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“What sort of rite?” Damon says, sounding a little wary.

Mareena drops a small curtsey and the performer she once was seems clearly present, “Sire,” she says, rising erect. “It is a song. A sweet song to honour your father Rafus Darek.”

“Yes,” says Damon, “very well.”

Mareena walks to stand before the plinth as Doroth retakes his seat. She closes her eyes on a breath and starts to sing.

The song is in an old form of Archan. Perl thinks he is the only one who understands the words. Lamenting about time rolling by and taking friends away to distant places, from where they can never return. But the tune seems to convey the meaning. It follows the notes of the old Archan scale, distinctive and different from Azurian musical traditions. The song uncoils, heavy and unusual, deeply moving.

Tobi stands after a moment and walks up beside his mother, joining her in the song. His voice is lower than hers, harmonising with it and carrying the poignant notes of the song further, until they seem to fill the room. Just two voices, swirling and dancing over each other, drifting up to the snowy domed ceiling.

Perl is blinking away tears by the time the final, aching notes of the song fade.

Tobi turns to his mother. His lips are trembling as if he is holding back his own desire to weep. Mareena gasps and hugs him tight to her, before leading him away to sit on one of the chairs, pulling him onto her lap like a babe. He looks happy despite his tears, his mother’s arms around him and his lover beside him.

Perl’s heart aches with the burden of what is to come. He wants to protect them all from it.

Damon closes the ceremony by passing around a cup and a small plate. They each drink a sip of the sweet water and eat a little of the bread and salt.

When the last part of the rite is done, Perl stands and approaches Damon and Lyr. Lyr is holding Damon who has his head on Lyr’s shoulder, tears in his eyes. He is saying, “I don’t know why. He brought me little but trouble. He cared nothing for me. He sent me to war to save himself from the punishment for a sin he never explained.” Damon’s voice cracks.

“That sin was begetting Jemel,” Perl says.

Damon looks up at Perl, he is more emotional than Perl has ever seen him.

“So tell me, fae,” Damon says, “as you know all. Why was the siring of this bastard such a crime that Selim proposed to exile him?”

Perl pauses, but, he supposes, they might as well know. “It was a greater crime than siring a bastard. No simple sin of the heart. It was a sin of the body.”

Lyr frowns. “How could a sin of the body beget a child?”

“Because there are other sins of the body,” Perl says.

Damon’s eyebrows rise. There is only one other such sin. “He lay with an untouchable woman?”

“He lay with the Immurite.” Perl says it plainly.

Damon says nothing. The shock is plain on his face. But after a moment he says, “Then Jemel’s mother is…” He takes a breath. Tobi, Elric and Kerik, who heard this too, look equally shocked. They know well of the great taboo this is. Only Harok and Lyr seem unmoved by it. And Doroth, who had long known of it.

“And you knew this?” Damon says sharply.

Perl nods. “I made sure it happened. It was clear.”

Damon’s throat moves as he swallows. “And for that he sent me to the army for him. As a slave. For such a sin.” He looks up at the ceiling. “The Immurite. I did not think any of my father’s sins of the bed chamber could shock me, and yet. The same Immurite who is in the chamber today? The one who gave me council?”

Perl nods. “She knows of Ur-Durik. She is gifted with visions. She knows all. For his own safety, the babe was removed from her in great secrecy, under my direction. He was raised as a child of Zai.”

“Does he know?”

“He knows he is a bastard of your father. And that he is one of the Five Fae Princes. It was necessary to explain all to him, as I charged him to translate the writings of Batreous from the library beneath the Rose Palace.”

“But he doesn’t know his mother is the Immurite?” says Kerik. He touches Perl’s elbow. Perl has never been more glad of his lover's touch.

It is Doroth who responds. “He does not know and that part has been kept from him. He is a delicate creature and found the truth about Zai very difficult. His faith is very solemn to him.”

Perl nods. That is true. But he will have to be told. And how will he feel then?

Perl knows he has so much to confess to these men. So much trouble he has caused the ones who he must now charge to fight a demon and save the world.