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Above the Happy Swineherd are a series of chambers that look to be used mostly as pillow rooms. Lukas pays little attention to anything else, taking the first of the rooms they pass and dragging Elric inside.

He kisses him hard as he kicks the doors closed. Fists in his shirt, slamming him up and into the wall hard enough that he grunts out in shock.

They kiss and kiss for several long moments, until Elric drags his mouth away and says, “Perhaps there is somewhere we need to be.”

“No. Nowhere, I am sure of it,” Lukas says back, panting.

Elric looks down at him. “You really are filthy with blood and sweat.”

“You’d be complaining far more if I had been kept in the dungeons all this time.”

“I suppose I will have to bear it,” Elric says. “Kiss me again.”

Lukas kisses Elric’s neck. “Lordling, Lordling,” he moans against Elric’s skin, “It might as well have been such. Any place is a dungeon when it lacks your fine mouth.”

“It is my mouth you are wanting then,” Elric says darkly into Lukas’s curls. “Have you been pining for it?”

“Your mouth and more. But for the first, yes, I would have you kneel before your prince,” Lukas says, leaning back. He puts his hand and his hook on Elric’s shoulders, ready to press him down.

“Are you sure you don’t want to speak with Damon? The rest of your brothers? We have the Hare and…”

“I’m sure, Lordling.”

31

JEMEL

One moment Jemel is in the Sarelik Temple, watching Atticul about to take Lukas’s head. Watching the end of the fight against Ur-Durik, knowing that with Lukas dead it is all lost.

The next thing he knows he is slumped on a lumpy settle in a room he does not recognise. He sits up in alarm.

And is even more alarmed to find the man beside him is Xan. Xan reaches out and places a hand on Jemel’s forearm. “You are safe. All is well,” he says in Plumian.

But all is quite surely not well at all. He leaps up. His legs wobble and his head spins. He looks wildly around the unfamiliar room. He is surrounded by strangers. Strangers and the man who betrayed him.

“Hare,” says a voice.

Jemel turns towards it, turning right into the arms of a huge man. A warrior, blood-soaked. “No,” he whimpers as the man takes him by the shoulders.

“It’s me. Damon,” says the man. “You know me. We met before.”

“And me,” says the smaller, dark haired man beside him.

Jemel’s breathing slows. He is starting to understand. Damon. This man covered in blood is Damon Darekul. And Lyr with him. Yes. It is them. Damon Darekul came for him.

He turns slowly, taking in the group of people in the wide receiving room through the soft haze of his veil, sat around on settles and the rug-covered floor. Many of them look as if they have been in a battle.

There was a battle. There must have been. To escape the temple.

He looks to a small man beside the fire with a lycat at his feet: Tobi Darekul.

And a man who looks like Damon, but far younger. He knows him, yes: Kerik Darekul.

Damon, Tobi and Kerik, but then. Jemel looks back to Damon. “Lukas, was Lukas killed?”

Damon smiles. “Oh, no. He is just resting. With Elric.”

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” says the dark-haired man beside Damon. Lyr. Yes, who is Lyr. Of course it’s Lyr. The Books of Alios. Lyr who Pershel…