you could win — if you were willing to accept losses.’
‘Losses are unacceptable,’ Larat snapped, ‘as are too many of the Upper Circle being weakened. None of our own will ally against the Upper Circle, but do not think we are so united that the victors in any war wouldn’t risk being turned on by their own kind. The majority rule of the Upper Circle prevents lesser Gods falling like jackals upon each other, but with losses — or more weakened, as Ilit was at the Last Battle — a new war might be sparked.’
Emin was silent a while as he tried to digest what Larat had told him. These were truths unacknowledged in the mortal Land. Just as kings kept secrets from their own people, some things even a king should not know too much about. The fact that a God was sharing secrets was a worrying development.
The king nodded, having to clear his throat before he could speak. ‘I understand — it is safer to use mortals than to walk the Land and become a target for your own kind — and daemons too, perhaps?’
So completely was his last comment ignored that Emin guessed he had scored a hit.
‘Kastan Styrax was intended to be the Saviour of the tribes of man, the leader to defeat Aryn Bwr when he returned. Our mistake was to make the man too powerful, too skilled, and he turned against us.’ For a moment Larat’s expression fell blank, further reminding Emin that the God only wore his sister’s image. Gennay had been an animated, passionate girl. Her face had never been so blank until death.
‘Aryn Bwr was only defeated when we forced a decisive confrontation; until then he had avoided large-scale battle because he knew Death and Karkarn in particular were too powerful for him. Follow his example; history’s lessons should be learned well.’
Larat stood. ‘And now it is time for you to wake up,’ the God said with a snap of the fingers.
Emin’s head jerked up from the table. He looked around, bleary-eyed and dizzy, his senses trying to resolve the conflict as he moved into a position he thought he was already occupying. He was at the small table where Daratin’s porridge was still cooling, a waxy film on its surface. He pushed himself to his feet, groaning at a building ache in his head. It felt like he had a hangover as bad as any he remembered, a crown of thorns within his skull that scratched and scraped.
‘Damn Gods,’ he muttered, heading for his bedroom to find appropriate clothes for the rest of the castle, ‘like frisky old spinsters. The more you run from them, the more interested they are in you.’
She waited all day, barely moving from her concealed hollow, while the Elves fussed and prepared at the stream below. Unused to feelings of any kind, the Wither Queen found time to savour what ran through her now: a strange sense of anticipation and excitement, coupled with an innate apprehension.
They are inventive, these mortals. How their hatred has driven them!
The small camp had been at the stream for weeks preparing the ground, but now a team of slaves had arrived and were readying the ground upstream for the final stage. It was fascinating — and horrifying. When the Wither Queen had come across the camp, deep in the empty forest and far from prying Farlan eyes, she had been about to scour it clean when her spirits had noticed a strange shrine.
She had probed the ground with infinite patience and care, careful to avoid the notice of the two mages who were there so she could watch them at her leisure. They would all die soon enough, that was beyond doubt, but their actions had intrigued her. The shrine had awakened some sense of curiosity she had not known she possessed. That flicker had grown stronger when she found a second shrine not far downstream.
Two shrines? But Elves do not pray.
The entire race had been cursed, cast out after the Great War, so what were they doing playing with shrines? She sent her darting spirits out to watch and listen, before some innocuous comment had allowed the truth to flower in her mind.
They were farming.
Astonishingly — born of desperation, and a hunger for any small measure of revenge — the Elves were farming Gods.
The Wither Queen fought to control the screaming rage inside her when she realised, but it hadn’t taken long for her fury to be eclipsed by