The sword was heavy and clumsy in her grasp, making her pine for her own Far Western blade, but still she reversed her grip on it, holding the point low as she ascended the steps. The girl lay on her back, eyes wide and staring, blue scarf askew on her head, the white of her blouse dyed red from the gaping wound in her neck. The blood still flowed, this was recent.

Reva’s eyes tracked to the steps above, seeing bloody footprints on the stone, overlapping each other in a red collage. More than one. Probably more than two. The realisation was cold and implacable. The Sons, it had to be. The Sons are here, and they have not come for me.

Her immediate instinct was to flee. The manor would soon be in an uproar, bringing danger but also the chance to slip away in the confusion, carrying her prize . . .

They’re going to kill my uncle.

That this undeniable fact was unwelcome surprised her. Her only living blood relative, a man she had never met but been raised to despise, was about to die alongside his Asraelin whore. A just end for the Father’s betrayer, and for his heretic slut. She tried to force some passion into the thought but it remained a listless inward recitation of long-held dogma, empty and insincere in the face of the atrocity confronting her gaze.

What about her? she wondered, continuing to stare at the face of the murdered girl. What end did she deserve?

She found herself climbing the stairs, stepping over the corpse on silent feet, sword held in front of her in a two-handed grip. The bloody footprints faded as she climbed higher, but still left enough gore for her to follow, all the way to the top. She crouched before turning the final corner, using the blade of the butcher’s knife as a mirror, edging it out to afford a view of the last flight of steps, seeing dark shapes moving in a gloomy hallway. No-one had been left to guard their line of retreat, a curious error . . . unless there was no expectation of danger.

She turned the corner and ascended to the hallway. There were three of them, dressed all in black, including the silk scarves covering their faces. Each held a sword, light Asraelin blades, not the like the clumsy bar of sharpened steel she held. They were crouched before a door, outlined in yellow light from the room beyond where voices could be heard, a man and a woman. The woman sounded tense, angry even, the man weary, and drunk. The words “archers” and “foolish” were audible amidst the muffled babble. The man closest to the door reached up to grasp the handle.

“Why did you kill the girl?” Reva asked.

They whirled as one, the man close to the door rising to his full height, green eyes staring at her in appalled recognition, eyes she knew well.

She took an involuntary step back, the sword sagging in her grasp, air escaping her lungs in a rush. “I”—she choked, coughed, forced the words out, holding up the sword—“I found it. See?”

The green eyes narrowed and a voice came from behind the scarf, hard, flat and certain, as it had been every time he beat her. “Kill her!” the priest said.

The man closest to her lunged, sword extended, the point seeking her neck. Her counter was automatic and largely the fruit of Al Sorna’s teaching, the heavy sword coming up to sweep the stabbing point aside as she stepped back, ducking under a following slash. Behind her attacker the priest kicked the door open and charged in, sword raised for a killing thrust, a shout of astonishment sounding from a female throat.

Reva side-stepped another thrust, jabbed fingers into her attacker’s eyes then brought the heavy sword up and round to hack into his leg below the knee, biting deep into the flesh. She left him writhing and screaming, leaping clear and charging into the bedroom.

The priest’s companion had his back to her, slashing repeatedly at something on the bed, something that wriggled in a thick welter of bedclothes, feathers billowing as the blade tore through the quilts. Reva slammed the sword into his back, putting all her weight behind the blade as it speared him between the shoulder blades to jut an inch from his chest, blood erupting from his mouth as he arched his back, collapsing lifeless to the floor.

Reva had expected to find the Fief Lord dead but instead he gaped up at her from his protective swaddle of quilts, his only injury a small cut to the cheek. Shouts of fury dragged Reva’s gaze to the other side of the bed where the priest was battling the Lady Veliss. She lunged at him with a short rapier, teeth bared in a snarl, a torrent of foul abuse issuing from her lips with every thrust. “You cock-munching fucker! I’ll make you eat your own balls!”

