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‘I heed everything you say, my friend.’

They drank again, each with his own thoughts.Advertisement

Which was just as well.

The servant standing behind and to the right of the Chancellor was making peace with his personal god, having worked hard at exchanging the blink code with his fellow spy across the table from him, and well knowing that he was about to have his throat slit wide open. In the interval when the two snakes were escorting the Perish down to their boat, he had passed on to a plate-bearer a cogent account of everything that had been said in the chamber, and that woman was now preparing to set out this very night on her perilous return journey to the capital.

Perhaps Chancellor Rava, having overreached, was content to accept the grisly lesson of his temerity, as delivered by Lady Felash’s torturers upon his clumsy agents. The Lady, alas, was not.

It was said that Rava’s penis had all the lure of an eviscerated snake belly. The very thought of that worm creeping up her thigh was enough to send the fourteenth daughter of the King into a sizzling rage of indignation. No, she had only begun delivering her lessons to the hoary old Chancellor.

In the tiny kingdom of Bolkando, life was an adventure.

Yan Tovis was of a mind to complete the ghastly slaughter her brother had begun, although it was questionable whether she’d succeed, given the blistering, frantic fury of Pully and Skwish as they spat and cursed and danced out fragments of murder steps, sending streams of piss in every direction until the hide walls of the hut were wine-dark with the deluge. Twilight’s own riding boots were similarly splashed, although better suited to shed such effrontery. Her patience, however, was not so immune.

‘Enough of this!’

Two twisted faces snapped round to glare at her. ‘We must hunt him down!’ snarled Pully. ‘Blood curses! Rat poisons, thorn fish. Nine nights in pain! Nine an’ nine amore!’

‘He is banished,’ said Yan Tovis. ‘The matter is closed.’

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Skwish coughed up phlegm and, snapping her head round, sent it splatting against the wall just to the left of Twilight. Growling, Yan Tovis reached for her sword.

‘Accident!’ shrieked Pully, lunging to collide with her sister, and then pushing the suddenly pale witch back.

Yan Tovis struggled against unsheathing the weapon. She hated getting angry, hated that loss of control, especially since once it was awakened in her, it was almost impossible to rein in. At this moment, she was at the very edge of rage. One more insult-by the Errant, an unguarded expression-and she would kill them both.

Pully had wits enough to recognize the threat, it was clear, since she continued pushing Skwish back, until they were both against the far wall, and then she pitched round, head bobbing. ‘R’grets, Queen, umbeliss r’grets. Grief, an’ I’m sure, grief, Highness, an’ it may be that shock has the sting a venom in these old veins. Pologies, fra me and Skwish. Terrible tale, terrible tale!’

Yan Tovis managed to release the grip of her longsword. In bleak tones she said, ‘We have no time for all this. The Shake has lost its coven, barring you two. And it has lost its Watch. There are but the three of us now. A queen and two witches. We need to discuss what we must do.’

‘An’ it says,’ said Pully, vigorously nodding, ‘an’ it says the sea is blind t’the shore an’ as blind to the Shake, and the sea, it does rises. It does rises, Highness. The sixth prophecy-’

‘Sixth prophecy!’ hissed Skwish, pushing her way round her sister and glaring at Yan Tovis. ‘What of th’fifteenth prophecy? The Night of Kin’s Blood! “And it rises and the shore will drown, all in a night tears into water and the world runs red! Kin upon kin, slaughter marks the Shake and the Shake shall drown! In the unbreathing air.” And what could be more unbreathing than the sea? Your brother has killed us all an us all!’

‘Banished,’ said Twilight, her tone flat. ‘I have no brother.’

‘We need a king!’ wailed Skwish, pulling at her hair.

‘ We do not! ’

The two witches froze, frightened by her ferocity, shocked by her words.

Yan Tovis drew a deep breath-there was no hiding the tremble in her hands, the extremity of her fury. ‘I am not blind to the sea,’ she said. ‘No-listen to me, both of you! Be silent and just listen! The water is indeed rising. That fact is undeniable. The shore drowns-even as half the prophecies proclaim. I am not so foolish as to ignore the wisdom of the ancient seers. The Shake are in trouble. It falls to us, to me, to you, to find a way through. For our people. Our feuding must end-but if you cannot set aside all that has happened, and do it now, then you leave me no choice but to banish you both.’ Even as she uttered the word ‘banish’ she saw-with no little satisfaction-that both witches had heard something different, something far more savage and final. pqdm.com