Couldn’t sleep either. Kept thinking about March and Darath. The young man in his squalid room opening onto an alley soaked with piss. Hands on his hands, a mouth on his mouth, fucking and gasping and collapsing with a cry of triumph on top of the perfect rotten body, oozing firewine sweat from its luscious luminous radiant skin. Sharp, bitter desire. Different from anything he’d felt for Darath or anyone else. I think I did enjoy it, then, he thought. And still he did not feel guilty. Perhaps it was just too unreal. Couldn’t have happened. He’d been at home asleep all night, dreaming. The man was a memory of a dream.

He lay with his eyes closed seeing black hair and black skin and March thrashing in fever until March sweating and rolling in pain was all muddled and merged with the young man twisting and sweating in fake ecstasy under Orhan’s weight. He felt sick with fever himself. Sleep starved. As sleep wasn’t going to come he got up and dressed.

Bil was awake, sitting in the garden listening to the girl Nilesh read. A stab of guilt towards her, seeing her, her belly, her child there. She ignored him. She knew he had done something terrible. He stood in the hall of his own house, lost.

He should go to the palace. Do something, while he waited for Darath to find out what he’d done and come looking for him.

Please come looking, a part of him whispered. He had a sudden, chilling horror that Darath would ignore him. Wouldn’t come. Wouldn’t care. Would fuck the man himself, longer and harder and better, and pay him more.

Would tell everyone and anyone the truth about that night and his plans and March and Tam … Well done, Orhan! You just did the one thing you’re classically never supposed to do when intriguing for power. But maybe he’ll forgive you, you just need to tell him he’s still the better lover, yes?

Bil came into the hall. She looked very tired, shadows under her eyes. She smoothed her hands over her belly.

“We should get a food taster,” Bil said.

“A food taster? What? Where in the God’s name are we supposed to get a food taster from?”

Bil gestured towards the doorway. “There are enough hungry people in Sorlost.”

“That’s vile!”

She flushed scarlet. “But do you want to die?”

We should get a food taster, he thought. March is probably regretting that too.

Go back to the palace. Pretend everything was normal. Bury himself in work. Serious, dull, calm things. So very effective that had been, after all, yesterday. He took the full complement of guards with him, leaving only the four for the house and two to watch. They trooped through the streets he’d walked last night. People drew back out of the way as they passed. Still, occasionally, looks of respect and admiration, Lord Emmereth who had saved the city from despair. But mostly now whispers and fearful glances. Lord Verneth’s murderer. A gang of men with swords.

“He’s dying of heat flux!” Orhan wanted to shout to the crowds. “Heat flux!” If he said it enough times it might somehow come true.

When he got to his rooms in the palace, Secretary Gallus was arranging letters on the desk. Looked at Orhan a moment with the same nervousness as the people in the street. Perhaps I should throw a huge party, Orhan thought. Watch them all finding reasons not to eat or drink. We should have done it before the wedding, Darath could have saved a fortune in catering costs.

He said, “Good morning, Gallus.” Heard his voice weak at the edges. A new, harsh, grating tone to it.

Gallus said formally, “Good morning, My Lord Nithque.”

Orhan looked wearily at the pile of papers. “Anything of any interest?”

Pause. “Another letter from the Immish Great Council, demanding recompense for the Immish merchants attacked during the … the Immish invasion. Another petition from the money lenders, demanding reparations for the destruction of their property during the, uh, the same.”

Pause. “Court gossip from Chathe: Prince Heldan seems sensibly reluctant to consider an Ithish wife. Court gossip from Allene: Queen Amnaia is pregnant again, father unknown. Her older children are piqued at it. As one might expect.

Pause. “And this.”

He handed Orhan a piece of parchment.

Court gossip, this time from Malth Tyrenae, the Ithish court. The Ithish equally reluctant to consider Prince Heldan as an Ithish princess’s husband, and thus putting the Chathean delegation’s disdainfully wrinkled noses very much out of joint. They are leaving in a hurry, threatening dire things for the insult to their prince. Yes. But all this has been of little notice, for the king and all the court are very preoccupied with the news from the White Isles, indeed talk of little else. There has been great disorder there, the old king is reported dead. Both of his sons are claiming the throne in his place. There is likely to be war between them, all think. This despite the fact, as I told you before, that it was said openly only a few months ago that the elder boy, the Princess Marissa’s child, was dead. Orhan stared at it in astonishment. “Civil war. Great Tanis. The stupidity of these people. But it might tie up the Ithish, I suppose. Even Immish, it might distract them. Two boys. The Immish might feel duty bound to back the younger against Ith. Or …” But I can’t see why you’re so nervous, he thought, looking at Gallus’s face. You’re afraid, Gallus. Why in Great Tanis’s name should you be afraid of this?

