“Anskar?”

He recognized the far-off voice but couldn’t put a face to it.

Anskar lay on his back. Cold air caressed his skin. He frowned, but his face was like a mask, coated in something sticky.

“Anskar, it’s Josac. By the Five, you killed them, lad. You killed them all!”

Anskar tried to prop himself up on one elbow and failed. He groaned as his head smacked against stone.

“Killed? Where…?”

“You’re on the ridge above the ledge Korine and I were on,” Josac said. “How in the Five’s name did you get up here? Your abilities, wasn’t it? Your forbidden sorcery.”

“You approve?”

“In war, all things are permissible. Use every advantage, is what the Warrior tells us, and you did just that.”

“It was sinful,” Anskar said, despair rising from his guts.

“Prudent is what it was. Good judgment that saved all our lives.”

Anskar shut his eyes as hot tears pressed for release. “Korine?” he asked.

“She’s alive,” Josac said, “though heartbroken. She and Ravenni were closer than sisters.”

Anskar grimaced, remembering Ravenni’s fall into the gully. There was no way she could have survived. Probably the sorcery had killed her even before she fell.

“Hey!” It was Braga’s voice, coming from far below.

“Ho!” Josac exclaimed. “She has that Soreshi bastard who escaped, dragging him by his hair. And here comes Borik. Still hasn’t unwrapped that bloody great sword of his. Wait here. Of course you’ll wait—you don’t exactly look fit to be going anywhere. I’ll fetch Korine, and together we’ll help you back below.”

“You should have saved her,” Korine said, as she and Josac lowered Anskar to the ground in the gully, resting his back against a boulder.

“I couldn’t,” he muttered. His tongue felt as though it belonged to someone else. “There was no warning.”

“They’re Soreshi,” Korine snapped. “Sorcerers, like you. You should have known they would use sorcery. You should have warded Ravenni against them.”

“But—”

“You should have warded against them,” Korine said again, stalking off as if she couldn’t bear to associate with him any longer.

“You’re right,” Anskar said, but his words came out as a barely audible whisper. “I should have protected Ravenni.”

“Leave her to stew for a bit,” Josac said. “She’ll come round.”

“But I could have saved Ravenni,” Anskar protested.

“Maybe. Maybe not. But you saved the rest of us; that’s the main thing.”

“Is it?” Anskar suspected he had only unleashed the force of his dusk- and dawn-tide repositories in order to save himself.

It hadn’t been as cold and self-centered as that, he knew. He’d acted out of panic. But therein lay the problem. It was all very well to deny his forbidden abilities in what he was increasingly seeing as a misguided attempt at piety, but whenever his life was in peril, he behaved no better than a wild beast: no control, no holding back. And yes, it was effective. He had saved himself and the rest of their group. But it had been too late for Ravenni.

Was that some kind of sin he had not previously considered—to have the power to do something yet refuse to use it out of concern for his own soul?

Anskar looked up and saw Braga watching him. She’d seen what he had done—the blood, the slaughter—and Anskar felt ashamed. He opened his mouth to say something that might reassure her, but could think of nothing.

The Soreshi was watching him too, from where he lay trussed up on the ground.

It was the first time Anskar had seen a Soreshi up close. When he’d killed the sorcerers above the gully, he had been possessed by fire and darkness. He’d seen nothing but shadows; heard nothing but distant screams and the song of his sword howling for blood.

The Soreshi prisoner had a broad, flat face, and a nose that looked as though it had been squashed. There was a haughty nobility to his high cheekbones and slanted blue eyes. His long black hair was bound into dozens of braids with leather cords that glistened with crystal dust.

Anskar sent out his sorcerous senses, and found the Soreshi had two sizable repositories—dawn and dusk—but they seemed to be fused together.

Reider chose that moment to return, huffing and puffing.

“Thank Menselas!” the knight said, bending double to catch his breath. “I thought I could get behind the bleeders. By the Five, I wanted to punish them for what they did to Klimp and Storig.”

Devuin stood from examining the charred corpses of his comrades and pocketed whatever he had just pilfered from them. “You ran away,” he said. “Like a startled turkey.”

Reider straightened. “I did no such thing.”

“You did,” Braga said. “I watched you go, and it weren’t nowhere near the Soreshi.”

“Always said you was nothing but a shit-squirting coward,” Devuin spat.

“How dare you!” Reider half-drew his sword but then seemed to think better of it. “I was trying to find a way to outflank those blasted Soreshi.”

“You shit yourself?” Braga asked, pinching her nose.

“What?” Reider’s face turned beet-red, and he looked about to explode.

“This one, on the other hand,” Devuin said, turning to face Anskar, “did us all proud.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that,” Josac said.

