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‘… not my fault We have our orders They had their orders They chose to forsake the to turn on us, sooner or later They look down on us They hate us They hate the Gods! They had to die Not ily His legs were beneath him, he was certain, but he could not feel the, he was certain, but he couldn’t taste the air on his tongue He lurched forward, uncertain of where he was going, but certain he had to get there His stride eak, cluered, reached out for balance and laid a palh him

A voice spoke inside his heart

‘They’re going to betray you’

He reeled froer that coursed into hi to let hi traces of skin on it He was in pain, but he could not feel it

He continued, swaying down the hall He brushed against the wall

‘It is in their nature They are weak Cattle’

Agony; he was sure he should feel that There was no time to dwell on it, no time to feel pain Pain was fear, fear was doubt, doubtback

Another staggering step Another brush against the ice

‘Man’s destiny is his own to weave, not the doain, through churches instead of chains’

More pain More ice

‘The to, in case we needed to destroy the Gods as well as the demons It ritten to help mankind They cower before it, call it blaspheht at the end of the cavern appeared: no welco, soly blue He continued towards it and the voice did not stop, whispering to hirew narrower, as the ice closed in around him

‘We’ll show theods or demons They will all burn Mortalkind will remain’

A wall of ice rose up before hiure dwelled within it, a man cloaked in shadow

‘We have our duty We have our coift that we s than heaven’

His features were sharp and angular and harsh His hair hite and flowing His eyes were shut His lips were shut

‘They are going to kill you They are going to betray you It is their nature To let you live is to deny their coe that they ’

A dozen arroere embedded in his flesh A dozen knife hilts jutted fro battered armour and stained cloaks were frozen in the ice with hireater purpose It is our nature to cleanse, to purify, to kill Deods, heretics, liars, murderers … any that would seek to enslave mankind But it is their nature to doubt, to fear, to hate They will hate you They will betray you’

Lenk felt his arm rise of its own volition

‘You cannot let them deny you this purpose You cannot let them destroy you You cannot fail You cannot disobey Darior You cannot abandon your duty’

Lenk felt his hand fall upon the ice

‘You cannot let them stop you’

Lenk felt the man’s eyes open Lenk stared into a vast, pupilless blue void

‘Kill them or they will kill you’

And then, Lenk felt himself scream

Thirty-Nine

THE KINDEST OF POISONS

In a blackening row, the frogs smouldered on a thin wooden skewer

Kataria stared as their colours, the reens and blues and reds and yellows, vanished under a coat of black as the fire licked at their bodies,larger in their tiny sockets, the fear they could not express in life co out in death

Finally, with nearly inaudible popping sounds, their eyes burst Naxiaw plucked the skewer frolanced it over, and handed it to Kataria She took it fro it over with a frown

‘You put thehtly worried

‘They are cooked in six breaths,’ he said, his shictish deep and sure where hers was soft and hesitant

‘They’re still toxic,’ she replied, glancing at their glistening bellies ‘The poison hasn’t evaporated from them yet’

‘That’s why you use only six breaths’

‘So, they’re still poisonous’

‘They are’

‘Why even cook therin in the face of their charred countenances ‘Or do they just taste terrible raw?’

She looked up and found no grin on Naxiaw’s face He was staring at her

Still, she noted

And with an intensity too severe for the situation, as though whether or not she were about to chew up some roasted amphibians would answer a dire question she had been privately pondering for ages now, and whether or not she licked her lips afterwards would dictate what he did next

Not for the first ti to the thick Spokesainst the rock he sat upon

Saying nothing, she bit one of the toasted creatures froue, the aro her nostrils They were quite toxic, quite terrible to taste; she found herself wondering again what the point of cooking them was

Texture, perhaps?

She bit down A pungent flower bloomed in her mouth, and her lips threatened to rip themselves from her face, so fiercely did they pucker

Apparently not

Yet, under his stare, she continued to pop the thereasy lu hi

No, she realised as she saw the careful steadiness of his eyes, not staring Her own quivered a bit Searching

She did not ask for what She didn’t want to know She tried not to even think about it, for she didn’t want him to find it Yet with eyes and instinct alike, he searched her

She had sensed hi since rejoining hi her clothes froh the veil of the Howling, whispering over its roar to her, trying to reach her through their co Of her, it was clear by the faint twitch at the edges of his mouth that he sensed only frustration

It was discouraging, she admitted to herself, that the connection they had shared on Sheraptus’ ship had been lost so co with hers, a soothing earth to bury her fear beneath, and she dearly wished to feel it again How had it been lost? she wondered What had changed since last night?

She fought to keep the despair off her face

Oh, right

Meeting Naxiaw should have been the first thing to do thatthat never happened She had already made her choice between them, between a human she should hate and a people she should adore, three times She had made it when she looked into his eyes She had made it when she heard him scream her name and plea for help