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‘I do,’ she said, drawing herself up to her knees ‘It’sthis, it isn’t’

‘You’re a brigand,’ she whispered spitefully ‘What do you care where you get it? You think I couldn’t do better? I’ here’

‘And you chose to do that?’

‘It … it doesn’t‘I need this I need to know that I can still … that it’s still my …’

‘Not this way’ He turned ‘Not with me’

She watched hi down his stride She whispered to hinant voice

‘I have been through …’ She shook her head violently ‘I’ve given so , try to take a favour, I am denied’ She stared fire into his spine ‘At the very least, I thought I could count on you to do what you always do I should have remembered that what you always do is fail me in every way conceivable You’re pathetic’

‘I can live with that, at least,’ he replied, continuing to stalk away

‘I hate you’

‘That, too’

He disappeared into the forest And she was left alone She did not weep

Who would hear it?

The streah the forest, Lenk discovered, and its whispering voice ith it It murmured between trees, whirew softer as it thinned into shallows, grew louder as it deepened Lenk followed it all, listening to it

It was probably a bad sign that he was beginning to understand it

Never long enough to get a complete sentence, so as he walked past, its flows and ebbs beco ice every tirew soft and the water was thin enough to freeze with barely a sound, he could hear it

The words were ancient, or alien, or simply incomprehensible He could not understand thee behind them They were not happy words spoken froes of hate, vengeance, duty

And betrayal

Always betrayal

Every other word see hatred born of treachery It rose fro at the ice with its voice, its words id sheets

It was probably a worse sign that the voice was familiar

‘I reht here It spoke of betrayal then, too’

‘This island is a tomb,’ the voice answered ‘The dead have seeped into it with all their hate and their sorrow Most have had centuries to let the earth consume them and their e enough’

‘They sound so familiar, like I’ve heard them before’

‘One of us has’

He frowned, but did not ask the voice anythingstrea to him He didn’t want to know If he did, and if it was, he would want to turn back

And turning back, returning to them, was not an option

It never was

Before long, he found the streareat, black reat cave set in the hillside Here, the forest was at its deepest stage of decay The leaves hung black off trees that had been brireenery only a few paces back The air was stale, stagnant and frigid

It was n that he wasn’t bothered by any of this

He watched as the ice continued without hi path into the darkness His ears pricked up, however, as for a few fleeting mo in the gloom

‘Don’t like it,’ a voice whispered ‘Don’t like it and don’t want to go in there Not with him …’

‘We have our orders,’ another replied ‘They’ve got to die, all of theh, killed more demons than any--’

‘Don’t act like you haven’t been thinking of it They’re unnatural Abominations Make it swift In the back Just don’t look in his eyes’

‘Follow me,’ a third voice, cold as the air outside ‘This cave is supposed to lead to a way around the enemy We will cleanse this earth of their taint Our duty is upheld’

His eyes widened at the sound of it, the feel of it It rang inside his ears as he had felt it ring inside his head before Its rasping chill was all too familiar, the force behind it all too close to him He heard it as it echoed inside the cavern

He heard it as it spoke to him

‘Go inside’

‘What will I find there?’ he asked

‘Nothing good’

‘Then why should I?’

‘We will only find truth in the dark places’

‘I’ve gone this far living a lie It’s not been all bad’

The voice didn’t need to respond to that Iht, of the screa into hishis head

‘I’m afraid’

‘Wise’

‘I don’t understand what’s happening’

‘You will’

An urge, not his own, rose within hiure instantly, standing upon a nearby ridge A man, it appeared, cloaked in shadohite hair Lenk took in his harsh, angular features i the over the man’s shoulder

But before Lenk could even recall he didn’t have a weapon of his own, he found himself arrested by the man’s stare His eyes were a vast blue that seemed to take in Lenk as a shark ss fish They stared at him: intense, narrow …

Bereft of pupils