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been shocked to see him, her first link to any sort of life in nearly two years, and in that moment a desperate plan came to her. Her resolve was strengthened beyond measure the next morning when she discovered her younger brother was one of the candidates for recruitment. She knew with a dreadful certainty that he would be chosen. He had been equally Voice-gifted as a child. They would not miss it.
    She watched him fight, heard his answer to their two-edged question and revised her opinion. He had the greater gift. With all her being she knew she had to warn him of his likely fate, so she used the Voice toput the Recruiters to sleep, then left them in their tent near Nadoce Square and used the back streets to find her family at their house in Old Fossa Road.
    There her plan came closest to foundering, for the house she had been brought up in was now home to another, and she could not ask the new occupants what had become of her family without risking everything. So she had gone down to the beach in despair, hoping that her father might be there mending nets, even though he had been commanded home. There her luck had turned, for she found the boat named after her and, knowing her mother, guessed the rest. She knew where the Fisher’s cliff-house was, and made her way as swiftly as her abused frame allowed.
    And now, she asked them, what were they to do?
    A dozen plans surged through the fisherman’s mind like a king tide through The Rhoos. Flee? They would have to travel on foot. They had no horses. They would be caught. Take the boat and sail away? Perhaps, but the Arathé was built for fishing, not speed. Any Neherian rake would run her down, and any Neherian captain would be only too keen to chase a Fossan vessel—particularly his. Hide somewhere in the village? They would be found. Resist? His skills with the sword were as rusty as his blade, and even at their best would barely match what he had seen this morning.
    They were given no chance to implement any plan.
    Boom, boom, boom came a series of heavy blows on the door. Opuntia shrieked, then put a hand across her mouth. Noetos knew nobody who knocked like that.
    Boom, boom, boom.
    Arathé knew who it was. She’d got it horribly wrong, had taken far too long to tell her story, and had clearly not been as effective with the Voice as she’d hoped.
    The Recruiters had come for her.

CHAPTER 2
BURNING HIS BOATS
    ‘DON’T MAKE THEM WAIT,’ Anomer said to his father. ‘Go and answer the door. They may be here only to speak to me. I will take Mother and Arathé into the kitchen.’
    Noetos stood in the centre of the great room, composing himself.
    ‘Go on!’ his son urged, shoving him in the small of the back. The fisherman stumbled over to the stout wooden door of his magnificent home and opened it a hand’s-width.
    ‘Who is this disturbing our sleep?’ he grumbled, blinking as though roused from early afternoon torpor, running a careless hand through his dishevelled hair while observing every detail with sharp eyes. He needed to walk through this carefully. His son had acted quickly, shaming him, and it might be that the lives of everyone he loved depended on how he behaved in the next few minutes.
    Two grey-cloaked figures stood on his portico, one behind the other. The closer of the two seemed relaxed, his head cocked to one side under his cowl, a non-threatening posture designed to put him at ease; but the other Recruiter stood in a slight crouch, coiled for action, hand on his sword-hilt, head moving slightly from side to side as he watched carefully fordanger. Not a friendly visit, then. They want more than just Anomer. They know.
    ‘Your son answered our question this morning so wondrously well,’ the nearer figure said in his high-pitched, singsong voice. ‘We have a few more questions for him. And some for his father as well,’ he added with the barest hint of menace. ‘May we come in?’
    ‘I’m sorry, sirs, but my wife is unwell, and I have