The Great Feast of Sunreturn had been going for six days now, and seemed in no danger of stopping. Amazing anyone had the stamina. Amazing anyone had the stomach capacity. Amazing anyone was still conscious. The people of Morr Town danced in the streets, kissed strangers like they were old lost loves. A huge bonfire had been raised in the main square, the wood treated with something so that it burned green. Gangs of men wandered the town, masked in leather, branches hung with bones and bells and ribbons fastened to their heads to resemble the antlers of stags. They carried buckets of pitch. Torches, long leather paddles, knives. Daubed pitch on doorways and window ledges, set it burning then beat out the flames. Shouted “Luck! Luck! Luck!” as they danced. On the crag above the city, the high towers of Malth Elelane were hung with golden banners, sewn with golden bells that chimed night and day. Huge wreaths of branches and horse skulls had been raised over the open gates. Bonfires were lit in the courtyards, on the walkways at the tops of the great outer walls. There too the smoke was greasy, the flames green and too bright.

The whole effect was striking. Especially the centrepiece. Difficult not to be struck by a load of corpses, chains ringing out louder than the bloody bells when the wind got up. Very bright and festive looking, hanging there on the wall like wreaths, Queen Elayne’s hair was almost the same colour as the banners, where it wasn’t covered with blood and bird shit, and several of the women had been wearing jewelled dresses that still sparkled fetchingly in the sun.

Tobias didn’t as a general rule approve of hanging people from buildings. They’d done it at Telea, in high summer, after the city fell for the third and final time. All the noble lords and ladies, a couple of higher ranking mercenaries, the richest of the merchants, some bloke who’d claimed to be a mage. Very impressive, put the fear of all the gods into the rest of the surviving Teleans and anyone else stupid enough not to think the Immish a model of reason and good governance, a pleasingly large number of people had rushed forward immediately afterwards to surrender up big piles of buried silverware and decide their wives’ and daughters’ virtue was in fact an eminently overrated quality easily tradable for an absence of rope. But gods and demons, it had been a bugger marching in and out of the citadel and having maggots and bits of rotting flesh shower down on you every single sodding time. Really hard to get the stink out of your hair.

That wasn’t a problem here, of course, seeing as it was freezing cold and snowing. But when you looked up at some of those blue lips and blue faces … Kind of worse than rotting quickly, that they were so well preserved, like they might sort themselves out and be up and walking if you gave them a hot bath and a good rub down and a stiff drink. Queen Elayne had a mass of frozen blood blooming like flowers over her belly; Prince Ti was in pieces so small some of them had had to be tied up in little bags. But even their faces were sweet and perfect, delicately frosted with frozen tears.

Tobias looked at them thoughtfully. Seen the young prince a couple of times at a distance, not been overly impressed with him then. The queen you could tell must have been stunning, for a woman of her age. Lord Gaeve the queen’s cousin had seemed a normal enough kind of bloke, for a nobleman, although you had to admit what Tobias assumed had been his wife had a face like an ill-favoured horse.

Funny, how things went.

People were hanging round the bodies, staring up at them like he often did. He’d assumed they were mourning them, at first. Loyal and heartbroken. Possibly even refuseniks of the new regime. Then the birds’ pecking had dislodged some of Elayne’s jewellery, and he’d realized his mistake.

The town had been snow-bound since the first day of Sunreturn, twinkling pretty and clean. People went out on sleds or skated down the frozen waterways; the court had ridden out, the second night of the feasting, to hold a dance on the ice. Not much of a man for ice and snow himself, Tobias, being Immish born and bred and feeling the cold more than he liked now, but gods it was beautiful. He’d watched some girls out skating on the river and that had been a very fine sight.

The ice could break any moment and kill you. Sharp as knives and cold as death and brittle as the bones of a man’s skull. The girls skating so fresh and pretty and innocent. They knew. All of them.

“Stop looking at them.”

Tobias turned around. A woman. Familiar looking. He blinked. “Raeta?”

Well, she was from the Whites. And everyone and their dog seemed to have turned up in Morr Town for Sunreturn, to drink, fuck and try to catch a glimpse of the new king.

