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That damned Toblakai. With that damned wooden sword. If not for him, what would this day be like? We’d likely not be here, for one thing. Felisin Paran would not have needed to cross all of Seven Cities seeking to avoid murder at the hands of frenzied rebels. Coltaine would be alive, closing the imperial fist around every smouldering ember before it rose in conflagration. And High Fist Pormqual would have been sent to the Empress to give an accounting of his incompetence and corruption. All, but for that one obnoxious Toblakai…

She passed by the large boulders they had hidden behind, then the one she had used to draw close enough to ensure the lethality of her shot. And there, ten paces from the temple floor, the scattered remains of the last Red Blade to fall during the retreat.Advertisement

Lostara stepped onto the flagstoned floor and halted.

Pearl arrived at her side, looking around curiously.

Lostara pointed. ‘She was seated there.’

‘Those bodyguards didn’t bother burying the Red Blades,’ he commented.

‘No, why would they?’

‘Nor,’ the Claw continued, ‘it seems, did they bother with Sha’ik.’ He walked over to a shadowed spot between the two pillars of an old arched gate.

Lostara followed, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest.

The form was tiny, wrapped in wind-frayed tent cloth. The black hair had grown, and grown, long after death, and the effect-after Pearl crouched and tugged the canvas away to reveal the desiccated face and scalp-was horrific. The hole the quarrel had punched into her forehead revealed a skull filled with windblown sand. More of the fine grains had pooled in the corpse’s eye sockets, nose and gaping mouth.

‘Raraku reclaims its own,’ Pearl muttered after a moment. ‘And you’re certain this was Sha’ik, lass?’

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She nodded. ‘The Book of Dryjhna was being delivered, as I explained. Directly into her hands. From which, it was prophesied, a rebirth would occur, and that in turn would trigger the Whirlwind, the Apocalypse… the rebellion.’

‘Describe for me again these bodyguards.’

‘A Toblakai and the one known as Leoman of the Flails. Sha’ik’s most personal bodyguards.’

‘Yet, it would appear that the rebellion had no need for Sha’ik, or the Whirlwind. It was well under way by the time Felisin arrived at this place. So, what occurred in that time? Are you suggesting that the bodyguards simply… waited? Here? Waited for what?’

Lostara shrugged. ‘For the rebirth, perhaps. The beauty of prophecies is that they are so conveniently open to countless reinterpretations, as the demand presents itself. The fools waited, and waited…’

Frowning, Pearl straightened and looked around. ‘But the rebirth did occur. The Whirlwind rose, to give focus-to provide a raging heart-for the rebellion. It all happened, just as it had been prophesied. I wonder…’

Lostara watched him from beneath half-closed lids. A certain grace to his movements, she conceded. An elegance that would have been feminine in a man less deadly. He was like a flare-neck snake, calm and self-contained… until provoked. ‘But look at her,’ she said. ‘There was no rebirth. We’re wasting time here, Pearl. So, maybe Felisin stumbled here, onto all this, before continuing onward.’

‘You are being deliberately obtuse, dear,’ Pearl murmured, disappointing her that he had not risen to the bait.

‘Am I?’

Her irritation deepened at the smile he flashed her.

‘You are quite right, Lostara, in observing that nothing whatsoever could have been reborn from this corpse. Thus, only one conclusion follows. The Sha’ik alive and well in the heart of Raraku is not the same Sha’ik. Those bodyguards found a… replacement. An impostor, someone they could fit neatly into the role-the flexibility of prophecies you noted a moment ago would have served them well. Reborn. Very well, younger in appearance, yes? An old woman cannot lead an army into a new war, after all. And further, an old woman would find it hard to convince anyone that she’d been reborn.’

‘Pearl.’

‘What?’

‘I refuse the possibility-yes, I know what you are thinking. But it’s impossible.’

‘Why? Nothing else fits-’

‘I don’t care how well it fits! Is that all we mortals are? The victims of tortured irony to amuse an insane murder of gods?’

‘A murder of crows, a murder of gods-I like that, lass. As for tortured irony, more like exquisite irony. You don’t think Felisin would leap at the chance to become such a direct instrument of vengeance against her sister? Against the empire that sent her to a prison mine? Fate may well present itself, but the opportunity still must be embraced, wilfully, eagerly. There was less chance or coincidence in all this-more like a timely convergence of desires and necessities.’ pqdm.com