“What I did,” Anskar said, trying and failing to stand, “I’m not proud of.”

“Trust me, lad,” Josac said, “you did well. You can’t be a warrior and forgo all your advantages.”

“Yes, you can,” Anskar replied. “Or are you saying that if I had sorcery that could destroy an entire city and all its peoples, I should use it if they refused to surrender during a siege?”

“I would,” Josac said. “It’s the way of the Warrior.”

Anskar shook his head. “No. It’s the way of imbalance.”

“It’s not so different to what that bitch Queen Talia did during the siege of Naphor,” Korine put in. It sounded as though she blamed Anskar for that too. “Rather than surrender the city, she destroyed it with her sorcery.”

“You were there?” Anskar asked.

“I’m not as young as I look,” Korine said as she turned away.

“I’ll do penance for this,” Anskar told Josac. “For breaking my oath and for using… sorcery.” Dark-tide sorcery.

“What penance?”

“I’ve no idea.” But no sooner had the words left his lips than he knew exactly what he must do. He unbuckled his sword belt and handed Amalantril to Josac. “Look after this for me.”

The sword seemed lighter somehow, different. It made his skin crawl just touching the scabbard. Superstition, he supposed. A manifestation of his guilt. The sword was no longer the symbol of virtue and truth he had intended it to be when he made it. It had become a thing of the shadows that he’d tried so hard to keep buried inside.

Before they left the gully, Reider insisted on questioning the Soreshi prisoner. Devuin trussed the man’s wrists behind his back with his own belt and then pulled down his pants around his ankles in case he decided to run.

Borik turned away and walked toward the northern end of the gully, where Nul and Rindon were returning, chatting as if they were out for an afternoon stroll. The three “heroes,” as Anskar had started to think of the trio, stood apart, casting the occasional glance toward Reider and Devuin as they went to work on the prisoner. Clearly, the heroes didn’t want any part of the interrogation, and neither did Anskar.

“How are you feeling?” Josac asked, crouching beside him.

“Cold.” Anskar had been sitting on the frozen ground by the boulder for far too long, yet he still lacked the strength to stand unaided.

“Come on,” Josac said, “let me help you up.”

Anskar was unsteady on his feet, but the sight of Devuin punching the Soreshi in the stomach and winding him brought on a surge of anger, and with anger came strength, if only a little.

“Fucking knights,” Braga muttered.

“Has to be done,” Josac said. “Know your enemy and know what he’s up to. It’s the Warrior’s way.”

“You think there could be more Soreshi out there?” Anskar asked.

“This is how we find out,” Josac said.

Devuin hit the Soreshi in the stomach again, and this time the man crumpled into a ball, gasping for breath.

“Bloody him up a little,” Reider said, “and then we’ll start the questioning.”

“You bloody him,” Devuin said. “I’ve done my bit. All you’ve done is run away.”

“All you did was punch him twice,” Reider objected.

“I punched him twice, I trussed him up, and you ran away.”

“I have already told you—”

“And you pissed your pants,” Devuin added.

“That was melted snow!” Reider leaned in close to Devuin and kept his voice low. “Not in front of the prisoner. Division gives them hope. We must stand united.”

“Bullshit,” Devuin said, walking away to the far side of the gully, where he perched on a rock. He took out a pipe and stuffed tobacco into its bowl, then cursed because he had no way of lighting it.

“Here,” Josac said, a sorcerous blaze blossoming on his palm. “Let me.”

The Soreshi, curled up on the ground, craned his neck to look at Anskar, pain and torment in his eyes. Reider kicked him, then winced and bent down to rub his booted foot.

Once Josac had gotten Devuin’s pipe alight, he made for the prisoner, palm still ablaze with sorcerous fire, and Anskar recalled the story the Warrior’s priest had told him about the Soreshi with the burning hands he had fought in the fight pits. Anskar’s fists clenched. He tried to say something, but fatigue or shock or just the horror of what was about to happen choked the words in his throat.

“I’ll handle this,” Josac told Reider, who seemed happy to let him.

“Right, you savage piece of shit,” Josac said, crouching down in front of the prisoner. “How about we start with why you and your offal-eating friends attacked us?”

“We did not,” the man said in thickly accented Nan-Rhouric.

“You hear that?” Josac said to Reider. “He says they didn’t attack us.” The flames in his palm flared brighter.

“We stole your supplies,” the Soreshi said, “but we did not attack.”

“And why’d you do that?” Josac snarled. “Don’t they teach you goat-shaggers that stealing is wrong?”

“We…” The man faltered, looking around as if he sought the answer in the rocks of the gully.

