Imladrik lowered his forehead against hers. ‘And you are loved more than life itself,’ he said. ‘You remember that.’
‘Always.’
They remained like that for many heartbeats, their limbs entwined. They said nothing as the rain ran down the glass and the gusts shook the stonework. For all the world outside cared, they might have been an image of Isha and Kurnous, frozen outside time.
But they remained mortal. Time passed, and the clatter of servants coming to retrieve the silverware broke their communion. Yethanial extricated herself before they entered, smiling bashfully, kissing Imladrik on the cheek and taking her place at the table.
Imladrik retrieved his wine, swilling it in the goblet before taking a draught. He felt unsettled. Duties would call for him soon – orders relayed from Lothern and Tor Caled, demands on his time, requests for aid. Part of him wearied of the burden of it, but part of him wished for nothing more. His duty would take him away from Tor Vael, away from Yethanial, but also from the emotions that preyed on him whenever he was forced to confront them.
Whatever you left behind, he told himself, looking up at her and wishing his smile could be more carefree, whatever part of you that remains there, think of it no more.
Chapter Three
Liandra stood, shivering, in the hills above Kor Vanaeth. Her robes were heavy from rainwater and hung like dead weights.
She ran a grimy hand through her copper hair.
Mud, she thought grimly, gazing across her domain. Filth. Every year it gets dirtier. What in the name of Isha am I still doing here?
As the years had passed, it had become harder to answer that question. The colonies were a hard place to live in for one of her breeding. The landscape was heavy with sludge, an endless grind of snarled, twisted, muck-thick forest. Every-
thing was washed-out, mouldering, greying at the edges.
Stubbornness, she concluded, glowering at a rain-washed sky. I cannot bear to see them win.
She looked down at Kor Vanaeth’s walls, half a mile away. Some sections hadn’t been completely rebuilt, though years had passed since the dawi had razed it. It had been hard to attract artisans back, and harder still to secure the materials they needed. The stonewrights of Tor Alessi were busy with the city’s own immense defences and were loath to spare any of their fellowship for outlying fortresses.
Liandra began to walk, retracing her steps down the rain-slushed path into the valley. Her robe-hem dragged behind her, sodden.
When her father had founded Kor Vanaeth it had housed over thirty thousand souls. The streets had burst with life, spilling beyond the boundaries of the walls and into the forest.
Hard to remember that now. Fewer than five thousand had returned. Most had done so out of loyalty to Liandra’s father, though a few saw opportunities to advance themselves amid the rubble. Some dark-eyed souls had just suffered too much and wanted to take something back.
Twenty-five years. So much work, and so little to show for it. They were vulnerable still. If another army swept down the valley, even one half the size of the one that had destroyed them before, not a single stone would be left standing.
Liandra felt her fists clench. The movement was almost involuntary; she had caught herself doing it more and more often.
I am changing. This war is changing me.
Sometimes she awoke angry, fresh from vivid dreams of slaughter. Sometimes she awoke in tears with images of the slain crowding in her mind. And sometimes, more often than she liked, she awoke after dreaming of him.
The years had not dulled the loss. It was for the best that he had gone back to Ulthuan. He belonged amid its refined spires of ivory, just as she belonged in the wilds of the east, doused by the rain and up to her ankles in blood-rich filth.
‘My lady.’
Alviar’s voice made her start. She hadn’t seen him approach, trudging just as she had done up the steep hill-path from the valley. That was sloppy; her lack of sleep was beginning to take its toll.
‘What is it?’ she demanded, more sharply than she’d intended.
Her steward bowed in apology. ‘You asked me to tell you when we had word from Tor Alessi.’
‘And?’
‘Messengers are here. They bring greetings and news from the Lady Aelis. Do you wish me to summarise?’
‘If you please.’
‘Aelis agrees with you: now that Caledor has gone, the dawi will be quick to rally. She has tidings of new armies gathering in the mountains. She asks you to join her. She says she cannot promise to protect Kor Vanaeth when fighting resumes.’
Alviar was so dutiful. He spoke like a scribe reeling off trade accounts. Liandra had preferred Fendaril, but he, of course, was dead.
‘What of Salendor?’ she asked.
‘Lord Salendor is already at Tor Alessi, along with the Lords Caerwal and Gelthar. In the absence of the King, a war council has been formed. They call themselves the Council of Five.’
‘Those are four names, Alviar.’
‘They hope for yours to be added.’
‘Do they, now?’
‘Salendor in particular, they tell me,’ said Alviar.
‘Salendor is a brute,’ said Liandra. ‘He understands the dawi, though. He knows how to fight them. If he wants me to be there then I should perhaps consider it an honour.’ She pressed her lips together ruminatively. ‘Do you remember, Alviar, when Caledor left us?’
‘Clearly.’
‘He thought he’d won the war for us. I heard him say it. Now finish the task, he told us. I felt like laughing. No one would tell him the truth. He left for Ulthuan with no idea of what we face.’
‘I should say not.’
Liandra clasped her hands before her, pressing her chilled flesh against the rain-wet fabric of her robe. ‘We accomplished so much here. I cannot leave now. I was not here when the dawi came the first
