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“Let me go,” Tobi barks out, struggling in the man’s arms, as soon as his feet touch the damp earth. Immediately the blade is back at his throat.

He is in a clearing in the forest. There is a large fire in the centre. Men sit around in groups. Weapons glint in the firelight. Swords and hammers and axes. These men are well-armed and ready for battle.

A man stands up from the fire and walks over. As he approaches, the man holding Tobi says in Ambolk, “We have Harok’s kushir.”

This new man raises an eyebrow. He looks Tobi up and down. As he does so more riders enter the clearing. Half a dozen more Exceli. And behind them, Lymok on his cart. He brings it to a halt and hops down. He walks casually over to Tobi, greeting the man inspecting Tobi with a small bow. “My gift to you, Salizi,” he says. Tobi concentrates to follow the Ambolk exchange. “Harok’s kushir. A small tribute to the brave Exceli. To make this night sweeter.”

Salizi bows back, lower. “A fine prize. Welcome Lymok, true Irgo of the Amber Forest.”

21

TOBI

Tobi looks at Lymok in horror. “You meant for this to happen? You were bringing me here? To give me to them?”

“I am sorry, kushir,” says Lymok in Artemian, not looking sorry at all, but extremely satisfied. “I was planning to join the Exceli. I have been for some time. I have long sought a pact with the Exceli to bring peace to the forest. When Harok refused to listen to me and removed me from his council, I decided to see if I could arrange things more directly. And I thought when I left, I ought to bring you with me. As an offering to the great cause of overthrowing the heretic Irgo.”

Tobi stares at Lymok. “I thought you wanted to go back to Azuria. Find your family?”

“Perhaps I will. But not as some beggar fleeing Urynwud. If I do return to Azuria it will be as Irgo of the Amber Forest.”

Tobi looks at the faces all around him. Each one is crossed with an X in red paint. He makes himself swallow down his fear. “You hurt me. Irgo Harok kill you,” he says in Ambolk.

Lymok laughs. The others join in. He is surrounded by laughing leering faces in the dark. Salizi says something in Ambolk that Lymok translates, “No, kushir, Harok will die when we take Urynwud for Diazuul.”

Tobi responds with more Ambolk. “You no take Urynwud. You no take for twenty years.”

Lymok smiles. In Artemian, he says, “But now we have a strength we never had. We have the strength of the Azurian Empire behind us now.”

“The Empire is aiding you?” Tobi says in a soft whisper. And suddenly he wonders if he has got this all wrong. Did his father send help? His father must have sent Lymok to rescue him, working with the Exceli. “Do they know who I am?” Tobi says. “Have you told them I am a Darek?”

“Oh, yes,” says Lymok. “I told them. It is well known that Harok’s kushir is of Azurian blood, has Darek blood.”

“And you have arranged this with my father? With the Rose Court?”

Lymok smiles nastily. “Oh, kushir. The Rose Court? Did you really think you were the first person to tell me who my mother was? Do you really think I had never asked anyone about Alyse before I met you? The Empire has long had its eyes on me. One of its own in Urynwud. I have been speaking to the Thousand Eyes about the ways of the forest for many years.”

“Vindar? You have been in contact with Vindar?”

“Of course I have. And as soon as you arrived in Urynwud, I realised that you could be a useful tool. I sent a message to Vindar, I suggested that he could aid the Exceli in our fight in return for you.” Lymok pauses, “but he made me a different offer.”

Tobi looks around at the Exceli, staring at him in the firelight. “If not my rescue, then what?”

Lymok leans closer, he looks very pleased with himself. “Vindar’s instruction was to make sure you never returned to Azuria alive. And for that, we would be helped by the empire in our fight to take Urynwud. With steel and more.”

Tobi stares at Lymok. Surely this is a lie.

But even as he thinks that, another thought, sour and sharp, settles on him. It is no lie. The empire does not want him back, was, in fact, glad to see a way of disposing of him.

Why would the empire help him? The same empire that had not saved Damon. The same empire that had not protected Lukas. Of course no one is coming for him. Of course his father does not care what happens to him. When he was sixteen he had to beg his father on his knees for the means to pay for his mother’s care with the Brides of Zai, so they would not become destitute. The last time he saw his father, the only time he was ever allowed inside the Ivory Palace, was to humble himself out of desperation before the frozen face of the Azurian Empire that sired him.

Cyrus was right. The Imperial Army was never coming for him. It was simply a comforting lie he told himself. Another act. One he performed for himself to hide the truth. No one comes for him. No one helps him. He is alone. He must face everything in his life alone.

Including this.

“We kill this kushir,” Salizi grunts in Ambolk. “Leave him outside Urynwud. Message for the heretic Irgo.”

Lymok leans close to Tobi. “It’s all worked out quite perfectly. We will be well rewarded by Azuria for killing you and Harok will be shamed and weakened. There is no greater way to destroy an Irgo than to take his kushir.”