“We what?” Josac prompted.

Anskar didn’t like what Josac was doing, but as a knight-inferior he was the priest’s subordinate. Besides which, he lacked the strength to argue with Josac or Reider, let alone fight.

He felt the prick and crawl of sorcerous senses and knew the Soreshi was probing him.

“We needed them,” the Soreshi said, switching his gaze back to Josac.

“You attacked the Order of Eternal Vigilance, savage,” Reider said, “and there will be a reckoning.”

“My people have been driven from their homes in the Ymaltian Mountains,” the Soreshi said. He rolled to his side, then managed to rock himself to his knees.

“By whom?” Josac asked.

“Others of our kind. A faction has arisen among the Soreshi—”

“What kind of faction?”

The Soreshi shook his head, then glanced at the fire welling on Josac’s upraised palm. It wasn’t fear Anskar saw in the man’s eyes; he thought it might be the sparkle of amusement.

“Rebels, under the command of three Soreshi traitors. They’re led by a woman named Jilua.”

“What are they rebelling against?” Josac asked.

“Those they believe stole our ancestral lands an aeon ago.”

“King Aelfyr and the Kingdom of the Thousand Lakes?”

The Soreshi nodded.

“And now the Soreshi war among themselves?” Josac pressed.

“It isn’t war. Not yet. The rebels came, they burned our homes, they committed abominations against our people.”

Josac snorted. “The loser in any conflict always says such things.”

“They have laid claim to the fortress of Molas Drythe in the Ymaltian Mountains, which lay abandoned for five hundred years.”

“Never heard of it,” Josac said. “And why would they do this now?”

“I do not know,” the Soreshi said.

“I think you do. Or you could make a good guess.”

Josac’s hand flared again, and he brought the flames toward the Soreshi’s face. Before it could burn flesh, the fire went out.

“What?” Josac stared at his hand. He shook it, then rubbed it vigorously with his other hand as if to get the circulation going.

“Has Menselas abandoned you?” Reider asked.

Menselas, Anskar thought, had nothing to do with it. He’d felt the gushing flow of sorcery from the Soreshi’s braided repositories.

Josac ignited a new and more virulent fire upon his palm. Again he reached for the Soreshi’s face, and again the fire went out.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” the Warrior’s priest said. “You sneaky Soreshi shit-sucker.”

“Perhaps there is another explanation,” the Soreshi said. He nodded at Reider. “Maybe your god has not abandoned you but is sending you a sign.”

“A sign?”

“We are not your enemy, priest of Menselas. We stole from you, true, but only so that we might survive. We are victims of this Soreshi uprising—refugees, survivors. But I will admit that we were curious, too. Why would the Order of Eternal Vigilance ride north into Thousand Lakes? Could it be that you are in league with these rebels? That you come against King Aelfyr?”

“Quite the opposite!” Reider said, then clamped his mouth shut at a warning glare from Josac.

“So you come to Aelfyr’s aid?” the Soreshi said. “That is good.”

“It is?” Anskar said, finally finding his voice. “Why?”

“Because your enemy is our enemy. The majority of my people do not want war with the Thousand Lakes kingdom, but we are scattered far and wide, easy pickings for those who would take our towns and villages. If we were to unite…”

“But you won’t,” Josac said. “That was always the Soreshi weakness, thank Menselas, else your kind would have infected the whole mainland by now.”

“Conquest has never been our way,” the Soreshi said.

“Until now,” Anskar said. “Something must have happened.”

“Oh, something happened,” Josac said, “and this scumbag knows what.”

“Then maybe I should take over,” Devuin said, drawing a slender dagger as he returned to the group. “You won’t be getting fancy sorcerous tricks from me,” he told the Soreshi. “You’ll be getting pain and blood. A shitload of both of them.”

“No!” Anskar said. “That’s not what we do.”

“Who appointed you leader?” Reider said.

Devuin advanced on the Soreshi, sunlight glinting from his dagger.

Anskar felt the swell of essence in the Soreshi’s strange repository.

“Don’t make me do something I might regret,” Anskar told Devuin.

Devuin turned on him. “You what?”

“You heard him.”

Anskar turned to see Nul striding towards them, Rindon and Borik in his wake. “You’re supposed to be a knight, Devuin, so act like one.”

Rindon and Borik came to stand beside Nul. For once, there was no good humor in Rindon’s eyes; they were glittery and hard, the cold eyes of a killer.

Devuin muttered a curse under his breath, but he sheathed his knife and moved away from the Soreshi.

“I say we take the prisoner back to Commander Lanuc,” Reider said.

“I’d say that’s a very astute choice you just made,” Rindon said.