It was another to live with the knowledge that soon the world would be utterly and irrevocably changed. She was not like him. She had grown up in a world where everyone thought of the Princes as the embodiment of purest evil, and it had tainted her with a suspicion from which she could never entirely be free.

She was merely putting things off, she told herself. She really ought to be going. Her work here was done, and the longer she stayed the greater the danger to her would become. There was no guarantee that Rik would not report her to Asea or to the authorities, and with a High Inquisitor in the vicinity, things could become very dangerous very quickly.

She needed to get back to Sardea and report the failure of her father’s plan to the Queen Empress and to Malkior’s former associates.

She stayed slumped in the chair, sipping liquor from the flask until eventually, red-eyed from weeping, she fell asleep.

Chapter Four

Rik waited behind the curtain in the alcove, hardly daring to breath. He kept very quiet and very still, two things at which he had a lot of practise. Through a slit in the drape he could see the plush leather covered chairs. Asea welcomed High Inquisitor Joran and bade him take a seat. It had not taken long for the High Inquisitor to come calling. He had barely been in Halim a day.

“This is a pleasure, Lord Joran,” Asea said. “It does my heart good to see you here. We shall soon need all the help we can get.”

“It is through the mercy of the Light that I am here. The way was long and beset with peril.”

“We live in troubled times.”

“You speak the truth.” A note of subtle irony sounded in the statement. Joran had a wonderful voice, and he used it with the skill of a virtuoso.

“You must tell me of your journey.”

“Winter is a bad time of the year for travelling- the mountain passes were closed. It was deemed inadvisable to sail through Harven so that meant landing at Westport and overlanding it. After that snow, bandits, poor food, abominable roads. I will not bore you with the sordid details.”

“You could not bore me.”

“I have read your letters to the Queen with great interest. It is one of the reasons I am here. Queen Arielle has asked me to look into the matters you refer to.”

I have read your letters to the Queen. There was an assurance of power, of familiarity with the monarch, a hint of confidences betrayed, of a grasp of the upper echelons of power in Joran’s voice. Rik was unsure as to why the Inquisitor had taken that line. He was as out of his depths here as a Terrarch would be in the rookeries of Sorrow.

“I am glad she takes you into her confidence as well. It reassures me that one so wise should have her ear.” Asea’s voice too held hints of other things. She had been the Queen’s confidante for much longer than Joran, or so she implied.

“You flatter me, Asea, although my vanity welcomes your words.”

Asea’s tone changed. Bonhomie evaporated. There was a clipped menace to her delivery. “Since you are privy to my private correspondence with Arielle, you know that I fear someone seeks to open a Gate to Al’Terra.”

Joran’s reply was as easy as his previous statements. “It is one reason why I am here. That is a matter of the utmost gravity…if a Gate has been opened then it heralds the end of the world as we know it.”

“And yet you said the Gate is only one of the reasons you are here.”

“You are correct.