“Five times, you’ve come up here to have a stare at them. Not that I’ve been counting. They’re dead, Tobias. They’re of no interest to you anyway.” She stepped towards him. Looking better than she had on the ship where he’d last seen her, when he was sailing merrily into Morr Town to tell old Illyn his son was still alive, mainly because she’d been able to wash her hair and change her clothes sometime in the last month. Wearing the nice thick warm cloak she’d got off the merchant they’d neither of them ever heard of or met.

“I told you your future’s a nasty thing, Tobias. Told you you’re bloody lucky, too.”

“Oh, I’m lucky. I only got two ribs broken and my left arm twisted and half the skin ripped off my bloody legs.”

“Better than drowning.” She gestured at the gateway. “Better than that.”

“He’d do worse than that to me.”

“‘He’?”

“Don’t act all arch and innocent to me, woman.” What am I even doing talking to you like this? And I can’t just—Came out unstoppably anyway, like sneezing: “How about I buy you some lunch?”

“You want to buy me some lunch?”

“Oh, I’m lucky all right. You remember that bag of gold thalers you could smell on me? Can’t you smell them still?”

“I can’t smell anything beyond burning.” Smiled a cold smile. “I gather our new king rather likes the scent of smoke.”

“Oh, yeah. Smells better than whale shit and salt water, though. Just about. Anyway: lunch?”

A moment’s thought. Her eyes actually twinkled. “My inn or yours?”

They walked slowly back down into the town. The masked-horned-pitch-wielding-setting-fire-to-things blokes were already out in force, staggering around threatening to set fire to passing women if they didn’t give them a kiss. A glare from Raeta and they lurched off across the street. “Kissies or flames, girls! Kissies or flames! My good big stick to keep the demons away!”

“Everyone in this bloody place seems to like the smell of smoke.”

“So he’ll be a good king, then.”

Tobias’s inn was near the Thealeth Gate, pleasantly far from the sea. A poorer bit of the richer bit of the town, away from the harbour, looking out onto the wheat fields and woods of Thealan Vale, a good long hike off the bulk of Malth Elelane that you could almost pretend you couldn’t see it if you kept your eyes fixed the right way. Not a rich inn, but not a particularly bad one either. Needed somewhere decent with decent food and a decent bed when you had stab wounds, burn wounds, crushed by rocks wounds and a lungful of bloody burning salt water to recover from. Gods knew what he’d swallowed while nearly drowning. He was certainly pretending he didn’t.

Something on top of it all that was oddly, painfully akin to a broken heart. All my life and all I’ve done with it, and I’m here and the world’s fucked itself and the boy’s a frigging king.

Outside the inn, more masked men were prancing about, seemed to have managed to set fire to someone’s front window and were frantically trying to beat it out. Kept falling over, having to haul each other up again, the buckets slopping burning pitch about. A woman stood and screamed at them. A man who might have been the householder sat half naked on the opposite side of the road laughing, snowflakes settling on his fat bare chest. Heavy flakes swirling downwards while the sparks swirled up. Soot stained faces. Sweat smell. The shadows of horns and talons lurching back and forward. Someone shouting “kissies or flames!” Inside the inn, a woman was crawling across the common room floor with her skirts over her head showing off her arse. Two men wrestled until one fell over with a crack. Voices roared out a song about the king and his big big sword. Nice, respectable place.

It’s barely past midday, thought Tobias. I haven’t even had lunch yet.

“Very nice,” Raeta said. Sounded genuine. They went up to Tobias’s room, Tobias ordering a jug of hot beer and two bowls of stew to be sent to follow them. Let the innkeep think what he liked about Raeta. He’d crapped himself in front of her. She could probably cope with sitting on his bed.

“You think? Had a room in an inn right out on the other side of town near the sea for a while. Stayed for free the first night and all after I limped there dripping wet with bloody seaweed in my hair. Until being a hero of Morr Bay suddenly stopped being something to tell people about. Stroke of luck they kicked me out, actually, seeing as the storm dismantled the place two days later and everybody staying there died.”

Raeta laughed. “You’re lucky, see?”

A girl entered with a tray. She gave Raeta a quick look, grinned at her feet, left. Way too classy for him, the girl was probably thinking. Unless he pays damned well. Downstairs, a burst of enthusiasm for the king’s peerless ability to disembowel people. His cloak was red as widows’ eyes, apparently. And his subjects sang like crows.

“What do you want, then, Raeta? Been following me. Been hanging around Malth Elelane looking at me looking at dead things.”

