Grealin gave a slight smile. “Actually, my correct title is Aspect.”

? ? ?

He sent Janril after the Renfaelin hunters along with ten of their most capable remaining fighters. As instructed they killed the dogs to erase the memory of their scent and kept one of the hunters alive for questioning. His defiance didn’t last long, a few moments in Thirty-Four’s company proving sufficient persuasion to fully loosen his tongue.

“Our lord is convinced his son resides in this forest,” the man said, a lean fellow of middling years with the weathered look of a professional tracker. The fingers of his left hand dripped blood continually from where Thirty-Four had thrust rose thorns under his nails. “We were promised ten golds to bring him back, twenty if he was still alive. He paid for the slaves out of his own pocket, bought them from the Volarian general.”

“You hunt your own people for gold?” Janril asked him in an expressionless tone.

“I do as I’m told,” the man whined, staring up at them from the tree root to which he had been bound. “Always have. Fief Lord Darnel is not a man to cross, not if you want to stay healthy.”

“Neither am I,” Frentis said. “Tell him that when you see him.”

“You’re letting him go?” Janril asked, following as he walked towards where Arendil was helping with the wounded.

“Leave him bound where he is when we move the camp,” Frentis said. “I assume Lord Darnel will have a just reward for his failure.”

“He deserves a traitor’s death, brother,” Janril insisted, an uncharacteristic heat colouring his tone.

“Not seen enough death for one day, Sergeant?”

“When it comes to scum like him, I’ll never have seen enough.”

Frentis paused, meeting Janril’s gaze squarely. “Does it help? All the killing and the torture, does it take away the sight of her death?”

Janril’s eyes were bright and pale beneath his lowered brow. “Nothing will ever do that. What I do I do in her name, I honour her with blood.”

“Her name? What was it? I’ve yet to hear you speak it.”

The sergeant just stared at him, only a faint uncertainty in his eyes, barely glimpsed beneath the burgeoning madness. “Leave the hunter where he is and get ready to move,” Frentis ordered. “If you can’t follow my commands, then take yourself off and do all the killing you want out of my sight.”

Arendil was helping Davoka bind a bandage around Draker’s arm. The Lonak woman was the only one amongst them with any appreciable healing skill. “Thought I’d clubbed the life from the bugger then he stabs me,” the big man said through gritted teeth. “Finished him then though. Didn’t stop till I saw his brains.”

Davoka tied off the bandage and they moved away, speaking softly. “Ten will die tonight. The rest will heal with enough time.”

“Time is not something we have,” he replied. “We move within the hour.”

She gave a sombre nod then cast a wary glance at where Grealin sat alone beside a small fire, huddling in his cloak as if chilled to the bone. “He comes too?”

“He’s an Aspect of my Faith and leader of this group. Can’t very well leave him behind.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Leader?”

Frentis chose to ignore her and turned to Arendil, beckoning the boy over. “So, how well do you know your father?”

? ? ?

“Twenty golds?” Arendil pursed his lips in surprise. “And Grandfather always said the Fief Lord was too cheap to pay a tavern whore.”

“What does he want you for?” Frentis asked.

“I’m his heir. The only issue of his filthy seed.” The boy’s discomfort was obvious, his gaze averted as he shifted from foot to foot. “I’ve never even met him but I feel as if he’s always been there, a hateful shadow. And I know his mind, his need to claim me has become something beyond reason or sense. Sometimes I would see Mother looking at me with a strange frown and I knew she wasn’t seeing me, she was seeing him.” He stopped shuffling, raising his head to meet Frentis’s eye. “I won’t be taken by him, brother. I will die first.”

Cut off a finger and send it to the Fief Lord with the hunter. Provoke him into even rasher action. It was not his thought, he knew that. It was her. The stain of their union went deep, all the way into his soul. “I swear to you that won’t happen,” he told Arendil, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You fought well today. Go help her ladyship with gathering the weapons, will you?”

There was a brief flash of pride on the boy’s face before he ran off to find Illian.

