‘Question one,’ she said relentlessly. ‘What happens to the prisoners Trevene delivers to you?’

Professor Gravin swallowed hard. ‘Oh crud,’ he whispered. ‘It wasn’t my idea. I swear on Giu itself, it wasn’t me.’

*

The stench was noxious, thick enough that Bethaneve half expected to see it as a thick rancid miasma contaminating the air. She’d spent the first ten minutes in the pit room almost gagging as she tried to get used to it. She never would, she knew. The reek would stay with her for the rest of her life, as would the memory of what caused it. But she stayed there, resolute, standing beside the railings that guarded the deep rectangular pit cut into the naked rock many centuries ago. The true heart of the Faller Research Institute.

Her elites brought him in almost an hour after they’d blown the gates open. A figure with a hood over his head, hands cuffed behind his back, moving with difficulty. The beating they’d given him hadn’t broken anything too important, although his fancy, expensive clothes were grubby and torn, bloodied in several places.

They positioned him carefully in front of the open gate. His shaking body became still then as he guessed where he was.

Bethaneve’s teekay removed the hood from his head. Aothori blinked, and glanced round. His jaws were clenched, muscle cords standing proud as the collar of braided etor vine assaulted his throat. But even now, here on the edge of the pit, that terrible arrogance was undiminished.

‘I know you,’ he ’pathed.

And for the first time she didn’t tremble at the sight of him. ‘Good. I wondered if you would. There have been so many like me, haven’t there?’

‘Oh yes, now I remember: the silver man’s present. He chose well, as I recall.’

‘I hated the doctors and nurses who treated me afterwards. They didn’t deserve that hatred. They were good people. It took me a long time to realize that, to accept there were still good people in this world. And now I’ve gathered them to me. Enough to overwhelm and obliterate you and everything you have.’

‘Self-justification, the refuge of the weak. And I know how weak you truly are. I have seen everything you are, I tasted your every precious thought. It was pitiful, as all your kind are.’

‘And yet here we are.’

‘Because you copy me. Because you admire my power, my strength. You worship me now, as you did before. And secretly you know that to replace me, you must first become me. Will you ever admit that to yourself, do you think? Or will the knowledge break you?’

‘Mad to the very end,’ Bethaneve said ruefully. She put her hand between his shoulder blades – and pushed hard.

*

The splendid ge-eagle drifted on a thermal high above Varlan, soaring above the disturbed flocks of native birds, unseen by the mod-birds that darted about so frantically. It looked down on the wide pleasant boulevards in the middle of the city, which were now filled with running crowds. Fires began in many boroughs, sending long columns of dirty smoke streaming into the clear bright air. The ge-eagle flicked its powerful wings, curving effortlessly round them. Shouts of fury and screams of terror mingled into a single haze of sound that smothered the city buildings like an invisible fog. Its monotony was broken by sharp bursts of gunfire. They went on all day, then further, long into the night. Darkness didn’t quench the screams, either.

*

For two days Slvasta was on the front line, protected by his stalwarts Yannrith, Andricea and Tovakar as he led charges against government buildings and other enclaves of resistance. The sight of him was gifted continuously: dirty, tired, showing sympathy to all those who had suffered in the violence, helping wounded onto cabs heading for hospitals. Wherever resistance flared from remnants of regiment officers and their remaining squads, he was there, fighting for his side, for justice, for change. He was the face of revolution, the inspiration for righteousness. Towards the end, if he simply turned up at a barricade or a building siege, the opposition gave up and surrendered. He made a big point of treating the defeated with dignity, preventing any retaliation or dirty street justice. You didn’t need a gifting to know where he was; you just had to listen for the cheering.

He was only granted privacy on the morning of the third day because everyone thought he was finally resting from his heroism. In reality Yannrith and Andricea had shoved him into a fuzzed cab driven by Tovakar. He watched the city roll past through a small gap in the blinds that’d been drawn against curious eyes. The darkness inside the cab was a huge invitation to sleep. It had been so long since he’d even had a rest; he was filthy, aching in every bone, and exhausted.

Outside, people shuffled through the morning river mist with dazed expressions. He was surprised by how many windows had been smashed here, well away from the centre of the city where the majority of the fighting had occurred. Some of the furtive figures carried bulky boxes or sacks with them. Looters, he supposed. Bethaneve had been getting a lot of reports of that. It was ironic, in all their plans to overturn the civic and national authority with their revolution, they’d never thought about the consequences such lawlessness would bring.

There were also families outside, parents shepherding children along, surrounding them with their strongest shells, hurrying in search of . . . Slvasta wasn’t sure what, but they all moved with purpose. The families were nearly always well dressed, the faces of the children fearful and tear streaked, parents grim and apprehensive. He would have stopped and asked where they were going – if only he had the energy.

The cab drove into East Folwich, a district which seemed to have escaped the worst of the revolution. Here there was no broken glass, nor smoke rising from firebombed buildings. No blood staining the cobbles. All that marred these charming suburban streets were the hastily boarded-up windows and locked doors.

Slvasta stared curiously at the shattered remains of the sturdy doors belonging to the Faller Research Institute. He couldn’t remember them plotting any kind of action here – but Bethaneve had insisted he come.

The courtyard’s tall walls helped ward off the low sunlight, allowing the cool grey mist to linger. It eddied slowly around the two parked cabs and a wagon. His curiosity grew when he saw men unloading barrels of yalseed oil from the back.

Then he didn’t care any more, because Bethaneve came out of the institute’s entrance. They embraced in the clammy mist, desperately checking each other over to make sure they were both intact, that they hadn’t lied when they kept breezily assuring the other: ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ all through the revolution.

She rested her forehead on his, fingers tracing his features for still more reassurance. ‘We did it,’ she whispered. ‘We’ve beaten them.’

‘We did,’ he whispered back. ‘Thank you.’

‘It was you. I just helped.’

They kissed again.

Finally he leaned back from her, but still smiled. ‘Why did you bring me here? You said it was important.’

‘It is,’ she said, her voice suddenly unsteady. ‘We’ve won, you know that: Coulan at the palace, you with the government offices, Javier with the merchants and companies. The hold-outs can’t last much longer. The government is gone. You understand that, don’t you, my love?’

‘Well . . . yes.’

‘Good. And we were right to topple it. I want you to be certain of this when you sit in the new congress. It’s important, because that congress will shape our lives, it will determine how our children will be free of suffering and poverty, that there will be justice on our world.’

‘I know all this,’ he said.

‘There is always a danger, because you are a good man, that you will be magnanimous in victory. That cannot happen.’