around her. Her breath caught in her throat. She rubbed her left arm as though it were sore.
‘No.’
‘Were I a lesser man, I might accuse those who were envious of the ability to take life so indiscriminately of being rather stupid.’ He took a long, slow sip. ‘Given my station, however, I’ll merely imply it.’
She blinked. He smiled.
‘That was a joke.’
‘Oh, well . . . yes, it was rather funny.’ Her smile trembled for a moment before collapsing into a frown. ‘But, Lord Emissary, is it not natural to wish I could help?’
His features seemed to melt with the force of his sigh. He set the clay cup aside, folded his hands and stared out through the mess’s broad window.
‘I have often wondered if I wasn’t born too soon for this world,’ he mused, ‘that perhaps the will and wisdom of Talanas cannot truly be appreciated where so much blood must be spilled. After all, what good, really, can the followers of the Healer be when we simply mend the arm that swings the sword? What do we accomplish by healing the leg that crushes the innocent underfoot?’
The question hung in the air, smothering all other sound beneath it.
‘Perhaps,’ his voice was so soft as to barely be heard above the rush of the sea outside, ‘if we knew the answers, we’d stop doing what we do.’
He continued to stare out at the roiling seas, the glimmer of sunlight against the ship’s white wake. She followed his gaze, though not far enough; his eyes were dark and distant, spying some answer in the endless blue horizon that she could not hope to grasp. She cleared her throat.
‘Lord Emissary?’
‘Regardless,’ he said, turning towards her as though he had been speaking to her all the while, ‘I suggest you spare yourself the worry of who kills who and work the will of the Healer as best you can.’ He plucked up his teacup once more. ‘Do your oaths remain burning in your mind?’
‘“To serve Talanas through serving man.”’ She recited with rehearsed confidence. ‘“To mend the bones, to bind the flesh, to cure the sick, to ease the dying. To serve Talanas and mankind.”’
‘Then take heart in your oaths where your companions take heart in coin. We all serve mankind in different ways, whether we love life or steel.’
It was impossible not to share his confidence; it radiated from him like a divine light. He was very much the servant of the Healer, a white spectre, stark and pure against the grime and grimness surrounding him, unsullied, untainted even as taint pervaded.
And yet, for all his purity, she knew he was her employer and her superior, not her companion, no matter how deeply she might have wished him to be. She looked wistfully to the companionway, remembering those she had left on the deck.
‘Perhaps it wouldn’t harm any to go up and see what strength I could lend them.’ She turned back to the Lord Emissary. ‘Will you be—’
Her voice died in her throat, eyes going wide, hands frigid as her right clenched her left in instinctive fear.
‘Lord Emissary,’ she gasped, ‘behind you.’
He spared her a curious tilt of his long face before turning to follow her gaze. Though he did not start, nor freeze as she did at the sight, the arch of a single white brow indicated he had seen it. How could he not?
It dangled in front of the window, pale flesh pressed against the glass as it hung from long, malnourished arms. To all appearances, it seemed a man: hairless, naked but for the dagger-laden belt hanging from its slender waist and the loincloth wrapped about its hips. Across its pale chest was a smeared, crimson sigil, indistinguishable through the smoky pane of glass.
Asper had to force herself not to scream as it pressed its face against the window. Its eyes were stark black where they should have been white, tiny silver pinpricks where pupils should have been. One hand reached down, tapped against the glass as a mouth filled with blackness opened and uttered an unmistakable word.
‘Priest.’
Miron rose from his seat. ‘That’s irritating.’
‘Lord Emissary,’ she whispered, perhaps for fear that the thing might hear her. ‘What is it?’
‘An invader,’ he replied, as though that were enough, ‘a frogman, specifically.’
‘Frog . . . man?’
He hummed a confirmation. ‘If you would kindly inform your companions that their attention is required down here, I would be most grateful.’
Before she could even think to do such a thing, she felt the