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His brother’s formidable mind had not been idle, it seemed His indifference no erous man Thank the Errant he’s on my side …

He is on my side, isn’t he?

The old palace, soon to be entirely abandoned in favour of the Eternal Do proper a hundred paces in froh wall indicated that there had been an enclosure once, extending from the palace to the river, in which an assortment of structures had been effectively isolated from the rest of the city

Not so much in a proprietary claim to ownership, for the structures in question predated even the founding First Einal builders, there had been a recognition, of sorts, of soh, of course, not holy to the colonizers Another possibility was that the first Letherii were possessors of asince lost – that inspired thele, oddly different tower in theirwith the enclosure walls, and no answers could be found sifting the dust of crumbled mortar and flakes of exfoliated schist The area, while no longer sealed, was by habit avoided The land itself orthless, by virtue of a royal proclamation six centuries old that prohibited demolition of the ancient structures, and subsequent resettle that proclamation was summarily dismissed without even so much as recourse to the courts

All very well Skilled practitioners of the tiles of the Holds well knew the significance of that squat, square, leaning toith its rus, representative as they were of the Ice Hold Many held that the Azath toas the very first true structure of the Azath on this world

From her new perspective, Shurq Elalle was less sceptical than she rey stone tower exerted an ominous pull on the dead thief There were kin there, but not of blood No, this was the fa to surrender to oblivion In the case of those interred in the luraves were prisons The Azath did not give up its children

She sensed as well that there were living creatures buried there, most of them driven mad by centuries upon centuries snared in ancient roots that held them fast Others re eternity’s end

The thief approached the forbidden grounds behind the palace She could see the Azath tower, its third and upperhut dwellings Not one of the structures stood fully upright All were tilted in so out froht or lenses of sand washed away by underground runoff Vines had clih those that had reached out to the Azath died there, withered against the foundation stones arasses

She did not need to see the blood trail in order to follow it The sht air, invisible streaks riding the currents, and she pursued its wake until she ca the Azath tower

Just beyond, at the base of a twisted tree, sat the child Kettle Nine or ten years old… for ever Naked, her pale skin s blood The corpse before her was already half under the earth, being dragged down into the darkness

To feed the Azath? Or some ravenous denizen? Shurq had no idea Nor did she care The grounds sed bodies, and that was useful