Well, I thought, feeling a little punch-drunk on pain and exhaustion, at least there are some people out there she finds more disgusting than me.

'Forgive me, Sancti,' Quentis began, possibly hoping his use of the archaic title would sway her, 'but I would feel better if you would allow us to-'

'I'll be fine,' Ethalia said, closing off the discussion. She glanced over at me, looking more than a little concerned for my current state of health, and I gave her what passed for a smile in my current condition by way of telling her that it was all right to leave me. Ethalia tried to give me her own reassuring smile before heading back down the hall to her rooms. Of the two of us, I felt I was the better actor.

Quentis turned his attention to the doctor. 'What is his condition?' he asked Doctor Pasquine.

'None of your business, Cogneri,' she replied pleasantly. I was starting to like her more and more.

'Am I going to live?' I asked, then added, 'I will consider it no reflection on your talents if the answer is no, I promise you.'

She opened my coat and looked less than thrilled by what she saw. 'Bruises on top of bruises and fresh cuts on top of those barely healed.' She tore open the front of my one decent shirt. Well, it used to be a decent shirt, I reflected, looking down on the grit, dirt and blood embedded in it.

You never think about things like clean clothes when you're going from one life-threatening crisis to another. Once the fight's done, though, you really do start to wish you didn't have to smell your own stench on top of that of the men you've just killed. Fortunately, once exhaustion takes over you stop caring quite as much.

Boots on the stairs alerted me to Brasti coming to my rescue, with Kest alongside him.

'It's a little late,' I said, though I doubt they heard me. I was having rather a difficult time staying focused.

Brasti's right arm was in a sling, but he was still trying rather clumsily, as far as I could see to nock an arrow as he approached. Kest's face was contorted with that mysterious pain that washed over him every time he drew his sword now, ever since the day he'd lost his hand, along with his Sainthood. A strange sadness swept over me as I watched the two of them trying so hard to be the men they once were. Look at us, I thought, feeling myself drifting in and out of consciousness, three broken men trying to pretend we can continue living in the past . . .

'Step aside,' Brasti said cheerily to the Inquisitors who had moved to bar his path. 'We wouldn't want to dirty the floor with more blood than necessary.' He glanced over at me. 'Though Falcio seems to have done a pretty good job of it already.'

. . . blustering our way through one crisis after another, trying in vain to bring back a world nobody wants . . .

Quentis Maren signalled his men to let them pass and Kest paused to look at me, no doubt wanting to make sure I was still breathing before he went to examine the bodies of the two God's Needles on the floor.

. . . all the while struggling to make sense of things far outside our understanding.

I watched Kest with no little amusement as he went over the wounds on their bodies one after another, working out exactly how many moves it had taken me to defeat them, no doubt preparing to scold me with a recitation of the ways I could have ended the fight quicker, had I only been more efficient in my use of the walking stick I'd picked up for the first time a couple of hours ago.

Brasti stood over him. 'You have to admire their dedication, what with biting off their own tongues rather than risk being interrogated.'

The doctor smoothed a thick white ointment across my chest and neck which sent cold chills through me even as it burned my skin. 'Ow,' I said.

She smiled at me even as she continued to rub the ointment into my bruised flesh. '"Ow"? You survive all this bloodshed and it's the medication that makes you moan like a child getting his first toothache?'

'You wouldn't understand,' I said, too tired to explain. I reached into my pocket for the last piece of the hard candy that Kest had given to me months ago. I'd been saving it for a special occasion.

'Hold it,' Doctor Pasquine said, grabbing my wrist.

'It's fine,' I said. 'It's just the King's hard candy. We use it to-'

'I know what it is.' She sniffed at it and then let go of me. '"Hard candy". Makes it sound like something you give to children rather than a deadly toxin.'

'It's saved our lives on a number of occasions,' Kest observed, still inspecting the bodies, apparently oblivious to the rather intense scrutiny of Quentis' Inquisitors standing behind him.

The doctor looked up from her painstaking work cleaning a wound on my upper shoulder. 'I don't doubt the toxin is effective. I'm simply saying that someday you're going to take it one too many times and wonder why your heart has just burst out of your chest. There are costs to these things, you know.'

I looked down at the tiny piece in my hand. How many times had I relied on the hard candy to keep my sword arm strong, to keep me awake, to keep me from just lying down in a ditch and giving up?

'What costs?' I asked her.

'What do you mean? I told you, it can kill you if-'

'Yes, but you said "costs", plural. What other costs?'

She wrapped a loop of bandage around me. 'I don't know the exact formula King Paelis' apothecaries devised, but I do know that these kinds of concoctions play havoc with the vital fluids of the body, and those in turn can put a terrible strain on the mind.'

