Still, Kettle expressed none of those desires any more. In returning to life, she had abandoned her old ways, had become, with each passing day, more and more simply a young girl. An orphan.

Witness, again and again, to her adopted family’s endless quarrelling and bickering. To the undeniable threats, the promises of murder. Yes, this is what we have offered her.

And Silchas Ruin is hardly above all of that, is he?

But what of Udinaas? Revealing no great talent, no terrible power. Revealing, in truth, naught but a profound vulnerability.

Ah, and this is what draws her to him. What he gifts back to her in that clasping of hands, the soft smile that reaches even his sad eyes.

Udinaas, Seren Pedac realized with a shock, was the only truly likeable member of their party.

She could in no way include herself as one with even the potential for genuine feelings of warmth from any of the others, not since her rape of Udinaas’s mind. But even before then, she had revealed her paucity of skills in the area of camaraderie. Ever brooding, prone to despondency-these were the legacies of all she had done-and not done-in her life.

Kicking through dust, with Clip and Silchas Ruin well ahead of the others, with the massive humps of dead dragons on all sides, they drew yet closer-to that towering gate. Fear Sengar, who had been walking two strides behind her on her left, now came alongside. His hand was on the grip of his sword.

‘Do not be a fool,’ she hissed at him.

His face was set in stern lines, lips tight.

Ahead, Clip and Silchas reached the gate and there they halted. Both seemed to be looking down at a vague, smallish form on the ground.

Udinaas slowed as the child whose hand he was holding began pulling back. Seren Pedac saw him look down and say something in a very low tone.

If Kettle replied it was in a whisper.

The ex-slave nodded then, and a moment later they carried on, Kettle keeping pace without any seeming reluctance.

What had made her shrink away?

What had he said to so easily draw her onward once more?

They came closer, and Seren Pedac heard a low sigh from Fear Sengar. ‘They look upon a body,’ he said.

Oh, Errant protect us.

‘Acquitor,’ continued the Tiste Edur, so low that only she could hear.

‘Yes?’

‘I must know… how you will choose.’

‘I don’t intend to,’ she snapped in sudden irritation. ‘Do we come all this way together only to kill each other now?’

He grunted in wry amusement. ‘Are we that evenly matched?’

‘Then, if it is truly hopeless, why attempt anything at all?’

‘Have I come this far only to step away, then? Acquitor, I must do what I must. Will you stand with me?’

They had halted, well back from the others, all of whom were now gathered around that corpse. Seren Pedac unstrapped her helm and pulled it off, then clawed at her greasy hair.

‘Acquitor,’ Fear persisted, ‘you have shown power-you are no longer the weakest among us. What you choose may prove the difference between our living and dying.’

‘Fear, what is it you seek with the soul of Scabandari?’

‘Redemption,’ he answered immediately. ‘For the Tiste Edur.’

‘And how do you imagine Scabandari’s broken, tattered soul will grant you such redemption?’

‘I will awaken it, Acquitor-and together we will purge Kurald Emurlahn. We will drive out the poison that afflicts us. And we will, perhaps, shatter my brother’s cursed sword.’

Too vague, you damned fool. Even if you awaken Scabandari, might he not in turn be enslaved by that poison, and its promise of power? And what of his own desires, hungers-what of the vengeance he himself will seek? ‘Fear,’ she said in sudden, near-crippling weariness, ‘your dream is hopeless.’

And saw him flinch back, saw the terrible retreat in his eyes.

She offered him a faint smile. ‘Yes, let this break your vow, Fear Sengar. I am not worth protecting, especially in the name of a dead brother. I trust you see that now.’

‘Yes,’ he whispered.

And in that word was such anguish that Seren Pedac almost cried out. Then railed at herself. It is what I

wanted! Damn it! What I wanted. Needed. It is what must be!

Oh, blessed Errant, how you have hurt him, Seren Pedac. Even this one. No different from all the others.

And she knew, then, that there would be no negotiation. No way through what was to come.

So be it. Do not count on me, Fear Sengar. 1 do not even know my power, nor my control of it. So, do not count on me.

But 1 shall do, for you, what I can.