She stood, faced him. ‘Save that nonsense for the fools who will believe it. I see your ambition, Hunn Raal. I know your bloodlines. You long to walk these halls again, in your rightful place. Your master is simply the means, not the end.’
‘We are not all as base as you, Syntara. Now, cease your raging. Give me time to see a way through this, to the advantage of all of us. Tell me truthfully now, why do you believe you need sanctuary?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Look at me! See what she has done!’
‘The Azathanai did this, not Mother Dark. You fled the chamber — why?’
‘You were not there,’ she hissed. ‘You did not hear the horrible things the woman said of me.’
‘Then,’ he concluded, ‘you fled in shame. Mother Dark did not cast you out.’
‘Nor did she defend me! Her own High Priestess!’
He grunted. ‘Fortunate for her then that she had two High Priestesses.’
Her slap against the side of his face sent him back a step, not from the weight of the blow, but in the shocked sobriety it delivered. One side of his face stinging, he studied the woman before him, and then sighed. ‘“Anger is the death of beauty.” Who was it said that? Never mind. This has been a fraught day — the city streets flooding to announce the coming of the Azathanai, and I am told there was ice in the passage leading to the Chamber of Night. And now you… what do these things portend, High Priestess?’
But her gaze had slid past him, to the jug of wine on the table. She strode over, poured full a goblet and drank it down in three quick swallows. ‘Are you too drunk to fuck me, Hunn Raal?’
Said the woman who just slapped me. ‘Probably.’
‘Men are so pathetic.’
‘I have other things on my mind.’
She refilled her goblet and then faced him. ‘Will Urusander take me?’
‘As what?’
Instead of the anger he expected from his careless retort, she laughed. ‘Now that would ruin your plans, wouldn’t it, Hunn Raal? Don’t you think I have had my fill of old soldiers? They are nothing but dumb need and you have no idea how tiring that is. No, Mother Dark is welcome to him.’
His nod was sharp. ‘So we’re clear on that. Good.’
‘A god now stirs the mud of Dorssan Ryl,’ she said, eyes narrowing, watching for his reaction over the rim of the goblet as she drank. ‘It was dead but is dead no longer. What ancient laws have been broken this day?’
‘Was this too a gift of the Azathanai woman? Then let us be plain. These were not gifts. A city flooded? Ice in the Citadel? They amount to an assault upon Kurald Galain.’
She shrugged. ‘Semantics.’
‘Hardly. You are speaking to an old soldier, remember? Dumb we may be but us soldiers know the answer to such things.’
‘Will you declare war upon the Azathanai?’ She snorted, somewhat drunkenly. ‘Not even Urusander is that foolish. Besides, the woman vanished — as if she opened a door in the very air itself, and then simply stepped through. The power of that made Mother Dark recoil.’
‘Then we are indeed threatened, High Priestess.’
She waved a dismissive hand, turning to refill the goblet. ‘We can do nothing about it. The Deniers will crawl out of the woods now, eager to lay sacrifice upon the banks of the river. Eager to walk the shore.’
‘And Mother Dark permits this?’
‘She is weak, Hunn Raal — why do you think she hides in darkness? Why do you think she draws close the three most feared warriors among the highborn and proclaims them her children? And why’ — she faced him — ‘did she take Lord Draconus to her bed? Sons may be all very well, but a man such as Draconus is another matter entirely. You understand nothing, Hunn Raal. You and your ridiculous plans.’
He saw the challenge in her eyes, glittering behind the alcohol, and felt something stir in him. She is like me. She is the same as me, exactly the same. ‘You will take this to Urusander, High Priestess,’ he said. ‘You will tell him of the threat now facing Kurald Galain. You will explain to him her weakness, her vulnerability. But more than this, you will show him what must be done. The purity of your skin is now a symbol — the light within you is a power. Above all, High Priestess, tell him this: in darkness there is ignorance. In light there is justice.’ He moved closer to her. ‘Remember those words. This is what you must do.’
She leaned against the table behind her, a smirk playing on her full lips. ‘I am to be a beacon, then? Still a High Priestess, but now in the name of light?’
‘It is within you.’
She glanced away, still smiling. ‘ Liossan. And who, then, are our enemies?’
‘All who seek to hurt Mother Dark — we will fight in her name and who could challenge this?’
‘And Draconus?’
‘He but uses her. Another way of hurting.’ He leaned over to grasp the jug of wine, and in the movement their faces came close, almost touching for a moment before he drew back. But he had smelled the sweet wine on her breath. ‘The old religion is a direct threat. The Deniers. The brothers and sisters of the Monasteries.’
‘There are more of them than you might imagine, Hunn Raal.’
‘All to the better,’ he said.
‘Sheccanto and Skelenal could even make claim to the throne.’
‘I wish they would. That would settle the sides quickly enough.’
She reached out and stroked his cheek, where she had slapped only a short time before. ‘We will plunge Kurald Galain into civil war, Hunn Raal. You and I, and all that we now do.’
But he shook his head. ‘We prevent one, High Priestess. Even better, once we have purged the realm, the end to all conflict is then offered to Mother Dark. By taking the hand of Lord Urusander. She will see that she needs such a man at her side. Strength to answer her weakness, resolve to stand firm against her whims. Light and Dark, in balance.’
‘I want Emral dead.’
‘You cannot have that. She is but your reflection. An imperfect one to be sure, but even then you fare the better between you. No, Syntara, you will be as equals, yet need share nothing but your titles.’
‘Then I shall proclaim Urusander as Father Light,’ said Syntara, her hand still upon his cheek. ‘And the light within me shall be my gift to him.’
‘If you can give it.’
‘I can, Hunn Raal.’
He was still holding the jug. ‘Now then, High Priestess, do we fuck or do we drink?’
‘Which do you prefer?’
A dangerous question that he shrugged off. ‘Either is fine with me.’
To his surprise she stepped away, and her stride was suddenly steady. ‘There is not time for either, Hunn Raal,’ she said, her words sharp. ‘I must gather my followers and we will need an escort from the city. Best we do this without fanfare — I shall cloak myself and remain unseen. My return to Kharkanas shall be in triumph.’
‘Of course,’ he said, setting the jug back down on the table, feeling a fool for having been so easily played. ‘I think I underestimated you, High Priestess.’
‘Many do,’ she replied. ‘And you — you must send word to your people, wherever they happen to be hiding in the countryside.’ Seeing the alarm on his face her smile grew cruel. ‘Yes, I know that you are ready to pounce. But they must wait — your enemy is no longer the highborn. Nor the sons and daughters of Mother Dark. Not even Draconus — not yet, in any case. Why so troubled, captain?’
‘I fear that it may already be too late.’
‘Then sober up, you fool, and make sure that it isn’t!’
The troop of riders came upon the train, meeting at a sharp bend in the road. There had been little sound to betray them, despite the high cliff walls to either side. Orfantal saw, just past the strangers, the road opening out, sunken flats flanking the raised track: the signs of an old, extinct lake.
Haral was quick to draw up, and he twisted in the saddle and with a shout commanded the wagons to one side, to let the riders past.