Brasti chimed in, 'Oh, don't worry about Falcio. He knows all about insanity he used to go berserk all the time.' He peered down at the ruin of Beltran's body. 'Apparently he still does. Saint Laina's tits, Falcio, how long did you keep hitting this guy after he was dead?'

'I didn't,' I replied. 'The bastard just wouldn't die.'

I was still staring at the hard candy held between my index finger and thumb. What if it's as simple as this? What if these God's Needles don't really gain supernatural abilities from drinking the blood of Saints? Maybe they've just got something like the hard candy, only much, much stronger? 'Kest, could a human being I mean, not a Saint or whatever have survived all those injuries and still kept fighting?'

'I . . . suppose it's possible,' he replied.

'But highly improbable,' Quentis said, taking a sudden interest in our conversation. 'Look at the wounds on this man's body. Who could-?'

Kest cut him off. 'Many of the wounds are fatal, but none of them would necessarily kill a man instantly. It's just a matter of ignoring the pain and not going into shock.'

'"Just ignore the pain and don't go into shock",' Doctor Pasquine repeated as she wrapped an endless roll of bandages around my torso. 'You make it sound so easy.'

'But it's possible, isn't it?' I persisted.

'In theory,' she replied. 'But I suspect any compound capable of producing such an effect would destroy the internal organs, and no doubt the mind as well.' She ran the last loop of bandages around me before sealing them with a clear, sticky substance. 'Now, on the subject of madmen determined to kill themselves, if you could see your way clear to avoiding any strenuous activity for the next few days, there's a possibility you might live. Get some rest.'

'He can't,' Brasti said, reaching down a hand to help me up. 'Falcio has a very important meeting of the Greatcoats to attend. Vital matters of law and justice and-'

'Brasti heard about a tavern in town that stays open all night,' Kest said.

'Not just any tavern,' Brasti corrected, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. 'Apparently it's chock-full of ladies-in-waiting, lonely to the point of desolation with nothing to do while their mistresses amuse themselves in the palace.' He straightened the shoulders of my coat. 'Now look, Falcio, I know you'd rather find someone else to try and kill, but Ethalia's safe, Aline's got half the guards in the palace around her and Valiana is busy meeting with the Dukes, who, by the way, have the rest of the guards. As magistrates we must now turn our attention to saving a small but potentially very open-minded portion of the country from a fate worse than death.'

'Which fate is that?' I asked.

'Never knowing the joy of kissing a Greatcoat.' He gave me an appraising look. 'Best take the hard candy first, though. Nobody wants to dance with a corpse.'

The doctor threw up her hands. 'I give up.' She started to walk away. 'Do whatever pleases you, Trattari. Go and fight duels or bed noblewomen to salve your self-worth. Just don't go kissing girls with weak hearts or very old people.'

I had no intention of kissing anyone, young or old, but the comment struck me. 'Why not?'

Doctor Pasquine stopped and pointed to the fragment of hard candy in my hand. 'Those sort of compounds pool in the tongue. You go slithering your tongue in some poor girl's mouth who's never been exposed to the stuff and she's liable to have a heart attack then and there.'

'What happens to a healthy one?' Brasti asked, looking interested.

She grimaced up at him. 'Likely she'll be fooled into thinking your kiss sends her all aflutter.'

'Why, that would be just terrible,' Brasti said. He reached out a hand to me, palm up. 'Can I have the rest of your hard candy, Falcio?'

Kest said something then, but I didn't hear it, for my eyes were fixed on Beltran. His mouth was still hanging open, displaying the ruin of his tongue, encased in dried blood and spit. We'd all assumed the assassin who'd gone after Aline had been trying to make sure we couldn't torture any answers out of him, but Beltran had already known he was dying.

'Falcio?' Kest asked, and I realised then that he was holding me upright.

What was it the doctor had said about the cost of using these compounds?

They put a terrible strain on the mind.

I lifted my hand to my mouth and swallowed the small fragment of hard candy. The familiar metallic taste hit me first, followed a second later by the sensation of my heart beating faster, my blood going hot in my veins. Within seconds I felt strong and focused. But not as strong as Sedge and Beltran were. So whatever they had in their veins was much more powerful than the hard candy, which meant the adverse effects would also be stronger. They knew it, too. That's why they bit off their tongues.

Somebody called my name again, but by then I was already stumbling to the stairs, my feet barely touching the steps as I struggled to remember where the meeting rooms on the first floor of the palace were. Brasti and Kest chased after me.

'Tell the doctor to follow us,' I shouted as I ran.

'Why?' Brasti asked. 'Who's-?'

'Those men couldn't feel pain. They didn't care about being interrogated. They just wanted to do as much damage as they could before they died.'