“No, My Lord Nithque.” Gallus pointed to a passage halfway down the page. “I … Read from … this part here. ‘The elder prince, Marith, the Princess Marissa’s child, has a woman with him …’”

The elder prince, Marith, the Princess Marissa’s child, has a woman with him, and concerning this woman some very strange tales are told. She is claimed to be the High Priestess of Great Tanis the Lord of Living and Dying, He Who Rules All Things, the One God of your Empire of Sorlost. It is said that the prince himself has been heard to boast of this. You will know, of course, that he does indeed claim to have been in Sorlost, and even to have led an attack on the Imperial Palace. Of this also some very strange tales are told, but I myself do not now believe them. For I had gathered from you yourself that the Immish attacked the palace. Though the Immish deny it. But they would. But to return to my story: the woman is said to be young, barely out of her girlhood, and very beautiful, with dark skin and black hair, and her eyes are blue. The High Priestess, I believe, is described as such? All here are uncertain regarding this, for another story is circulating that both the High Priestess of Sorlost and the Emperor himself are dead. Of this, too, there is much uncertainty; that the Emperor is dead I know for a lie, as you yourself told me. However, whoever she is, the prince is said to be besotted with her and has ordered her to be called “Queen” and plans to marry her—although you will remember that last year he was said to be equally besotted with a young nobleman, who is now certainly dead—

Dead.

Dead.

Gallus said, “You see, My Lord?”

Orhan put the paper down. His hands trembling. The sudden choking stink of burned flesh and spreading blood. I’m going to be sick, he thought. The world was spinning, the ground lurched away into unsteady shifting dark. It’s not true. It’s stories. Delusions. Dreams. Lies. A great terrible weight clung on his shoulders, he felt a thousand years old, sick from his bowels to his head. I’m going to be sick, he thought. I’m going to be sick.

“My Lord?” Gallus was looking at him. Terrified.

“Who … who else knows about this? Has seen this?”

Gallus said, “No one but you and myself, My Lord Nithque.”

Gallus said, “As yet.”

The stories started in the wine shops the same day. A friend of a friend had met a merchant who traded with a man from Reneneth or Skerneheh who traded with a man from Ith or Illyr who’d met a man from the White Isles who’d had a strange tale to tell. The Altrersyr were stirring, fighting among themselves, planning war. A new king had been proclaimed there who was Amrath come again. He was as tall as a mountain, as beautiful as the sunrise, his sword dripped fire, his watch words were ruin and death and pain. At his side was a witch woman sworn to Great Tanis the Lord of Living and Dying, who had abandoned her god for his love. For her sake, he had burned the Great Temple, razed the Summer Palace, battled dragons, killed the Emperor’s own guard. He was King of the White Isles and every man on the White Isles loved him. He was King of the White Isles and any man who did not fall down and worship him, he killed. His face shone with light. His eyes were too terrible to look at. His lady was the most beautiful woman in the history of the world.

“Lies.” “Absurdities.” “Blasphemy.” “The High Priestess Thalia is dead.” “The heir to the White Isles is dead.” “The heir to the White Isles was a notorious hatha addict and a drunk.” “The heir to the White Isles was insane.” “The High Priestess Thalia is dead.”

Thus the first day of the rumours. The friend of the friend had met a merchant who’d met a man who was himself drunk or hatha-addled or mad. If one person could at least name their informant, give some proof. There was that incident ten years ago, the siege of Telea, when the Immish had dressed up that poor young girl, claimed she was the ringleader’s daughter, killed her. The last King of Tarboran died two hundred years ago, and still people appeared claiming to be his heir. These strange bizarre things. Impossible to conceive of, isn’t it, that a beautiful young girl of twenty who has lived her whole life in the confines of one building should run off with a glamorous young foreign king?

The second day of the rumours, the Emperor and the High Lords his advisers met in council. The Emperor comes! The Emperor comes! Kneel for the Emperor, the Eternal Ruler of the Golden City of Sorlost! The crash of bronze doors opening and closing. The hard tread of guards’ feet.

Orhan sat at the opposite end of the table to the Emperor.

Hostile faces looking at him.

“You told us she was dead,” said Cammor Tardein, the Lord of the Dry Sea, Dweller in the House of Breaking Waves.

“You showed us her body, made a speech over it,” said Aris Ventuel, the Lord of Empty Mirrors, Dweller in the House of Glass. “That we must ensure her death was not in vain.”

“You told us the invaders were from Immish,” said Samneon Magreth, the Lord of the Southern Sky, Dweller in the House of Mists. “And that they were all dead.”

Dead. Everyone, everyone looked at the empty chairs where March Verneth and Tam Rhyl should be sitting. Darath and Elis, sitting beside each other, away from Orhan, Elis sitting next to the chair in which his goodfather should be sat.

