she rode through the village, through cool morning air, using the crumbled gaps in the walls as they had done the day before, and guided her mount down to the spring with its ugly statue and depthless waters. but she did not find the witch. instead, she found ville and galak, watering their horses.

at the sound of her horse's thumping hoofs as she approached, both men turned. and the smiles they gave her shattered the fury within her, and she rode out from it as if from under a cloud.

in the night just past, as rint lay in his sleeping furs and listened to arathan's soft moans from the other side of the fire - and feren's soft weeping much closer to hand - he had thought about killing lord draconus. a knife to the throat would have done it, except that it seemed the man never slept. again and again through the night rint had opened his eyes and looked across to where the huge figure was standing, seeing only that he remained, motionless, a silhouette strangely impenetrable.

shivering under his furs, rint began to believe in the power of night, in the inescapable breath of mother dark. wherever the sun set, she would then rise, as if bound now to the raw truths of the universe. she had ceased being a tiste. even the title of goddess now seemed paltry and insufficient to evoke what she had become.

he did not understand how a mortal could make that journey, could become something other. but clearly she had done so. and lord draconus stood at her side and, rint now suspected, shared something of the power his lover possessed.

the azathanai met draconus eye to eye, as equals, and even, on occasion, in deference. the suzerain of night: he had heard that title used for draconus before, but it was not a popular one among the tiste, who objected to its presumption, its arrogant impropriety. well, as far as rint was now concerned, they were all fools to denigrate draconus's claim to that title. whatever it meant, it was a thing of power, brutally real and profoundly dangerous.

there was no question now in rint's mind that draconus posed a threat. the highborn were right to fear the consort and his influence in the court. they were right to want him ousted, and if not ousted, then brought down, discarded and driven away in disgrace.

months past, urusander's agents had come among the bordersword villages. they had argued their case - the need for a husband for mother dark, rather than a consort, and the obvious choice for that husband: vatha urusander, commander of the legion. those agents had gained little ground among the borderswords. their cause rode currents of conflict, and the borderswords had lost their thirst for war. those fierce fools had left in frustration.

rint knew that his opinion counted for something among the loose council of his people, and he vowed that the next time such an agent visited, he would lend his support. draconus needed to go. even better, someone should kill the man and so end this deadly rise to power.

he had seen enough, here on this journey, to choose now to stand with urusander. hunn raal and his comrades were not so blinded by personal ambition as rint and his kin had believed. no, the next time will be different.

when draconus announced that the contract had ended, concluded to the lord's satisfaction, rint had struggled to hide his relief. now he could take feren away from all this: from the lord's cruel needs and the son's pathetic ones. they would accompany raskan as far as abara delack, because the man deserved that much - it was hardly raskan's fault that he served a beast.

they could now leave the lands of the azathanai.

he rode hard to catch up to his sister, only to find his fears unfounded and, better still, that she was in good company.

'i am not always cruel.'

raskan spun round at the words. the saddle slipped from his hands and he staggered back. 'no,' he moaned. 'go away.'

instead olar ethil drew closer. 'yours is an unhealthy fire,' she said. 'let me douse it. let me heal you.'

'please,' he begged.

but this denial she received as an invitation. she reached out, as raskan sank to his knees, and took his head in her hands. 'poisons of desire are the deadliest of all. i can cure you and so end your torment.' she paused and then added, 'it will give me pleasure to do so. pleasure such as you cannot conceive. you are a man and so cannot know what it is to be sated - not in those few panting breaths following release that is all you can ever know - but the swollen bliss of a woman, ah, well, gate sergeant raskan, this is what i seek and it is what i can offer you.'

the hands, pressed against the sides of his head, felt cool and soft, plump and yielding as they seemed to meld into his skin, and then the bones of his face, the fingers reaching through his temples. the heat of his thoughts vanished at their touch.