The faces of eight TaiGethen were turned to her.

‘You want us to leave the command post?’ asked Merrat. ‘What about Olmaat and the healers?’

‘When we’re done at the temple I want us to leave the city altogether. Olmaat is safe enough. They will not enter the playhouse. They fear what happened here. Tais, we move.’

Katyett led them. She headed for a corner of the roof, swung out and climbed down to the arch above the doorway faster than most could descend a ladder. With a quick glance towards the approaching torches, she jumped the last twenty feet, landing silently and running away towards the piazza, meaning to enter it at the northern end by the temple of Shorth.

Down at street level, Katyett felt blind. She had the eight with her and there were three other cells in the city monitoring trouble. A young TaiGethen came up to her left shoulder.

‘I’ve got the best route to the piazza,’ she said. ‘We can avoid the mobs and come in between Shorth and Gyal, up the stairs by the western sunken gardens.’

‘Thank you, Faleen, lead on. Merrat, Graf, I need you to trace the other cells. Bring them to the piazza as soon as you can.’

‘Consider it done.’

Katyett’s cell split left and right, sprinting away into the night. She followed Faleen, who darted down a tight alleyway that led south and east between houses and the walls of the Gardens of Appos. She felt more comfortable here. Temporarily, the noise of violence was muted and the high walls leaned in like a blessing from Cefu.

The alley led out onto a quiet street, cobbled and with small businesses and low, domed housing on either side. There were a few lights but most places were dark and silent. Ordinary elves were hiding indoors, frightened and anxious about what was happening in their city, to their way of life.

Here in streets like this was where the anger at what had consumed the city settled most deeply on Katyett. Ula and iad, young and old, parent and child. Every thread would be represented behind the closed doors and shuttered windows. Scant hours before, they had been going about their normal lives. Secure in the knowledge that Yniss blessed their every step and the harmony was with them, unbreakable. The silent, invisible security blanket that wrapped them all.

And then the denouncement had happened, and those who had determined it to be the moment the world of the elves returned to the days before the War of Bloods held sway in the city. Those who had organised the murder of Jarinn and Lorius had ensured the blood of all threads would be spilled.

Katyett had no idea if there was a way out for the innocents she passed by with her brothers and sisters. She had no idea if the harmony would survive this onslaught, and she couldn’t understand why any elf would want to rip it apart. Katyett could recall all too clearly the atrocities of the War of Bloods. They were at the root of her nervousness now. She could still feel the tears.

A TaiGethen warrior ran into the street from the left, sprinting hard, sliding to a stop when he saw them.

‘Yniss bless us, we may just be in time,’ he said.

‘Pakiir. Run with us,’ said Katyett. ‘Tell me.’

‘They’re coming from all over. Crowding the temple piazza. Al-Arynaar are trying to hold them but they are too few. They mean to burn the temple of Yniss.’

Katyett’s body went cold.

‘Not again,’ she whispered. ‘Tais, run. Run hard.’

The sky towards the piazza was glowing with torchlight. Katyett ran alongside Faleen. The nearer they got the worse Katyett felt. They could hear the noise of the mob. She could almost taste the intent. A chant started. A line of the ancient tongue.

Chilmatta nun kerene.

Immortals die screaming.

She swore and pushed yet harder, forging ahead of Faleen. Still two hundred yards and more, and she could hear fighting. The clash of weapons. Screams of pain above the roar of the mob. An intensification of the mood. Blood was flowing. Elves were dying.

‘Up to the roof of Shorth,’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘Let’s see what we’re up against.’

Pakiir was going to be proved wrong. They were not going to get there in time. Katyett heard a roar of triumph that could only mean the defence was broken. Immediately after, there was a whooshing sound and the stink of burning oil filled the air. The roar intensified.

Katyett tore around the back of Shorth’s Temple, pounded through the sunken garden with the yelling of the mob all around her, above her and ahead of her. She led the TaiGethen up the side of the temple, using the thick liana that grew there. She ran along the arm and down the body, pulling up at the temple’s edge and looking down on mass murder.

Rioters surrounded Yniss. Doorways and windows had been blocked by heavy drums and upturned wagons. Oil rained down on the building and torches were flicking into the fuel in their hundreds. The temple had caught with a ferocity that surprised even the rioters. Katyett could see those within the temple trying to beat their way out but the barricading was horribly effective. It rocked but did not fall.

Hundreds would be inside, believing themselves safe. But thousands were outside. Thousands.

‘We’ve got to get down there,’ she said. ‘Get those doors open.’

‘We’ll be overrun,’ said Pakiir. ‘Look at them. Look at their faces.’

Ugly, twisted fury. Some of them upturned to the TaiGethen. Fingers pointed up while dozens of others added more fuel to the fire, which had already set the roof alight. Paint was blistering. There was screaming from inside. The piazza was choked with elves, safe in their numbers, taunting the TaiGethen. Yelling their hate of the Ynissul.

Down at the edges of the apron a few Al-Arynaar still fought, trying to keep the rioters away. Three broke from the crowd, racing to the barricades to try to pull them away from the main doors. Forty elves engulfed them. She saw fists and feet fly in and the flash of a blade.

A bloodied Al-Arynaar body was lifted aloft and thrown onto the flames. A second was raised, still struggling. Katyett snarled. Pelyn. Fighting hard. The rioters dropped her. More fists and raking fingers went in.

‘Yniss save us. Tais, we move.’

Katyett backed up two paces, ran to the temple edge and jumped, her blades in her hands and the will to use them in her heart. Her leap carried her out over the narrow path between Shorth and the Yniss apron, over the heads of the rioters. She wouldn’t clear them all, that leap would have been prodigious even for a TaiGethen. She just hoped her arrival would be enough to cause a measure of disruption.

Katyett was coming down from a height of around forty feet. She yelled for space and saw elves begin to scatter. The heat down here was already intense. The screaming and yelling was an assault on the ears. The sheer violence of the atmosphere was a physical shock.

Katyett drew her arms across her chest in an X, her blades resting against her cheeks. She hit the ground immediately behind an ula who was pushing forward, desperate to gain himself some space. Katyett absorbed the impact throughout her body, crouching low then standing and bringing her blades back across her body to ready by her sides.

She ran forward while others landed behind her, shouting for space that none wanted to cede. Katyett found her way blocked almost immediately. She lashed out with a foot, catching an ula behind the knee. He pitched forward. Katyett ran up his body. She slammed the hilt of one blade into the back of an iad’s neck. She dropped unconscious. Katyett hurdled the body, feeling her feet on the temple apron.

The atmosphere was clogged with ash and smoke. The heat was incredible. She’d broken through the main rioter line. Directly ahead was the group of elves fighting the remaining Al-Arynaar. Pelyn struggled on. A big ula, a Beethan, had wrapped his arms around her midriff. She struck at him again and again with the back of her head while her feet lashed out, catching another square in the face.

Katyett ran straight into the melee, shoulder-charging an iad from in front of Pelyn. TaiGethen ran to either side, heading for the barricades, casting around for something with which to drag them aside.

‘Drop her right now,’ called Katyett.

The ula turned his bloodied face to Katyett. A contemptuous smile twisted his face. He turned instead towards the fire. Pelyn screamed, knowing his intent. So did Katyett. She took a single pace and thrashed a blade through the back of the man’s hamstrings. Simultaneously, Pakiir darted across in front of him, snatching Pelyn from his grasp as he opened his mouth to scream. He fell forward, head catching the burning barricade a glancing blow. His

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