Ezgara Diskanar stepped up onto the dais and slowly turned round.

The First Eunuch moved to stand before him and raised the pillow.

The king took the crown and fitted it onto his head.

‘This day,’ Nifadas said, stepped back, ‘Lether is ruled by an emperor.’ He turned. ‘Emperor Ezgara Diskanar.’

The guards released their salute.

And that is it.

Ezgara sat on the throne.

Looking old and frail and lost.

The windows were shuttered tight. Weeds snarled the path, vines had run wild up the walls to either side of the stepped entrance. From the street behind them came the stench of smoke, and a distant roar from somewhere in the Creeper Quarter inland, beyond Settle Lake, indicated that yet another riot had begun.

From the Fishers’ Gate, Seren Pedac and the Crimson Guardsmen had walked their horses down littered streets. Signs of looting, the occasional corpse, a soldier’s dead horse, and figures scurrying from their path into alleys and side avenues. Burnt-out buildings, packs of hungry feral dogs drawn in from the abandoned farmlands and forests, refugee families huddled here and there, the King’s City of Lether seemed to have succumbed to depraved barbarity with the enemy still leagues beyond the horizon.

She was stunned at how swiftly it had all crumbled, and more than a little frightened. For all her disgust and contempt for the ways of her people, there had remained, somewhere buried deep, a belief in its innate resiliency. But here, before her, was the evidence of sudden, thorough collapse. Greed and savagery unleashed, fear and panic triggering brutality and ruthless indifference.

They passed bodies of citizens who had been long in dying, simply left in the street while they bled out.

Down one broad avenue, near the canal, a mob had passed through, perhaps only half a day earlier. There was evidence that soldiers had battled against it, and had been pushed back into a fighting withdrawal.

Flanking buildings and estates had been trashed and looted. The street was sticky with blood, and the tracks of dozens of wagons were evident, indicating that here, at least, the city’s garrison had returned to take away corpses.

Iron Bars and his Guardsmen said little during the journey, and now, gathered before her home, they remained on their horses, hands on weapons and watchful.

Seren dismounted.

After a moment, Iron Bars and Corlo did the same.

‘Don’t look broken into,’ the mage said.

‘As I said,’ Seren replied, ‘nothing inside is worth taking.’

‘I don’t like this,’ the Avowed muttered. ‘If trouble comes knocking, Acquitor…’

‘It won’t,’ she said. ‘These riots won’t last. The closer the Edur army gets, the quieter things will become.’

‘That’s not what happened in Trate.’

‘True, but this will be different.’

‘I don’t see why you’d think so,’ Iron Bars said, shaking his head.

‘Go find your ship, Avowed,’ Seren said. She turned to the others. ‘Thank you, all of you. I am honoured to have known you and travelled in your company.’

‘Go safe, lass,’ Corlo said.

She settled a hand on the mage’s shoulder. Held his eyes, but said nothing.

He nodded. ‘Easy on that.’

‘You heard?’

‘I did. And I’ve the headache to prove it.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Try to remember, Seren Pedac, Mockra is a subtle warren.’

‘I will try.’ She faced Iron Bars.

‘Once I’ve found our employer and planted my squad,’ he said, ‘I’ll pay you another visit, so we needn’t get all soft here and now.’

‘All right.’

‘A day, no longer, then I’ll see you again, Acquitor.’

She nodded.

The Avowed and his mage swung themselves back into their saddles. The troop rode off.

Seren watched them for a moment, then turned about and walked up the path. The key to the elaborate lock was under the second flagstone.

The door squealed when she pushed it back, and the smell of dust swept out to engulf her. She entered, shutting the door.

Gloom, and silence.

She did not move for a time, the corridor stretching before her. The door at its end was open, and she could see into the room beyond, which was lit by cloth-filtered sunlight coming from the courtyard at the back. A high-backed chair in that far room faced her, draped in muslin cloth.

One step, then another. On, down the corridor. Just before the entrance to the room, the mouldering body of a dead owl, lying as if asleep on the floor. She edged round it, then stepped into the room, noting the slight breeze coming from the broken window where the owl had presumably entered from the courtyard.