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Nthandra of the Vale. You carry your dead husband’s heir.’
     
    ‘What do I tell the child when it’s born? That it has no father?’
     
    ‘Have a few years of joy with him and then see if perhaps the alchemists would take him.’
     
    ‘They won’t. He has a bloodline. Even if he doesn’t know it.’
     
    ‘You could give him to the Adamantine Guard. No one will care whether he has one father or ten.’
     
    ‘No! I’d rather cut his throat when he comes out of me than give him to Zafir.’
     
    ‘The speaker will be long gone by then.’
     
    ‘I said no!’
     
    ‘Then tell him whatever you wish. You tell him that he carries all that is left of his father within him. Make him his father’s son. Sit him on whatever throne is his.’
     
    ‘No one will believe me.’
     
    ‘No.’
     
    Jostan couldn’t move. He ought to slip away, come back later, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move forward either. He needed to see and yet was too afraid to look.
     
    ‘Because behind your back they call you a whore, Nthandra of the Vale.’
     
    ‘He’ll be a bastard. It’s not fair.’ Suddenly she was shrieking. ‘We were to be wed as soon as he came back! I was unbroken! I never lay with another man.’
     
    The magician’s voice softened. ‘It is unfair, but think of this son as a gift. Men such as he are often born to be great. Destiny has fingered your son, Nthandra of the Vale. Do you want him to be great?’
     
    ‘Yes!’
     
    ‘I can help with the hole inside too. With the helplessness, the hopelessness, the uselessness. I can help you make all that go away. If you want me to.’
     
    ‘Yes.’ Her voice was quiet now, sobbing. ‘Please.’
     
    ‘Which one, Nthandra of the Vale? I can do only one.’
     
    ‘The child then,’ she said, her voice so broken that Jostan could barely understand her. ‘I owe it to him.’
     
    ‘Greatness and happiness are rarely the same thing. You know that.’
     
    Jostan didn’t hear what Nthandra said next. He wasn’t sure if she even said anything at all. Then he heard the magician again.
     
    ‘So be it. Will you give yourself to me, Nthandra of the Vale. Your body and your soul must be mine.’
     
    A real rider, he knew, would have heard enough. A rider like Hyrkallan or Deremis would burst in on them right now. He knew that. They’d kick the magician out of the tent and send him packing, either with a boot or with a sword. Nthandra might curse and wail and spit at them, but they’d do it anyway because it was right. Not because it was wanted, but because it was right.
     
    And I am not like them. He silently turned and moved a little way away. Too far to hear their whispers but close enough in case they turned to screams. They didn’t. After twenty minutes the blood-mage came out. He straightened his clothes, brushed himself down. He paused for a few seconds and looked straight at where Jostan was sitting, invisible, buried in shadows. Then he went away. Jostan stayed where he was - long enough, he thought, for the magician to be far away - but before he could bring himself to move, Kithyr was back and now he had Semian with him. They walked right past him.
     
    ‘. . . with this,’ said the magician.
     
    ‘If I must.’
     
    ‘You must. Unless you are a charlatan like Hyrkallan.’
     
    ‘It seems wrong.’
     
    ‘Needs must, Rider Semian. Hyrkallan wears the legend. You must live it. Once you have her, others will follow. I can see to that . . .’
     
    They parted at the entrance to the tent. The magician walked away for a second time and Semian went inside. The noises that began soon after were easy enough to understand. Jostan waited for them to finish, and then waited a little more before he got up and slipped inside. The air was hot and stale and smelled of Nthandra. She was lying tight against Semian’s back. From the snores, they were both already asleep. Jostan curled up beside her, close to her because close felt better. When he