ground and submitted without a fight, offering obeisance until they were mere puddles of mist.
‘They find themselves new Gods and bind them like slaves,’ the Wither Queen whispered with cold tenderness to the spirits. ‘That shall be their undoing. The dead one sought to use me, then leash me. I could smell his betrayal even as I could see Death’s hand reaching for his shoulder, but I will be a slave no longer. He freed me. He forced me to learn new ways and now he is not there to limit me.’
She reached down and stroked her fingers through each of the spirits in turn, bringing a piece of each to her mouth to suck down eagerly.
‘There are more of you, so many more - enough to carry my plagues to every corner of the Land,’ she said to her new Aspects. With them following at her heel, the Wither Queen began to drift forward on an unseen breeze, her body fading like mist until it was barely an outline in the shadows. By nightfall the first Elven encampment had been scoured of life.
PROLOGUE - PART 3
Doranei watched as shadows stole through the streets below, slipping through the alleys and coalescing into darkness. He blinked, and the curved avenues of Byora faded from his perception as the stepped city was swallowed by the dark.
Been taught my whole life to look for shadows, he thought. Now they’re all I see. ‘I saw another prophet today,’ he said aloud, the sound feeling out of place in the high, silent room.
‘I’m sorry? You saw what?’ Zhia Vukotic came closer, her sapphire eyes shining in the light of a single candle.
‘A prophet, didn’t you hear?’
She ignored the edge in his voice. These past two weeks there had been an ever-present air of anger and antagonism about the Narkang man, even in bed. The scent of violence would have frightened any normal woman, but Zhia feared only for him. She tried to remember how long it had been since grief had consumed her every thought.
‘I was watching your face,’ the vampire admitted; ‘I wasn’t paying attention to the words. Tell me about the prophet.’
Doranei remained silent for a time, his face twitching slightly, as though words were fighting to get out but couldn’t quite force their way through. Tsatach’s eye had only just sunk behind Blackfang and the striated clouds over the mountain were tinged a startling burnished orange. It was a beautiful sight but Zhia realised he saw nothing, barely noticing even the bulky silhouette of a dragon, rising to circle on the high thermals like a hunting hawk.
There was a black need for destruction fizzing through Doranei’s blood, not unlike that in the maddened beast Kastan Styrax had awakened and left to devastate the Circle City. Zhia and her brother, Koezh, had caused its slumber; the spell they used had corroded what had already been an unknowable, unpredictable intellect. Now hatred filled its mind, arbitrary and unquenchable.
‘A man this time. It struck him in the middle of the street,’ Doranei said abruptly, no louder than a whisper. ‘No warning. I thought he was drunk when he staggered into a wall.’ Unconsciously he raised his goblet and drank. She saw his lips twitch just before the rim touched, a name spoken silently.
They stood alone in the high room on the topmost level of a whorehouse known as the Velvet Cup. Doranei had pulled open the shutters on one side of the room to watch the sun set - at least, that was what he would claim. Zhia knew it was the sight of the Ruby Tower wreathed in shadow that obsessed him; that and watching the junction where his friend Sebe had died. The choice of vantage point had been pure chance, as was the direction Ilumene and Aracnan had taken as they went to lead Byora’s soldiers against the Farlan. When you were angry at chance, and Fate had been murdered mere miles away, who could you take it out on?
‘That’s something I have never witnessed, not in all my years,’ Zhia said, ‘but I do not envy you it.’
‘He didn’t hurt anyone,’ Doranei continued, more to himself than in response. ‘There was a detachment of Ruby Tower Guards at the crossroads; one of them laid him out as he made for a beggar. They manacled him to a pillar while they sent for orders, he stood there for an hour snarling like a rabid dog before they worked out what to do