A murderous fanatic.

How could he think these men were his brothers?

With his face as blank as he could manage, Achamian said, "I'm a teacher no longer."

Proyas squeezed shut his eyes. They were hooded in the old way when he opened them. Whatever hardships the Holy War had endured, Proyas the Judge had survived.

"Where are they?" Achamian asked. The circles were so much clearer now. Aside from Xinemus, only Esmenet and Kellhus possessed any claim to his heart. In the whole world, only they mattered.

Proyas visibly stiffened, pressed himself from Xinemus's breast.

"Hasn't anyone told you?"

"No one would tell us anything," Xinemus said. "They feared we were spies."

Achamian couldn't breathe. "Esmenet?" he gasped.

The Prince swallowed, a stricken look upon his face.

"No . . . Esmenet is safe." He ran a hand through his cropped hair, both anxious and ominous.

Somewhere, a wick sizzled in a guttering candle.

"And Kellhus?" Xinemus asked. "What about him?"

"You must understand. Much, very much, has happened."

Xinemus pawed the air before him, as though needing to touch those he spoke to. "What are you saying, Proyas?"

"I'm saying Kellhus is dead."

Of all Caraskand, only the great bazaar carried any memory of the Steppe, and even then it was only the bones of such a memory: its flatness purchased by masons, its openness enclosed by dark-windowed facades. No grasses grew between the paving stones.

"Swazond," he had said. "The man you have killed is gone from the world, Serwe. He exists only here, a scar upon your arm. It is the mark of his absence absence, of all the ways his soul will not move, and of all the acts he will not commit. A mark of the weight you now bear."

And she had replied, "I don't understand . . ."

Such a dear fool, that girl. So innocent.

Cnaiur lay against the ribbed belly of a dead horse, surrounded by ever-widening circles of Kianene dead-victims of the city's glorious sack three weeks before.

"I will bear you," he said to the blackness. And never, it seemed, had he uttered a mightier oath. "You will not want, so long as my back is strong."

Traditional words, uttered by the groom as the memorialist braided his hair in marriage.

He raised the knife to his throat.

Bound to a circle, swinging from the limb of a dark tree.

Bound to Serwe.

Cold and lifeless against him.

Serwe.

Spinning in slow circles.

A fly crawled across her cheek, paused before a breathless nostril. He puffed air across her dead skin, and the fly was gone. Must keep her clean. Must keep her clean.

Her eyes half-open, papyrus-dry.

Serwe! Breathe girl, breathe! I command it!

I come before you. I come before!

Bound skin-to-skin to Serwe.

What have I . . . What? What?

A convulsion of some kind. convulsion of some kind.

No . . . No! I must focus. I must assess . . .

Unblinking eyes, staring down black cheeks, out to the stars.

There's no circumstance beyond . . . No circumstance beyond . . .

Logos.

I'm one of the Conditioned!

From his shins to his cheek, he could feel her, radiating a cold as deep as her bones.

Breathe! Breathe!

Dry . . . And so still! So impossibly still!

Father, please! Please make her breathe!

I . . . I can walk no farther.

Face so dark, mottled like something from the sea . . . How had she ever smiled?

Focus! What happens?

All is in disarray. And they've killed her. They've murdered my wife.

I gave gave her to them. her to them.

What did you say?

I gave her to them.

Why? Why would you do this?

For you . . .

For them.

Something dropped within him, and he tumbled into sleep, cold water rinsing bruised and broken skin.

Dreams followed. Dark tunnels, weary earth.

A ridge, curved like a sleeping woman's hip, against the night sky.

And upon it two silhouettes, black against clouds of stars, impossibly bright.

The figure of a man seated, shoulders crouched like an ape, legs crossed like a priest.

And a tree with branches that swept up and out, forking across the bowl of the night.

And about the Nail of Heaven, the stars revolved, like clouds hurried across winter skies.

And Kellhus stared at the figure, stared at the tree, but he could not move. The firmament cycled, as though night after night passed without day.