Dead. All dead.

Orhan opened his mouth to speak. Memories. Eyes staring at him. Eyes like knife blades. A voice shouting. A boy, soaked in blood to his eyeballs, blazing like a star.

Dead.

“Dead.” His voice was coming through thick dry dust. His mouth tasted of blood. “The invaders are all dead.”

“Lord Emmereth?” Cammor Tardein said.

“The High Priestess Thalia is dead and the invaders were from Immish,” said Orhan. “Whatever is happening on the White Isles is madness and lies.”

A boy. A beautiful shining screaming blood-soaked boy. Dead. Dead. Dead.

“The High Priestess Demerele drew the red lot,” said Darath. “The High Priestess Demerele, the High Priestess-that-is, drew the red lot. Barely days before the High Priestess Thalia’s untimely death. If Demerele was not chosen by Great Tanis, she would not have drawn the red lot.”

Orhan said, very slowly, his voice dry and cracked, “That, surely, must mean something, must it not?”

“The Altrersyr are liars and deceivers. Accursed demons,” said Darath. “But the Asekemlene Emperor cannot be deceived. The Emperor saw the High Priestess Thalia’s body. The God Himself, Great Tanis, the Lord of Living and Dying, ensured that we had a new High Priestess waiting, that we would not be abandoned after the High Priestess Thalia’s death. Who would dare to argue with the Asekemlene Emperor and the God?”

A rational man, Orhan Emmereth. Fifteen thalers, it had cost him, for Demerele to draw the red lot. Yes, he thought, yes, that’s it.

The Emperor stirred himself. Spoke. A weak, pale man, the Emperor, neither clever nor good looking, puffy in his face and belly, red broken veins on his nose. A fishmonger’s son in a desert city. A raven had landed at the child’s feet to caw out “Emperor,” and the High Priestess Caleste had sighed when she confirmed that the child was indeed the Asekemlene Emperor reborn to them, the Ever Living, the Eternal, the Husband of the City, the Blessed Golden Light of the Sun’s Dawn.

“I saw her body in a silver casket,” said the Emperor. “I presided over her burial. I saw the Immish assassins. I sent a letter to the Immish Great Council, protesting their attack on me. Was I deceived? Was what I said a lie?”

Silence.

The Emperor said, “The Emperor cannot be deceived.”

“If anyone repeats these lies,” said Darath, “they should be executed for blasphemy against the God and treason against the Emperor.”

The wrong words, there. Eyes flickered sideways. Back to March Verneth and Tam Rhyl’s empty chairs. Orhan felt himself flinch. A terrible fear that he would be sick.

“And then, perhaps, the city can recover itself from bloodshed,” said the Emperor.

“We all pray as much,” said Cammor Tardein. Looking at Orhan.

The Emperor rose to his feet. The High Lords of the Sekemleth Empire rose and knelt before him. The doors of the council room swung closed with a crash of new forged bronze.

Orhan got slowly to his feet. Try not to look at the other lords’ faces.

A boy with eyes like knife blades. Beautiful. Shining. But they were all dead. They were from Immish, a hired troop, rough mercenaries from Immish, they were all dead. And the memory, Great Tanis, the memory of the woman’s body, stabbed and broken, and his sword coming down on her, cutting up her face into an unrecognizable pulp of blood. Not even the worst thing he’d ever done.

“The High Priestess Thalia is dead and the invaders were from Immish and they are all dead.”

“Orhan.” Darath caught his arm. “I need a word with you.” Darath had dark, terrible hateful eyes. He knows I was unfaithful to him, thought Orhan. They hadn’t spoken since the day of March’s poisoning. Would have pleaded illness himself, despite everything, to avoid seeing Darath here; his heart had leapt, despite everything, at the thought of seeing Darath here. An excuse to talk to him. This new catastrophe that has struck us: perhaps a bridge between us, to smooth what we have done. We are beset by further chaos: and you were right to kill March, Darath, I see that now. For what would March have made of this new way to attack us?

“A word,” Darath said. “Now.”

They travelled all the way to the House of the East in silence. Darath trying not to meet Orhan’s eyes or touch his hand.

“You betrayed me,” Darath said when they were alone in Orhan’s bedroom. His voice was bitingly cold.

“I—I can’t explain it. I don’t know what to say. What came over me.” Just tell him you’re sorry. Tell him—

Darath struck him in the face, a ring scratching and drawing blood.

“You manipulative, vile, evil, lying bastard! You used me! All those lovely speeches about saving the city, about making us great again, about the poor and starving, about needing to protect us from an Immish threat. And you sold us to the thrice-damned fucking Altrersyr! I paid for it! I fought for it! The Altrersyr! What in God’s name did they offer you? How much can possibly have been enough for that?”