“You smell of guilt, now, too, Tobias. Blood and gold and guilt.”

“Anyone who smells of blood and gold smells of guilt, Raeta. Stop pretending to be some witch thing.”

“You feel like you killed them. The queen. Prince Tiothlyn. The king even, maybe. The old king. The dead one.” Not even a question. Tobias shut his eyes. Tiothlyn had screamed so loud people had heard it through the walls of Malth Elelane. They’d looked kind of alike, Ti and Marith.

He’d seen King Marith a few days before, from a distance, pulled himself back into the crowds with a panicked fear he’d be seen. Riding down Sceal Street to the harbour to see the storm damage, mounted on a huge white horse the size of a fucking bull with that horrible stinking vomit-inducing cloak waving behind him that everyone else seemed to think was terribly dramatic and kind of stylish if you were that way inclined. The people had cheered their heads off but there’d been an undercurrent, a frightened thing underneath. The shadows had crawled around the boy and over his eyes. I fought for him, Tobias had thought dazedly. I marched in his army. I seem to remember jumping around shouting “Hail to the king!”

I mean … what the fucking bloody fucking fucking fuck happened back there on Third?

“I feel like I killed, them, yeah,” he said.

“I won’t ask why. Got the oddest feeling I somehow know. Lots of good new stories going round, the Deed of the New King what killed a dragon and sacked a palace and carried off the most beautiful woman what ever lived to spread her legs for him five times a night. Some Immish blokes in the background there somewhere, looking on applauding him.”

“So much my hands bloody ached. They mention the time he puked on my boots?”

“Not in the version I heard. Hardly noteworthy, either. He’s puked on the boots of half the innkeeps of Morr Town.” She sipped her beer. Bitter, tang of herbs that the heating made worse: Tobias saw her mouth pucker slightly, then a slight smile that she liked the taste. “Medicinal” might be a good word for it. “Cleaned the palate.” They seemed to like bitterness here too. The steam softened her face. I don’t desire you in the slightest, he thought, but I think I kind of trust you more than anyone I ever met apart from Skie.

Worse luck for you, then, Raeta, woman.

“How’s your ma?” Tobias asked. Try to talk about something more pleasant than kingly vomit while we eat.

“She died. That’s why I was visiting her.”

Good one, Tobias. “I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“Look, a bloke can be a right fucking bastard sword for hire and still feel sorry someone’s ma died, yes?”

Raeta barked out a laugh. “Yes.”

“So how’s your brother?” Not dead too, oh please, he thought, the moment he’d said it.

“Well enough. Sailed off back to Immish just before all this blew up. Got a nice new ship cheap as cheap to go sailing off in too.”

“Yeah? Lucky for him.”

“He thought so. Called the ship Another’s Luck, in fact.” She spooned a mouthful of stew, didn’t look as pleased with it as with the beer. No accounting for taste. It had salt pig and beans and lumps of stale bread in it and was about the only good thing he’d come across since setting out for Sorlost. Looked up at him. “You’re, what, forty, Tobias?”

“Something like that.”

“You’ve been a sword for hire for, what, your whole man’s life? Twenty years and more? Twenty-five?”

“Something like that.”

“So how many years you got left, you think, before you can’t do it any more and some younger man spills your guts out in the dust?”

Bitch. “Not long. Not the state I’ve been left in by things recently. Five years, maybe. Maybe less. Maybe more.” Two years tops, he thought, with his aches and the way everything was turning to shit. Then I’m dead meat chunks, like the whale at Skerneheh docks.

“Not much else you can do with your life, I’m guessing, except kill.”

Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch. “I’m a bloody good weaver, actually, I’ll have you know. Lovely silk velvets, I could make you.”

“Yeah?”

Looked down at his calloused weather-bitten scarred fingers, the thumb of the left mangled flat somewhere, shaped so they curved mostly to fit the hilt of a sword, ached all the time. “Yeah.”

“You want to do something more with your life than dying, Tobias?”

“Is there anything to life apart from dying, Raeta?”

She sipped her beer and spooned up her stew and smiled at him. Lumps of pig meat. Smoke. Dead dragons and dead soldiers and dead babies and dead whales. Prince Ti in lots of little soggy bags.

“You want to help me kill the king, Tobias?”