'Erienne, this isn't about forcing you from Lyanna, surely you see that? It's about-'

'Fighting for bloody Balaia again. Yes, I know.' Denser all but flinched at the hardness in her tone. 'Well look where helping other people has got me. Three dead children. When's someone going to help me for a change? When's someone…'

She crumpled into a heap, her sobs shuddering her body, huge breaths heaving in and out. Denser pulled her onto his lap, stroking her hair and whispering close to her ear, biting hard on his own sorrow lest it overcome him too.

'We'll help you,' he said. 'But you have to let us in. And you have to start to let go. Please let me in, Erienne. Please.' 'How many of them were there?' Captain Yron wiped a hand across his face and looked over the scorched carnage in front of the temple. He had been very lucky, slipping round what was apparently a ForceCone and diving aside just as the doors exploded, killing thirty of his people in an instant. Even so, he'd had the hair scorched from his chin and half his head. It itched like hell.

'Nine, sir,' said his just-promoted second in command, a drawn and scared youth called Ben-Foran. The boy had smears of black over his face and a long burn down the left side of his chin and neck.

'Dear Gods, is that all? Are you sure there are no more?'

'As sure as we can be, sir. But they can just melt into the forest.' Ben-Foran's eyes were everywhere. Yron couldn't blame him. In all they'd lost eighty-five men to wards, swords and poisoned arrows. Such ferocity he'd never known before. Yron was aware of the Al-Arynaar, of course, but they weren't supposed to be so fierce, unlike the elite TaiGethen. More a ceremonial guard. And if rumour and intelligence could be so wrong about the Al-Arynaar, what about their reportedly far more dangerous cousins?

'Well, let's make sure our perimeter defence is sound. As many as possible will sleep inside tonight,' he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the beautifully cool temple. 'We'll be all right.'

Ben-Foran looked past him. 'Are they nearly finished in there?'

Yron looked round at his two remaining mages, searching for more wards and traps. They'd been in there hours, and the sun had been unrelenting since the pre-dawn rains.

'Gods, I hope so, son,' he said. He clapped the boy on the shoulder and turned him round. 'Come on. Let's check the living and honour the dead, what's left of them.'

An insect bit into his arm. He slapped at the creature, the third he had felt in the last few minutes. Gods knew how many had gone unnoticed. He caught the expression on Ben-Foran's face. Both men scratched at their arms instinctively. He knew what the boy was thinking. Cuts, blisters and insect stings meant nothing in Balaia but everything here. And only two mages to keep almost fifty men well. They would have to be very careful.

The pyre was still burning on the centre of the apron when Yron finally got his first look inside the temple that had cost them so dear. All but the two mages and Ben-Foran were outside, awaiting the signal that meant relief from the oppressive heat and humidity of the early afternoon.

Inside, it was almost cool, chilly in comparison. The stone was deep and carried little heat, and the flow of cold water into the pool, undoubtedly from some underground spring, gave the temple a refreshing atmosphere. It was, Yron conceded as he looked up at the splendidly detailed statue, a very pleasant place to be. At that moment almost perfect in fact.

'The light is beautiful,' said Ben-Foran.

Yron turned. Ben was indicating the shafts of coloured light filtering through the glass blocks and windows at the top of the temple walls and set into the base of the dome roof. The effect had clearly been lessened by the destruction of the doors but he could see what the boy meant.

'Not just decorative, either,' said Erys, a clever young mage archivist with very bright red hair he should have kept shorter. If he had been a soldier, Yron could have forced him to.

'Used in ceremony, you think?' suggested Yron.

'Much more than that. They open and close doors at the back of the temple.'

Yron raised his eyebrows. 'Really? I think you'd better show me that.'

Erys led the captain around the statue into a short corridor. It was dark but for light spilling out from two open doorways.

'Both of these opened while we were in here, and a third closed,' said Erys. 'We thought it was a trap at first but Stenys is convinced it's the lights passing across particular areas of the statue. We'll monitor it.'

Yron glanced into one of the rooms. It was a shrine of sorts. A carved figure sat in an alcove surrounded by incense sticks. A few parchments lay stacked on a low table. A single cushion was propped against the back wall.

'Anything of interest here?'

Erys shook his head. 'I don't think so but we'll take everything anyway. There are some more likely papers next door but we'll have to wait for the real prize.'

Yron stared at him blankly.

'There must be a dozen rooms at least,' the mage explained. 'And we don't know when they'll open.'

Yron snorted. 'Then let's take the walls down. I'm not waiting here a day longer than I have to. I'm being eaten alive. And some of them out there won't last. You've seen the fever.'

'I know.' Erys nodded. 'And we'll do everything we can. But there's something you don't understand. Come and see.'

He led Yron back through the temple to the doors. Ben-Foran had wandered back outside to organise something.

'Here,' said Erys, indicating the stone lintel and the pillars that had once housed the doors. 'Notice anything interesting?'

Yron gave the elaborate carvings and engravings on the stonework a cursory glance and rubbed a hand across the smooth insides where the door frame had sat flush. He shrugged.

'Well, it doesn't seem too damaged.'

'Captain, it isn't damaged at all. I mean, there aren't even any scorch marks. Not here, not anywhere on the temple stone. I know that ward was focussed out but even so…'

'Meaning?'

'It's why we were so long earlier. We've probed the structure. Every stone in this temple is bound to every other by a force we can't fathom. It's magic of some sort, but ancient. Really ancient. The only thing not bound in is the statue they built this place round – presumably because it's marble.'

'So you're saying it's strong, is that it?'

'Oh, it's much more than strong,' said Erys. 'If you scratch away the lichen and plant growth on the outside, it hardly even looks old. For one thing, I don't think any spell or tool we've got can do the job. And for another, if by some mischance we did damage the structure, the binding magic would snap any hole shut. Rather violently.'

'Terrific,' muttered Yron. 'Welcome to your new home.' He scratched at his arms, feeling the lumps of the insect bites. He faced the mage. 'Right, I want you two to examine every parchment you find immediately each of these bloody doors opens. Finding a text on repelling insects would go down very well right now.'

Erys chuckled. 'We'll do what we can. Unfortunately, much of it's in an ancient elven dialect we can't read.'

'Well, this gets better,' said Yron dryly. 'How will you know when you've found what Dystran wants?'

'We won't,' he said. 'Not necessarily anyway, though we expect to recognise enough to help us. But we're still taking pretty much everything that's not nailed down. Just in case.'

Yron looked for a sign that Erys was joking. He plainly wasn't. The captain nodded.

'Right, I'll catch up with you later. Let me know about anything else you find.' He switched his attention outside. 'Ben! Get your arse over here!'

'Sir!' The new lieutenant jogged up.

'Right. Here's what I want. Log every cut, blister and infected bite. List every man with the fever. Give it all to Stenys to work through. Next, I need eight of the fittest to go back to the camp and bring back enough canvas to cover this entrance and set up a stores tent. They are also to bring shovels, wood axes and picks and I want as much food as they can load onto the pack animals, assuming the stupid things are still alive. They have a remarkably developed instinct for uncovering danger.