Shock. Astonishment. Horror. For a moment Orhan didn’t even understand.

“I told Elis I believed in you! That him marrying Leada was a part of remaking the Empire! My brother! I made my brother poison his own goodfather in his own house!”

“Elis? You made Elis do it?”

Darath’s face went almost purple. “Yes, I made Elis do it! I made Elis kill his wife’s father! For you! How else did you think I managed it?”

“I … I don’t know. I tried not to think. I … I’m sorry. I—”

Darath hit him again, on the face, stinging his eyes. “Sorry! You sold us to the fucking Altrersyr! What the fuck did they offer you? How can anything have been enough for that? You know what they did to Tam’s daughter. You know what they fucking are. A thousand thousand years our enemies! Death and ruin! And you sold us to them!” Spittle clustered on Darath’s lips. Weeping. Never seen him so angry. “Monsters! You sold us to them, Orhan!”

“No! Darath, no, please.”

“You sold me! You made me help you! I gave them money!”

“No …”

Darath’s face like a dog’s bared teeth. “You bastard. You lying, poisonous, hateful bastard.”

“I don’t understand. Any of it.” Orhan himself like a man without sword or armour, crouching trying to ward off the death blow with his outstretched hand.

“What the fuck is there to understand, Orhan? You arranged for the new King of the White Isles to burn the palace, despoil the Temple, carry off the High Priestess. So he can brag about it to his drinking friends! Why, in God’s name? Why? Why? Did he promise you something? Land? Titles? Gold? His love? Are you running away to the Whites to be something at his court? How long were you planning this?” A horrible light came into Darath’s eyes. “Is this why you took me back to bed? To win me over? Help you make your pretty boyfriend king?”

“But they … they were a hired troop from Immish. I didn’t know they had any connection to the Whites. How could I know? Why would I do that? Why would … why would this man, this king, why would he have done that, even? And they’re dead. They’re all dead. I saw them. The High Priestess Thalia is dead and the invaders were from Immish and they are all dead.”

Dead. Dead.

It sounded so pitiful. His voice whispered like leaves. Eyes like knife blades staring at him. A voice shouting, “I’ll kill you, then.” A boy, soaked in blood to his eyeballs, falling backwards in a crash of brilliant glass. We were too frightened to search for him, Orhan thought. No one would have gone to search for him. Not out there into the dark. His eyes, seeing you, out there in the dark … The boy raising his sword and Tam shaking, screaming, losing control of his bowels. Tam rasping out “Alive” as he died.

“What have we done? What have you done? He’ll kill us, Orhan!”

We paid for the men who attacked the palace to die. We killed them. We killed them all. I remember. I thought I did. Killed them. Dead.

Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

“They are everything they say they are. And worse,” Tam Rhyl had said, when he came back from the White Isles. Sailing away thinking Tiothlyn Altrersyr would marry his daughter. Sailing back with his daughter’s womb rotting out of her body, his daughter crippled with pain. “He did it by his own hand,” Tam Rhyl had screamed. “He sent her a letter. Telling her. If Great Tanis were merciful he would wipe Malth Elelane from the face of the earth.”

“I didn’t know! God’s knives, I swear, I didn’t know.”

“Liar! Fucking lies! Lies, Orhan!”

“I swear it! I didn’t know! I swear by Great Tanis—”

“Liar!”

“No … Please, Darath. Please.”

“I’ll kill you! I swear it! I’ll see you and everything that’s yours die in agony! I swear!”

And that, that is the most terrible thing he has ever heard and ever will hear.

They stopped, the words hanging visible in the air between them, bright as sunbeams, too terrible to be unsaid. Both breathing hard, weeping, grief running out of them from their souls, fear in their eyes.

Orhan got down slowly onto his knees at Darath’s feet. “I swear to you on my life and my love and the day of my death that I didn’t know.”

Darath stared down at him for what seemed like lifetimes. Rigid. Bent as stone.

“Truly?”

“Truly. On my life and my death and my love for you. I didn’t know.”

Darath sighed, a ragged, shuddering sound that ran through his body and Orhan’s. “‘On your love for me’? You fuck some filthy whore in the streets and you swear on your love for me?”

“Yes. Yes. I fucked some filthy whore in the streets and I swear on my love for you.”

A long silence. Then Darath laughed like a man dying of disease. “And you’re sorry for that, too, I suppose?” And he was laughing and weeping and hitting at Orhan’s chest. “And I suppose he’ll turn out to be the Last True King of Tarboran, will he, your whore?” And Orhan was clutching at him so tight it hurt, almost fighting him, sobbing out “I’m sorry,” while the tears ran down his cheeks.

And then a servant came running, terrified to interrupt them, to tell them that Bil’s labour had begun.