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Rhulad’s first coin a hunt For Udinaas His adopted brothers were given a company of warriors each and sent out to find the slave The search would be relentless, she knew, and in the end, Udinaas would be captured And made to pay for his betrayal

She did not knohat to think about that But the thought had run through her once – and only once, quickly driven away afterwards – a hope, a fervent prayer to the Errant that Udinaas would escape That he would never be found That at least one Letherii would defy this e hiain

The world has drawn breath… and now breathes once more As steady as ever, as unbroken in rhythh the cleverly fashioned, slitted s high in the doht, and she knew the sun was setting on this day

A day in which a kingdom was conquered, and a day in which that which was conquered began its inevitable destruction of the conquerors

For such was the rhythht, when the shadows drew long, and what remained of the world turned away

For that is what the Tiste Edur believe, is it not? Untilthe last tide

On his throne, Rhulad Sengar sat, draped in the gold of Lether, and the dying light gleamed in his hooded eyes Darkened the stains on the sword held in his right hand, point to the dais

And Feather Witch, her eyes cast doard once lance, doard as required, saw, lying in the join of the dais, a severed finger Small, like a child’s She stared at it, fascinated, filled with a sudden desire To possess it There was power in such things, after all Power a witch could use

Assued to had been ih

Dusk was claiht lanterns, and soon

She had not left the room There had been no reason to She had sat, , to the howling wolves, to the distant screams in the city beyond And told herself, every now and then, that she waited The end of one thing brought the birth of another, after all

Lives and loves, the ga of paths, the ragged, uneven ever-forward stumble Blood dried, eventually Turned to dust The corpses of kings were laid down and sealed in darkness and set away, to be forgotten Graves were dug for fallen soldiers, vast pits like er, and all the bodies were tuasp of lirieved, for a ti of possessions no-one possessed any longer, and wondered as to come, ould be written anew on the wiped-clean slate Wondering, how can I go on ?

Kingdoms and empires, wars and causes, she was sick of theone Away, so far away that nothing of her life from before mattered in the least No memories to drive her steps in this direction or that

Corlo had warned her Not to fall into the cycle of weeping So now she sat dry-eyed, and let the city beyond weep for itself She was done with such things