'How do you know that?' Nathair asked him. 'We were not there. No one whose word we value was there. We only have the ancient record, and that was written by our ancestors, the victors. The people that fought the giant clans and took their land.'

'What of it?' Veradis asked. He had an unpleasant feeling in his gut, part sickness, part fear.

'I do not think that all giants are evil. Alcyon, for example. You would consider him a friend, even.'

'I do,' Veradis said.

'So, perhaps those that wrote our histories were biased. Twisted the truth to suit their perspective, even.'

I'm sure Ektor would have an opinion on this but Krelis and I were always more comfortable with a blade in our hands than a book.

'Why are we talking about this?' Veradis asked.

'What if those who wrote about the Scourging, about Elyon and Asroth, were equally as biased?' Nathair looked at Veradis now, eyes bright with fervour. 'What if the Ben-Elim were not the righteous ones, the Kadoshim not evil? What if they were just like the giants and us, two peoples fighting a war for their own ends, and the defeated were portrayed as the villains?'

'No,' Veradis said.

'What if Kadoshim and Ben-Elim are just names.'

Veradis' mind was reeling. He wanted Nathair to stop, the words feeling like a sudden flood in his mind, a river bursting its banks, changing the world as he knew it.

Or as I want to know it. What if Nathair's right, all that we know a mixture of truth and lies. He mind was swept on by the thought, more and more truths coming into question.

'Wait,' he said aloud, shaking his head to try and bring some focus back. 'What are you saying, Nathair? Are you telling me that Calidus is Kadoshim, not Ben Elim?'

Nathair turned from the window and looked at him, then nodded.

'I am.'

'Then all that we have done, believed, fought for . . .' He looked into Nathair's eyes. 'A lie?' He felt dizzy suddenly, his legs weak.

'No,' Nathair hissed. 'Think, man. Nothing has changed. Right and wrong, they are just ideas in our heads, meaning that we give to our actions. Our friendship is still the same, our oaths to one another still stand. That is what we must cling to. Our goals and our vision are still the same. Nothing of import has changed.'

'Nothing has changed,' Veradis echoed.

'Apart from the names,' Nathair shrugged. 'Ben-Elim, Kadoshim, Elyon, Asroth.'

'Bright Star and Black Sun,' Veradis said.

Nathair froze at that, his mouth a bitter twist. 'Aye, that too.' He shrugged. 'We must accept the hard truth, even if it hurts at first.'

'But what of Calidus? We saw him; he had wings. He is Ben-Elim.'

'Oh, he has wings, but they are not made of white feathers,' Nathair snorted. 'What we saw in Tela.s.sar was a glamour.'

Veradis ground his palm into his forehead. This cannot be. Everything that we are has been devoted to this cause, and it is a lie.

He looked at Nathair, saw his face was a kaleidoscope of battling emotions. Scorn, shame, hope.

'You are the Black Sun,' Veradis said.

'Whatever men call me, I shall rule, and rule well. You know that. I am still the same person, still your friend, and your king. Nothing but the t.i.tles we have imagined have changed.'

But that's not true, is it?

'Show me your hand,' Veradis asked.

'What?'

'Your hand.' Veradis held his own palm up, the scar of his oath to Nathair.

Slowly Nathair held his hand out, uncurled his fingers.

'You have two scars now,' Veradis observed. A seed of doubt and anger growing larger by the moment.

'Aye. A man can make more than one oath.'

'Who was it to?'

Nathair didn't answer, made to pull his arm away, but Veradis gripped his wrist, held the palm open.

'Who did you swear this oath to?'

'Asroth,' Nathair whispered.

Veradis threw Nathair's arm as if it were a viper.

Betrayal, it is all betrayal. And lies upon lies. How can he not see that? What else has he hidden from me?

'And you say nothing has changed,' Veradis snarled, pulling away from him. 'Everything has changed.'

'Think on what I have said,' Nathair pleaded, 'on what is truth and lie. On our friendship.'

'I need to get out, some air,' Veradis mumbled. He was so furious he couldn't even look at Nathair as he made for the door, slammed it open to see Calidus striding towards him. Beside him walked a strange figure, a girl, tall, fair-haired and long-limbed. Something about her reminded Veradis of Tain, the giantling, though she appeared travel stained, half-dead, skeletally thin and shivering uncontrollably. They pa.s.sed each other, Calidus' eyes fixing Veradis as he went by.

