The king asked Sperren to see to Hendry’s accommodations, and after the young lord left, he sat back upon his chair.

“What do you think of the new Lord-Governor Penburn?”

Karigan assumed the king did not seek an off-hand opinion, but rather the measured assessment of an advisor.

“He is genuinely grieved by his mother’s passing.” The words brought her own emotions painfully close to the surface. “He is inexperienced, but not unfamiliar with what his new role requires. And I think . . . I think he’ll do well.”

The king brushed his fingers over his chin. “I agree. He shall be an asset to his province.”

And to his king. Karigan thought she could almost hear the words from him.

Then, not quite as an afterthought, the king added, “He is yet young and untried, and his new position will be the making of him. His ethics will be forged by his new power, and it remains to be seen what results from that forging.”

He spoke as a man who well knew what it was to be forged, and tempered, by leadership. He had been through the process himself, and emerged true and sound, but he had also seen what power could do to others, like his brother. Others who became twisted by greed, and a hundred other ills, and they then turned against the very people they were sworn to protect.

“Hedric D’Ivary was thought well of, as a kind and generous man,” the king said, “until he succeeded his cousin to be chief of his clan and lord of the province.”

The chamber door creaked open and Sperren poked his head in. “A messenger from the D’Yer Wall to see you, sire.”

The king glanced at Karigan. “Are you up to this?” he asked her quietly. “He may have news about Alton.”

She felt suspended in air, hoping against hope that maybe the messenger actually brought good news, that maybe Alton was all right after all. But she knew it could never be good news. Her hope was false. Alton was gone. Still, she had to hear it, she had to hear what the messenger had to say.

“I’ll stay,” she said.

The king looked at her in concern, but nodded to Sperren to let the messenger in. He was dressed in the blue and gold livery of D’Yer Province, and looked haggard, as one who has ridden hard. He knelt before the king.

“Rise,” King Zachary said. When the messenger did so, he asked, “You bear me tidings from the wall?”

“Yes, sire. Lord-Governor D’Yer urged me on to you, with his wish to inform you of the passing of Lord Landrew D’Yer, his brother.”

The king sat back in his chair, stunned. “So close upon the death of Lord Alton?”

The messenger nodded, his features troubled. “Yes, sire. Lord Landrew went over the wall to search for his nephew. He, and most of the soldiers that accompanied him, were slain. We were able to retrieve what—what was left of Lord Landrew.”

“Gods have mercy,” the king said.

He questioned the messenger further, asking how many soldiers had perished, and the circumstances. Karigan did not hear the answers, for her thoughts went to Alton. If his uncle had died so quickly, surely his had been the same fate. Whatever evil lurked in Blackveil, it had taken Alton as assuredly as the sun rose in the morning.

“And they found no sign of Lord Alton?” the king asked the messenger. He flicked his gaze to Karigan to see how she was taking it.

“No, sire, but there’s the most astonishing thing . . .”

“Yes?”

The messenger shook himself as if lost in thought for a moment. “Lord Alton’s horse, sire. I’ve never seen anything like it. He stands at the breach, and won’t leave it, not for anything. We’ve tried to drive him off, but he comes back. We stake him with the other horses, but he breaks his tether and heads back to the breach.

“So, we’ve just taken to humoring him, you see, and we bring him his fodder there. Not that he’ll eat much. It’s like he’s on guard, waiting for his master to return.”

That was enough. Remembering Crane guarding Ereal’s body, Karigan dashed from the chamber, tears sliding down her cheeks once again.

Journal of Hadriax el Fex

This morning I awoke from an uneasy sleep, soaked with sweat and my head pounding. I had had a terrible dream in which the whole of the world fell into decay—vast forests rotting tree by tree, and clear lakes turning black and turbid; the sky above brown and acrid. The sun, though, shone brightly on a single bush of raspberries. The berries were large and perfectly formed, unmarred by the decay so prevalent elsewhere. I started eating of the berries and they were so sweet. Red juice dribbled down my chin and stained my hands. I looked up and saw Alessandros watching me with an enormous grin on his face. He gestured for me to continue eating as if it gave him great pleasure to see it, but when I glanced down at my hands, I realized I held not berries, but a half-eaten human heart. I had not juice staining my hands, but blood . . .

I still shudder as I think of this dream, even in the waning hours of the evening. The headache has stayed with me all day long, and I’ve not been able to hold down any of my meals.

As I reflect on the dream, I see the truth in it. I have so much blood on my hands and this war seems never close to ending. Alessandros does not mind; he keeps thinking up new perverse ways to use his powers, and continues to develop abominations to use against the enemy.

He still professes his love for me, and has made me his second, but this only makes me party to his evil acts. It taints me, even more so than the atrocities I’ve committed against the people of these lands.