For all her fury, Reva was impressed with her control, the thrusts were quick, precise and not over-extended, forcing the priest back, away from the bed. He parried without difficulty, the blade moving in a fluid series of arcs, the way it had when he blocked Reva’s attempts to find a way past with her knife. Despite her skills, Veliss proved to be outmatched, the priest finding an opening as he feinted a jab at her eyes then swung a punch to her face, sending her sprawling.

Reva scooped up the fallen sword of the man she had killed, placing herself between the priest and the bed.

He stared at her in outraged frustration. “You forsake the Father’s love with this betrayal!” he screamed, skin reddening about his eyes. “Al Sorna’s Darkness has twisted you!”

“No,” she whispered, hating the tears that streamed from her eyes. “No, you did that.”

“Filthy, Fatherless sinn—”

She lunged, fast and low, the blade straight and true, finding his thigh, coming free bloody as he twisted away with a howl.

A shout and the thunder of many feet drew her gaze back to the door before she could press the advantage. The priest hefted a stool and threw it at the nearest window, glass shattering amidst the billowing curtain. He glanced back at her once, eyes bright with hate, then turned and ran, leaping through the remains of the window.

Reva dropped her sword and stared at the curtain as it coiled in the night breeze, the sky beyond black and empty. Metal scraped from scabbards and shouts of challenge filled her ears as rough hands closed on her.

“STOP!” The command filled the room, stilling the tumult.

The Fief Lord cursed as he disentangled himself from the bedclothes, stumbling into her gaze though she barely saw him, her eyes still fixed on the curtain and the window.

“Look at me,” he said, voice gentle, fingers soft on her chin. She looked into the red-rimmed eyes of her uncle and saw tears there as he smiled, his lips forming a fond murmur. “Reva.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Frentis

They lived in the wild for ten days, deep in the forested hills north of South Tower, far away from any roads or likely patrol routes. Still they were hunted, the South Guard venturing far and wide with dogs and trackers, forcing them to move camp every day, sometimes laying false trails towards the Cumbraelin border. The need to keep moving made hunting a rare luxury so they grew hungry, sustained by what mushrooms and roots they could scavenge on the move, huddling together for warmth at night for they dared not risk a fire.

The woman was mostly silent now, still brooding over her failure, a new uncertainty having crept into her gaze. Frentis wanted to find comfort in the change, to be heartened by this signal of frailty, but instead saw a greater threat brewing behind her eyes. He knew her now, though he hated the knowledge, knew that whatever reflection she indulged in could only lead to a fiercer devotion to killing. She might hate others for their gods but she worshipped murder with all the fervour of the worst Cumbraelin fanatic.

“I do not blame you, beloved,” she said one night, the first words she had spoken in days. “Do not think that. I can only blame myself, I see that now. My love for you has made me exultant, Revek’s gift complacent, and so I allowed myself the illusion of invulnerability. A hard lesson, as are all true lessons.”

On the tenth day they found an old forester’s cottage, overgrown and tumbled down, but retaining enough shelter to conceal a fire come nightfall. Frentis went foraging and returned with the usual roots and mushrooms but also a hand-caught trout, heaved from a nearby stream when it ventured too close to the bank. He gutted it, wrapped it in dock leaves and baked it in the fire, the woman wolfing down her share with feral enthusiasm. “Hunger is always the best seasoning,” she said when it was all gone, the first smile in days appearing on her lips.

Frentis finished his own meal and said nothing.

“You’re worried,” she went on, shuffling closer, pressing herself against his side. “Wondering who’s next when we get to Varinshold. Although, I think you already know.”

Frentis found he much preferred her introspective mood, and was allowed enough freedom to say so. She rarely bound his tongue now, seeming to find some comfort in the rare words he spoke, however lacking in affection they might be. Why couldn’t you just die in South Tower? he wanted to say, but paused. He knew they were approaching something, a moment of fulfilment for whatever insane purpose she served, and he had divined sufficient insight by now to know what that would mean. “Are you open to a bargain?” he asked instead.

This drew a frown of genuine puzzlement. “A bargain, my love?”

“My love,” he repeated. “You call me that all the time, and you mean it, don’t you? You’ve lived so long, but you’ve never loved, not until me.”