He is Kadoshim. His skin goose-fleshed.

Calidus steered the girl into Nathair's chamber.

A dozen paces along the corridor Veradis swayed, reached a hand out to the wall to steady himself. He heard Calidus' voice.

'You told him, then.'

'Aye. It was time.'

'He didn't look as if he took it too well.'

'What did you expect?'

'Perhaps I should bring him back,' Calidus said.

'No, leave him. Where can he go? We are in the middle of Forn Forest. All will be well, he just needs some time to think it through, to readjust. He will be back of his own accord.'

'We shall see.'

'He must come back to me, our friendship is too strong. And I need him . . .' That last was only a whisper.

'And who is this?' Nathair said, firmer again.

'Answer your high king, child,' Calidus said.

'My name is Trigg, my lord,' a frail voice replied.

'And tell your King what you told me, Trigg,' Calidus said. There was a new note in Calidus' voice that Veradis had not heard before. Excitement.

'I can take you to Dra.s.sil,' the girl said. 'I saw their secret way.'

'And why should I trust you?' Nathair asked her.

A silence settled, broken finally by the girl's voice. 'All my life I thought them my kin, my family,' she muttered. 'But they betrayed me, sent me away.'

'What are you talking about, be clear, girl,' Nathair snapped. 'Why should I trust you?'

'Because there are those in Dra.s.sil that I would see dead,' the girl snarled.

Veradis pushed himself from the wall and strode away.

Traitors. It seemed the world was full of them.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR.

MAQUIN.

Maquin sat in a cold cell with iron bars, off a corridor deep in the bowels of Brikan.

Life is strange, and cruel, he thought. It was not so long ago that I sat in the halls above, and ate, laughed and sang with Kastell and my Gadrai brothers. Orgull, Tahir . . .

The world has gone mad.

He was not alone in these cells. Earlier the giantess Raina and her bairn had been herded in and shut away at the very end. Maquin had heard them talking in giantish, like two landslides grating back and forth, and he had heard a sniffling sound which he had presumed was weeping. That had all ended some time ago, though, and since then the only sound had been the steady drip of water from walls.

A key rattled in a lock, the door at the end of the corridor swinging open and feet slapping on stone, splashing through puddles in the dank corridor, voices protesting. One of them making him stand and run to the bars.

Fidele.

She was being escorted into the corridor by eagle-guard, along with Krelis, Ektor and Peritus. At a glance it was clear that they were prisoners, their scabbards empty of swords.

The eagle-guard filed towards his cell, one of them muttering and rifling through a ring of keys. He stopped and opened the first cell, a few doors before Maquin's, thrust Ektor into it, the young man spluttering at the indignity, moved on to the next cell, where Peritus was thrown, then the cell the other side of Maquin, placed Fidele in there, and finally the last one for Krelis.

The eagle-guard filed out without a word, looking somewhat shame-faced and confused at having locked their own Queen away.

'Didn't think I'd be seeing you down here,' Maquin said, as close to Fidele's cell as he could get.

'As dark as things have become, my heart still skips to see you,' her voice came back to him.

He reached a hand out through the bars and felt her fingers lace with his.

'What happened?' he said.

'Nathair is a madman, that's what happened,' Krelis yelled, slamming his cell bars, sending a cloud of dust puffing into the corridor.

'Something terrible,' Fidele said, and proceeded to tell Maquin of the meeting with Nathair.

'More like a sentencing, not even a trial,' Krelis growled. 'We should have fought in Tenebral, killed Lykos when we had the chance.'

I remember advising that exact course of action.

You are blinded by your thirst for revenge, Ektor had said. You're not seeing clearly, Not blinded. Driven.

Mind you, in light of the events in the tent, he does have a point.

'And we should never have walked into that tent, then father would still be alive . . .' Krelis was muttering.

'Ifs and buts will not help us now,' Ektor said from his cell. 'We must think of a way out of this, else we'll all end up in a group execution alongside Maquin.'

Comforting.

'And Fidele, perhaps you should not have accused Calidus of being Kadoshim,' Ektor said.

'It is the truth.'

'Like as not, you are right. I have suspected the same. But to stand and point a finger when you are surrounded by what, six, eight thousand men sworn to him and Nathair?'

'Aye,' Fidele muttered, 'the timing could have been better, I'll give you that.'