Framed by the wheeling heavens, the figure spoke, a million throats in his throat, a million mouths in his mouth . . .

WHAT DO YOU SEE?.

The silhouette stood, hands clasped like a monk, legs bent like a beast.

TELL ME . . .

Whole worlds wailed in terror.

The Warrior-Prophet awoke, his skin tingling against a dead woman's cheek . . .

More convulsions.

Father! What happens to me?

Pang upon pang, wresting away his face, beating it into a stranger's.

You weep.

The Zaudunyani on the Heights of the Bull immediately recognized him as a friend of the Warrior-Prophet, and Achamian found himself in a bright reception hall blinking at ivory plaques set in glossy black marble. After several moments, an Ainoni caste-noble called Gayamakri-one of the Nascenti, the others said-arrived and escorted him down dark halls. When Achamian asked him about the white-clad warriors he saw posted throughout the palace, the man yammered on about riots and the evil machinations of the Orthodox. But Achamian only had ears for his leaping heart . . .

At long last they paused before two grand doors-cherrywood beneath bronze fretting-and Achamian found himself thinking of jokes he could use to make her laugh . . .

"From a sorcerer's tent to a caste-noble's suite . . . Hmm." He could almost hear her laughter, almost see her eyes, wanton with love and devilry.

"So what will it be the next time I die? The Andiamine Heights?"

"She likely sleeps," Gayamakri said apologetically. "Things have been especially hard on her."

Jokes . . . What could he be thinking? She would need him, fiercely if what Proyas had said was true. Serwe dead and Kellhus dying. The Holy War starving . . . She would need him to hold her. How he would hold her! Without warning Gayamakri whirled, clutched his hands. "Please!" he hissed. "You must save him! You must!" The man fell to his knees, held him with white-knuckled fervour. "You were his teacher!"

"I-I'll do what I can," Achamian stammered. "On that I give you my word."

Tears branched across the man's cheeks into his beard. He pressed his forehead to Achamian's hands. "Thank you! Thank you!"

At a loss for words, Achamian pulled the Nascenti to his feet. The man fussed with his yellow-and-white robes, pathetically, as though just remembering a lifetime obsession with jnan.

"You'll remember?" he gasped.

"Of course," Achamian replied. "But first I must confer with Esmenet. Alone . . . Do you understand?"

Gayamakri nodded. He backed away three steps, then turned and fled down the hall.

He stood before the tall doors, breathing.

Esmi.

He would hold her while she sobbed. He would speak his every thought, tell her what she'd meant to him through his captivity. He would tell her that he, a Mandate Schoolman, would take her as his wife-his wife! And her eyes would weep wonder . . . He almost laughed with joy.

At last.

Rather than knocking, he pressed through the doors the way a husband might. Gloom and the scent of vanilla and balsam greeted him. Only six scattered candles illuminated the suite, which was broad with vaulted ceilings and decked with a luxurious array of carpets, screens, and hangings. Set upon a raised dais, a great pentagonal bed dominated the room's heart, its sheets and blankets knotted as though by passion. To the left, the panelled walls opened onto what looked like a private garden. Outside the sky was bright with stars.

A sorcerer's tent indeed!

He stepped from the lane of light thrown by the doors, peering into the suite's deeper reaches. The bed was empty; he could see that through the gauze. The doors rattled shut behind him, giving him a start.

Where was she?

Then his eyes found her on the far side of the room, curled up on a small couch with her back to the doors-to him. Her hair looked longer, almost purple in the gloom. Her loose gown had fallen, revealing a slender shoulder, both brown and pale. His arousal was immediate, both joyous and desperate.

How many times had he kissed that skin?

Kissing. That was how he would awaken her, crying while kissing her naked shoulder. She would stir, think he was a dream. "No . . . It can't be you. You're dead." Then he would take her, with slow, fierce tenderness, wrack her with voluptuous rapture. And she would know that at long last her heart had returned.