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“It was a message from her Gods. To tell her that she had to send me to you. She didn’t want to. She asked them for another way and this was their response.”

“What response? What does that mean.”

“They were angry I think, angry she would not listen to them. She asked her Gods for a sign. A certainty. They put this mark on me. And I am glad of it.”

Damon is shaking. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Because,” Lyr is sobbing now, “because if you knew what I was, if you knew I was meant to set you on a path to the last Hevelikar, you would have sent me away or killed me. I’m sorry, Damon. Please. I didn’t want any of this.”

“You just said you were glad of it.”

“Of course, I am. I am glad I was sent to you. I love you.”

Lyr tries to remember if he’s ever seen Damon cry. Even when he took one hundred lashes, even when everything he owned was taken from him. He did not cry.

But Damon has tears in his eyes now.

Atticul smiles. He moves closer to Lyr, pulling a dagger from his belt. He holds it to Lyr’s throat. “Shall I kill him for you, brother? This whore who bewitched you into sin?”

“Show me,” Damon says. His voice shakes. “Show me the runes on his chest.”

Atticul slices through the front of Lyr’s tattered shirt so it falls open, baring his chest. The four runes, silvery red.

“What do they say?” Damon asks Lyr. “Do they say my name?”

Lyr nods. He looks down. “Yes,” he says in a small, broken tone. “It’s Ur-Ambolk. I don’t speak it but Jareleezi told me what they say.” He nods to the first one. “That’s Da then Mun, Da again and the last one says Rix, the mark over it is the Ul.” He swallows. “DaMun DaRixUl. Damon Darekul.”

“So it was all magic? All a spell. None of this was real.”

“No. It was a prophecy from Jareleezi’s Gods,” says Lyr, but he doesn’t think Damon believes him.

“False Gods,” Damon says tightly. “What were you meant to do to me? Seduce me? Seduce me and tell me to run away with you and then take me to Ismagaar. Did you…?” Damon pauses. “The foribunda.” He looks at Atticul. “It wasn’t you that gave my whore foribunda on the Azuria Ascendant was it?”

Atticul laughs. “I told you when you came to my cabin that I did not.”

“That was part of your plan to seduce me too. You took foribunda on the Azuria Ascendant, to force me to take you.”

Damon sits down heavily on one of the wooden chairs. He looks broken.

“No,” says Lyr. “No, I didn’t. I don’t know who gave it to me⁠—.”

He’s cut off as Atticul slaps his face. Damon does nothing. He barely even looks over.

Lyr blinks away tears. What can he say? He could deny he took the foribunda himself but what good would it do? If they were alone he could make Damon understand. He knows he could. He could kneel in front of Damon and tell him exactly what had happened. He curses the fact he never tried in all the time they had together on Sanvicta.

But it’s too late, and Lyr can see how it looks. He’s a Hevelikar spy, a demon thing, sent to bring him down.

Lyr knows it then, deep in his heart. Damon is such a good man. A man who, despite everything that has been done to him, is honourable. Who lives with the heavy weight of things he has done, things he was forced to do. How can he ever understand the darkness of what happened to Lyr in Jareleezi’s chamber?

At that moment three more bodymen march into the keep. One of them, taller than the other two says, “He’s not here, Your Grace,” he breaks off, seeing Lyr in the other bodyman’s arms. “Oh. I see you found him after all.”

“Yes, we did,” Atticul drawls. “He was in the fucking cellar you claimed to have searched.”

“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” says the bodyman, as one of the other two steps forward and takes hold of Lyr so he has two men flanking him. One gripping each arm.

“Let me kill him for you, brother,” says Atticul. “I’ll do it happily. I should have done it in Pellex.”

Damon says nothing. He’s frozen, like he can’t react.