She hadn’t dreamt since the Battle of the Teeth, spending every night in a deep, untroubled slumber. She would have liked to imagine it the sleep of a just and contented soul, but knew it had more to do with simple exhaustion, each day being so full. So it took some time to realise that her bare feet were not really treading on the temple’s stone floor, taking her towards the plinth with a slow but steady stride. It was red now, as it had been when this place commanded the faith of so many deluded souls, slick with blood from top to bottom, the bowl-shaped indentation brimming with it, the channels taking the offering to the silent houses of the gods.
A woman of dreadful appearance stood next to the plinth, knife in hand. She wore a besmirched blue dress, the bodice and skirt stained to blackness, though Lyrna could see it had once been a fine garment, worthy of a princess in fact. But it was the woman’s face that commanded her attention, raw and freshly burnt, faint tendrils of smoke still rising from the charred flesh.
“I have been waiting,” the burnt woman said, fixing Lyrna with a fierce gaze, her tone full of admonishment.
“For what?” Lyrna asked in mystification.
“You of course.” The woman beckoned impatiently at something in the shadows and a young man stepped into the light, short of stature but possessed of delicate good looks. “Your worshippers are keen to make offering.”
Lyrna watched the young man kneel at the plinth, his gaze locked on hers, face expressionless. “I kept my promise,” Lyrna told him, unable to keep the tremble from her voice. “I found your mother. She travels with my army, a sister of the Seventh Order, come to win justice for her son.”
Fermin smiled, his lips widening to an impossible extreme, revealing long rows of triangular teeth, the teeth of a shark.
The burnt woman’s knife flashed and Fermin’s throat gaped open, blood gushing forth in a torrent, cascading down the sides of the plinth to fill the bowl. The burnt woman shoved the body aside and beckoned again, another figure coming forward. He was taller, well-built, his scarred face telling of a hard life, though his smile was the same one that came to his lips when the ballista bolt speared him through the back. It was still there, the steel head protruding from his chest, scraping over stone as he knelt.
“You had a choice.” Lyrna knew the words a lie even as they spilled from her lips. Harvin, however, seemed to find her dishonesty amusing, for he laughed as the knife flashed again.
“I didn’t do this,” she insisted as the burnt woman pushed the body away and beckoned again. “They served me willingly.”
“As they should,” the burnt woman said. “Mortals live only to serve their gods.”
Furelah came next, bowing to Lyrna with a dagger in each hand, her face and hair slick with seawater, eye sockets empty, the surrounding flesh partly eaten. Just before the knife opened her throat a small crab crawled from the black circle of her eye, its pincers snipping at Lyrna as if in accusation.
She tore her gaze away from the spectacle, but found no relief. The temple was crowded now, a long line of people, a few she knew, most she didn’t. The Meldenean archer who had tumbled from the rigging at the Teeth, a Seordah woman who had fallen at Varinshold, and so many others. Eorhil, Nilsaelins, Cumbraelins, like Furelah, all dripping brine, their flesh partly claimed by the sea . . .
“I HAD NO CHOICE!” she railed at the burnt woman, falling silent at the sight of the figure now kneeling at the plinth.
“Choice?” Malcius asked. His head was cocked at an obscene angle, though his face was kind, his smile rich in affection and sympathy. “Choice is not the province of those who presume to rule,” he told her. “The world is yours to make, my sister. As I always knew it would be. Don’t you think it would have been kinder to kill me sooner, before I took the throne? Didn’t it ever occur to you? A small drip of poison in my wine cup? It would have been such an easy thing.”
“No,” she said in a whisper. “You were my brother . . . I once did a terrible thing for you.”
“You set me free to preside over the destruction of my Realm, the murder of my wife and children.” He raised his arms as the burnt woman stepped closer. The knife didn’t flash this time, instead she pressed it to his flesh with delicate, even loving tenderness, her other hand cradling his head to her breast.
“Do not turn away now, Lyrna,” Malcius said as the blade traced across his throat. “For the gods are always thirsty . . .”
• • •
She came awake at Murel’s gentle prodding, the lady starting visibly at Lyrna’s wide-eyed stare. “The Battle Lord sends word, Highness,” she said. “A Volarian host approaches from the east.”
