliver it to the emperor in my place?’ She held it out, letting the wind carry the sound of battle to the walls, making it seem even closer.

The gerant guard ground her teeth and furrowed her brow, proving resistant to suggestion. ‘I don’t know you, sister. I cannot admit you without someone to vouch for—’

‘I know her!’ A shout from the walls above. ‘And you know me. Let her in, Kerla!’

Nona squinted up at the walls. Regol waved at her. ‘You know Regol?’ she asked.

‘Everyone knows Regol.’ The woman stepped back with a relieved expression. ‘Meet her at the Scholars’ Door!’ she roared up to Regol. ‘She’s your responsibility!’ She pointed a blunt finger to the left. ‘Small door with stone scrolls above the lintel. About a hundred yards that way.’

The word went along the line and all the guards cleared out of Nona’s path. She walked rather than ran, concentrating on resisting the shipheart.

‘What in all the hells is th—’ Regol’s jaw snapped shut and he backed away with the guardsmen behind the Scholars’ Door. He paled as the shipheart reached out to twist his mind.

‘You have to stay away,’ Nona said.

‘Thanks for the advice.’ Regol pressed his back against a column and stayed where he was. After a moment he found his smile and forced it onto a white face beaded with sweat. ‘I don’t think I have any choice in the matter. Damn near soiled myself!’

Further back among the antechamber’s columns five guardsmen huddled together, spears ready. Two of them were weeping. Nona felt like crying herself. That or screaming to drown out the voices echoing in her fracturing mind. The power that the shipheart gave her was incredible but her skin was already crawling as if a dozen devils were already following their separate paths across her.

‘How are you here?’ The question escaped Nona despite her gritted teeth and the urgency of her mission. It shamed her to admit to herself that she hadn’t once thought of Regol in the past two days. If she had she would have expected to find him with the Caltess fighters rather than within the palace. And all Partnis Reeve’s fighters had probably been conscripted to join the force at the Amber Gate. For a moment the image of Denam in full armour flickered across her mind. If anyone could give the Scithrowl pause it would be that ten-foot stack of muscle and hate. ‘Why aren’t you with the others?’