The memory of the assassin in the throne room played over and over again in my mind: his mouth full of blood, his hand reaching up to grab Valiana behind the neck, pressing his lips against hers.

The toxins pool in the tongue, Doctor Pasquine had said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.

The Release

The Diplomatic Chamber, a modestly sized room off the massive hall housing the throne, provided a more discreet and comfortable venue for important negotiations. The decor was elegant but not ostentatious, creating a feeling of calm and safety. Or at least it would have, had Kest, Brasti and I not just kicked in the door.

'Um, Falcio?' Brasti whispered, 'Are you sure about that theory of yours?'

'What in hells is this?' bellowed Hadiermo, so-called 'Iron Duke' of Domaris, a man of considerable bulk who always had a pair of retainers standing next to him holding his massive two-handed sword, just in case he suddenly needed to show everyone how dangerous he was. Hadiermo's most notable feat by my reckoning was the way he'd lasted barely two weeks in the war against Trin before he'd sued for peace. Iron is sometimes quite bendable, it appears.

Next to him slouched Erris, Duke of Pulnam. He was very nearly as old as his Duchy, and as devoted to his religion as any man who thought it best to get on the Gods' good side whilst he still could; Erris also had the distinction of having waited a full two weeks longer than Hadiermo before betraying Aline.

'Treason! Betrayal! Duplicity!' he shouted, in between bouts of coughing, evidently unaware that each word meant pretty much the same thing.

Also seated at the great oval table were Duke Jillard, who looked mildly amused at our entrance, Pastien, Ducal Protector of Luth, who looked as if he knew he should probably say something but wasn't sure what exactly, and Valiana.

'Falcio?' she asked carefully.

Beside the council, more than a dozen guardsmen and retainers were seated at the back of the room, and I found myself both annoyed and curious about why I was counting two Inquisitors and a cleric among them.

Nothing seemed amiss. Valiana looks fine, I thought. But I wasn't about to take chances. 'You have to come with me,' I said, reaching out a hand to her.

'How dare you disrupt the business of this council?' Hadiermo demanded.

'Forgive me, your Grace,' I replied, not wasting any effort on sounding convincing.

Valiana stared at me for what felt like a long time and I expected her at any moment to command me to leave, or at the very least ask me to explain why I'd just broken up a meeting of the Ducal Council. As she did none of those things, I examined her face, and started to notice the signs of strain: the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, as if she were trying to ignore a headache, the paleness of her cheeks, the soft sheen of moisture on her forehead.

'Oh-' she said, as if in that instant she had worked out everything that had taken me so long to understand. She rose to her feet, slowly, supporting herself on the table. She was shaking. 'I've been feeling so . . .'

'It's going to be all right,' I said, my hand still extended towards her. 'The doctor will be here soon.'

'It was the blood from his tongue, wasn't it?' Valiana shivered, just for a second, and at first I took it for revulsion at the memory, but then it happened again- 'I've had enough of this.' Duke Erris creaked to his feet. 'Bad enough I should waste my time with a girl playing at being Realm's Protector, but-'

'I didn't even know anything was wrong at first,' Valiana said, talking to me as if we were the only two people in the room. She brought her fingers up to her face and very softly ran her nails down her cheek. 'Then it started to . . . it just keeps whispering to me.' Her eyes filled with tears that spoke of a terrible struggle, of terror and frustration and, now, finally, of resignation. 'I fought so hard, Falcio. I swear I did.' The fingers ran down the cheek again, but this time they bent inwards like claws and the nails left bloody tracks down her face.

'No!' I cried, bridging the distance between us, completely ignoring the guardsmen's swords and the Inquisitors' pistols, all aimed squarely at my chest. I could see that Valiana was about to let go completely.

'Hold on, sweetheart. You've got to hold on.' She hated it when I called her 'sweetheart', but I meant it as a kind of reassurance; a promise that we would fix whatever was wrong with her.

She gave me the tiniest of smiles in response, a last valiant effort before the battle was lost. 'I'm glad you're here,' she said, and then Valiana val Mond, Realm's Protector of Tristia and the bravest person I'd ever known, went completely, undeniably mad.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.

The Madness

Sometimes, in the dark hours of night when I can't sleep, when I'm convinced that someone is coming for me and my hands reach of their own accord for my rapiers, I wonder what I must have looked like during the Lament. As the Dashini Unblooded tortured me, taking me step by step towards the ninth death, I wonder what madness and despair etched on my face? Would I even have recognised myself?

I stood there watching Valiana writhing and screaming uncontrollably as she tried to tear the flesh from her bones in that elegant chamber, surrounded by finely dressed Dukes with all their retainers and guardsmen, and I thought I knew what I must have looked like at the very end of the Lament. Whatever poison was in the Needle's tongue, it was dragging Valiana shrieking to her own ninth death.