? ? ?

“Did Vaelin know?” Frentis asked, sitting down opposite the Aspect of the Seventh Order.

“Not until his brief visit before he went to the Reaches,” the Aspect replied. “We had an . . . interesting discussion.” Grealin’s pallor was still somewhat grey but a pinkness was creeping back into his ample cheeks. Frentis recalled the blood and exhaustion that always accompanied the woman’s use of her stolen gift.

“Your ability. It pains you to use it?” he asked.

“It’s more that it drains me. So much power released all at once has consequences. I remain fat for a reason, brother. It makes the aftermath more palatable.”

“Where do we find the House of your Order?”

“The Seventh Order has no House. And hasn’t for the past four centuries. We are woven like a gossamer thread through the fabric of the Faith and the Realm, our work always hidden.”

“As you were hidden in our Order?”

“Quite. It seemed the most secure hidey hole.” Grealin’s tired features formed into a sardonic smirk. “How spectacularly are the wise proved foolish.”

“The brothers I found that day, Aspect Arlyn sent them with you, as protection.”

“Yes. And they died following his order.”

“Where would you have gone?”

“North, to the Pass. If the way was blocked, west to Nilsael and on to the Reaches. Instead I found myself here with you and our heroic band of rebels. It’ll make a fine story one day, don’t you think? If there’s anyone left to tell it.”

This is a defeated man, Frentis realised, eyeing the sag of Grealin’s features and the dullness in his eyes. “These people look to us for leadership,” he said. “For hope. As an Aspect of the Faith you can give them that.”

“My only gift to them is fear. They see what I am and they fear it. The Lonak woman is just more honest than the others. To carry a gift is to know fear and isolation. We do not belong in the daylight, we belong in the shadows. That is where we can best serve the Faith. The hardest lesson my Order ever learned.”

“The time for old ways is gone, Aspect. Everything is changed. They came and broke it all apart. How we put it back together is for us to decide.”

“Seeking to remake the world, brother? Looking for a noble quest to wash away all the blood you spilled?”

“It won’t wash away. But that doesn’t mean I have to wallow in it.”

“Then what are we doing here? Why continue to fight this hopeless war? These people are all going to die. There is no victory to be had in this forest.” His gaze dropped, becoming distant. “No victory anywhere. We thought we had won, you see? Turned aside the avalanche when Al Sorna revealed the One Who Waits. But all we did was allow our gaze to be drawn to one threat whilst another grew unseen. An entire army sent across the ocean to crush us. Who would have thought he would be so unsubtle after centuries of guile?”

“He?”

Grealin raised his gaze. “Your dead lady friend called him the Ally I believe. The Volarians do like to indulge their delusions. They may have divested themselves of gods and faith long ago, but they replaced reason with servitude in so doing.”

“Who is he?”

“Who he was might be a more pertinent question, for once he must have been a man. A man with a name, a people, perhaps even a family he loved. All lost, of course, hidden even from the most gifted scryers in my Order. We have no name for him, just a purpose.”

“Which is?”

“Destruction. Specifically our destruction, as it seems there is something about this land that stirs his hatred. He tried once before, when the great cities rose and a people far wiser than us crafted wonders. Somehow he managed to tumble it all into ruin, but not quite enough, something escaped him. And now he wants it gone.”

Grealin lapsed into silence, eyes dulling once more as a wave of fatigue swept over his features.

Frentis got to his feet. “My thanks for saving the boy, I know it has cost you. We move in an hour. I should be grateful if you would come with us.”

The Aspect’s bulk shifted in a shrug. “Where else would I go?”

CHAPTER FOUR

Reva

“It means ‘witch,’” Veliss said, peering at the open book in her hand. “Female derivation of the old Volarian for ‘sorcerer.’”

“Elverah,” Reva said, tasting the word. “Has a nice sound to it.”

“They think you’re a witch?” Arken said.

“Godless heretics,” Lord Arentes sniffed. “Mistaking the Father’s blessing for the Dark.”