Chapter 1

Abelas

"She's with child," Rosha said as she settled down next to me on the fallen pillar. Her flame-red hair had mostly escaped its braid, and curled softly around her shoulders to frame her vulpine features.

I returned my gaze to the middle distance, my only motion to place my hands on my thighs. The buckskin of my breeches was pliant and adhered to my palms. I missed my armour, but I had no need of it anymore. It was too heavy to carry with us.

"Are you not happy for her?" Rosha continued.

A swarm of imperials fluttered through the glade, the sunlight sparking off their royal blue wings. I sighed.

"Nelas could have chosen a more opportune time." No. I wasn't jealous of her happiness with Telahmis. I wasn't hard done by that they'd slipped beyond mere friendship into something deeper. Of course I could keep saying that to myself until I half-believed it.

Next to me, Rosha hissed. I'd angered her, and I was well aware that my words would cut her.

"When is there an opportune time, Abelas? It's been what, nearly three years? What else is there? We need to move ahead. Live."

I glanced at her long enough to note how flushed her complexion was, how the emerald vallaslin of Mythal stood out in stark relief against her heightened colour. Then I resumed my vigil over the clearing. Just what I was watching for, I couldn't tell. After so many eons of carrying a burden, it was impossible to lay it down, despite the fact that I understood on a profoundly deeper level that my role as Sentinel was over.

"What else is there…" I began, yet I had no words. What I meant to say was quicksilver on my tongue and lips.

The ages weighed down heavily, and part of me was tempted to slip away into the long sleep offered by uthenera. It wasn't so bad, really. And yet … And yet there was reason to be alive, to feel the sun on my face, to walk without the yoke that I'd borne so willingly for so many years. Instead of plunging into the changeable dreams offered by the Fade.

Yet today I found myself once again troubled by that accursed Elvhen's parting words that fateful day.

Malas amelin ne halam, Abelas.

As if the centuries that I'd carried Mythal's favour could be cast off like a serpent sheds its old skin. Barefaced, faithless trickster. Easy for him to speak, always the firebrand, always at the centre, stirring the conflict. And yet, when faced with his treachery, his insouciance made it almost impossible to remain angry with him. Someone else always ended up bearing the brunt of his mistakes. Had his companions known they harboured a wolf in their midst, how would they have reacted? I almost pitied the fools. Like shemlen livestock, easily led to slaughter.

Yet what must it be to live such brief lives, flashes of lightning quickening against the coming storm? Foolish quicklings, little shadows.

"I am happy for them," I said to Rosha, but I doubt she knew that I didn't mean the development between Nelas and Telahmis. Where was Ilvin now? Or those shemlen hangers-on. Solas, as was his wont, had vanished like a stone dropped in a well. We knew that much, because agents of the Inquisition had been poking about this part of the wilds asking after him.

"You don't sound happy."

I sighed, turned to face her. "Tell me, ma falon, what reasons do I have to be happy?"

"If you sit here, day in and day out, brooding, you'll grow a coating of moss and turn to stone," she said, but there was no humour in her voice.

"Perhaps turning to stone would be preferable than this feckless wandering and wondering."

"For a leader you're not doing a particularly good job of it now," she snapped. "More than two years, from ruin to sunken temple to forgotten stronghold, and for what? What are you looking for? A new duty to turn into a burden to give your life meaning?"

I hissed. "I… I don't know."

"It's gone, you know. All that we had. All that was. Our time is done. We should make the best of what we've got. We should live. Move on."

"And what? End up like those shadows flitting about, who have no understanding of their past. Little moths that burn their wings and turn to ash."

Rosha sucked in her breath, her mouth a thin, bloodless line. "You're afraid. That's what. You no longer know what it's like to be alive anymore. So now you want to doom the rest of us too. You suffer from a surfeit of pride because you don't want to 'lower' yourself to be like those who're truly alive. Duty – that's all you talk about, but then you do nothing. Nothing!"

I shouted, my anger hot, livid, "Well, go then! Go run in the forest with the little shadows! I'm certainly not stopping you." Creators, she made me furious, because she was right. I didn't want to admit it, but I knew her words for truth. I clenched my fists, ground my teeth to prevent myself from saying more.

All the seasons of silent recriminations from the sad remnants of the Sentinels, but it took my oldest, dearest friend to stand up to me.

And my words had stung her. That much was clear from the way she narrowed her eyes, stiffened her posture. Her sharp features were pinched with intense emotion.

I wasn't sure, but I thought I heard her mutter "Halam sahlin" under her breath as she got up and departed. So, it ended now. She'd come round. There was nowhere to go.

Fuming, I sat until moonrise before I'd calmed myself sufficiently to return to camp. We'd bedded down in yet more ruins – a location that had once been Mythal's shrine. Now the once-majestic pillars were fallen trunks, and what had been a great reflecting pool was nothing more than a shallow depression in the earth where gossamer elfroot grew in profusion. Fig trees strangled and split the masonry with their intrusive, snakelike roots. I'd found but fragments of the luminous mosaics that had once decorated the walls.

I stopped in my tracks.

Most of our tents were gone.

I stared, not quite believing what I saw.

Sathanna and Belamanth were striking their tent, and the latter paused to cast me a glance over his shoulder before he continued rolling up the guy rope.

The empty space next to them was where Rosha's tent had stood, and I was unaccustomed to the nasty, crawling sensation in my belly. Betrayal.

Well, go then!

I hadn't thought my people would do as much.

Midha came to stand next to me, and waited for me to acknowledge his presence with a curt nod.

"Laisa and I will stand by you," he said quietly.

"Ma serannas," I murmured.