Seren Pedac spoke first. ‘Is there no room left, Trull Sengar?’
And he understood. ‘No, Acquitor. No room left.’
‘I think you would have it otherwise, wouldn’t you?’
The question brushed too close to the wordless recognition they had shared only a few moments earlier, and he saw once again in her eyes a flicker of… something. He mentally recoiled from an honest reply. ‘I serve my emperor.’
The flicker vanished, replaced by a cool regard that slipped effortlessly through his defences, driving like a knife into his chest. ‘Of course. Forgive me. It is too late for questions like that. I must be leaving now, to escort Buruk the Pale back to Trate.’
Each word a twist of that knife, despite their being seemingly innocuous. He did not understand how they – and the look in her eyes – could hurt him so deeply, and he wanted to cry out. Denials. Confessions. Instead he punctuated the break of that empathy with a damning shrug. ‘Journey well, Acquitor.’ Nothing more, and he knew himself for a coward.
He watched her walk away. Thinking on his life’s journey as much as the Acquitor’s, on the stumbles that occurred, with no awareness of their potential for profundity. Balance reacquired, but the path had changed.
So many choices proved irrevocable. Trull wondered if this one would as well.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Where is the darkness In the days gone past When the sun bathed everything In godling light And we were burnished bright In our youthful ascendancy Delighted shrieks and Distant laughter Carried on the gilden stream Of days that did not pause For night with every shadow Burned through By immortal fire Where then is the darkness Arrived at sun’s death Arrived creeping and low To growl revelations Of the torrid descent That drags us down Onto this moment.
Immortal fire Fisher kel Tath
A VOICE SPOKE FROM THE DARKNESS, ‘I WOULDN’T GO DOWN THAT street, old man.’
Bugg glanced over. ‘I thank you for the warning,’ he replied, walking on.
Ten paces into the narrow alley he could smell spilled blood. Footsteps behind him told him the look-out had moved into his wake, presumably to block his avenue of retreat.
‘I warned you.’
‘I’m the one you sent for,’ Bugg said.