Kervarl hoped he wasn’t sweating. This was crucial: get the figure wrong . . . The First Speaker had advised fifteen. ‘Seventeen and a half, sir.’ He cursed himself all the way to Uracus for being such a coward.

‘That’s a very generous offer,’ Aothori said. He poured some wine from a flagon and gave it to a serving girl. She carried it over to Kervarl.

Everyone round the table was waiting, watching. Several knowing, predatory smiles were growing. Over on the cushions the vigorous threesome were drowning out the sound of the harp.

Aothori raised his own glass. ‘I do believe we have a deal.’ He drank his wine. The guests applauded.

Kervarl fought against showing any relief. Play it cool. Play his game. ‘Sir.’ He raised his glass to the First Officer and drank.

‘Here’s to the two of us,’ Aothori announced loudly. ‘My new business partner.’ Everyone at the table raised their glasses in salute.

‘Well done,’ Larrial private ’pathed.

Kervarl smiled round and drank some more wine. It wasn’t as good as he’d expected. But that didn’t matter. Nothing else did. I’ve got the licence!

‘My office will sort out the boring legal part with you tomorrow,’ Aothori said.

‘Yes, sir.’ Kervarl said. He didn’t quite know what to do now. The First Officer was giving him a mildly expectant gaze. ‘Do we stay?’ he private ’pathed Larrial.

‘Great Giu, no. Say goodbye. The likes of us don’t get to socialize with the First Officer.’

Kervarl bowed again. ‘You’ve been most kind, sir. I don’t wish to take up any more of your time. My lawyers will contact your office, as you suggested.’

‘Indeed,’ Aothori gave a casual magnanimous wave of his hand.

Kervarl turned and left. It took a lot of willpower not to dance out of the grotto.

*

Aothori watched the southern landowner stride across the palace gardens. He shook his head in bemusement at all the contentment spilling out of the man’s relaxed shell.

‘Amazing,’ he grunted.

‘That they found silver in the Sansones?’ Mirivia asked as she scraped her forefinger round a bowl of honeyed acral seeds.

He gave her a disappointed look. Mirivia was this week’s favourite, but not for being the sharpest thorn on the firepine. ‘That someone smart enough to find silver there could be so stupid. It’s the southern mentality, of course. Their pride in their work ethic will be the death of them.’ He grinned. ‘See what I did there.’

She pouted, and made a show of sucking the gooey black seeds from her finger. ‘You’re so cruel.’

‘I try.’ His ex-sight observed Kervarl slow to a halt, and give Larrial a puzzled look. ‘If only he’d been one of us instead of having the stench of the Shanty on him. A gentleman would have sent staff to deal with something as vulgar as a licence. But of course that involves spending money and having confidence in your command of others. It would seem Kervarl is too cheap for that.’

Across the garden, Kervarl had dropped to his knees. His hands scrabbled desperately at his throat. Panic and fright poured out of his shell-less mind.

‘And as well as not being a gentleman, he’s ambitious,’ Aothori said as Kervarl pitched forwards, face down onto the neat path. ‘We really don’t want to encourage that kind of thing; it’ll end up in another Jasmine Avenue.’

‘Well, nobody wants that,’ Mirivia agreed.

Larrial stood over the prone body, and turned to face the grotto. ‘He’s dead,’ the aide ’pathed.

‘Jolly good,’ Aothori ’pathed back. ‘Have the tax people overload the family with death duties. My office will purchase his estate. It looks like we’re in the silver-mining business.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Aothori picked up the flagon of poisoned wine and handed it to one of the serving girls. ‘Get rid of this; we don’t want any accidents.’

‘Sir.’

‘And is Kervarl’s gift ready? Shame to waste her.’

The girl carefully avoided his gaze, keeping her shell impervious. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Jolly good.’ He kissed Mirivia. ‘I’m keen to see what you can do with her first. Then I’ll show you mine.’

3

When he reached the top of the hill, Slvasta was a good twenty-five metres ahead of anyone else. He hadn’t jogged, but he’d set a very fast pace. It had taken an hour and a half to get to the summit. The first thing he’d done when he made lieutenant eight months ago was start his own training schedule for the seven squads he commanded. That training included a ten-kilometre run twice a week, wearing a full deployment pack. His fellow officers – those who’d been oh so reasonable and supportive during the twenty months between the Marines rescuing him and his promotion – hardly ever saw their troops on a day-to-day basis. It was considered bad form for people of their class to mix with the ranks; they left it to their NCOs to implement orders. And they certainly didn’t take physical exercise with their men, not after the amount of food and drink they consumed in the mess. Slvasta thought that stupid. He wanted his troopers to know he wasn’t some backroom oaf, appointed because of family wealth like most officers. They needed to see that he was just as capable as them when it came to sweeps. They needed to have trust and confidence in him. He also wanted to know their strengths and weaknesses; that way he knew how to deploy them: who could be trusted with what tasks, what skills they had. The only way to ascertain that was to observe them in action first hand.

He stopped and drew down deep breaths. It was almost noon, and the sky was cloudless. The sun was a fierce glare above him, its warmth permeating the air. His shirt was soaked with sweat. He took a canteen from his equipment belt and swigged down water.

The rest of the men started to arrive, grinning and panting, proud of themselves for keeping up with the lieutenant. Above them the air was clotted with spiralling mod-birds. Slvasta had made sure the regiment gave one to every soldier under his command. Now when they were deployed on sweeps, every square metre of ground could be examined for traces of a Fall. After the initial grumbling from senior officers, other squads were asking for mod-birds to be issued to every trooper, too. A new aviary was being built at headquarters to accommodate the expansion. Even less popular among his fellow officers, recruits were asking to serve under the notorious one-armed lieutenant.

‘Sergeant,’ Slvasta called.

Sergeant Yannrith came over. A big man in his mid-sixties whom troopers obeyed without question. A scar down his throat had given him a liquid whisper for a voice. When he spoke, no matter what he was saying, it sounded like a low menacing threat. Slvasta had never asked about the scar. Rumour in the mess was a husband who’d come home unexpectedly early; other talk was of a youth misspent in a town gang. It wasn’t important. Yannrith was the best sergeant in the regiment – that was all that mattered.

‘Sir?’ Yannrith saluted.

‘Ten minutes’ rest, then we’ll start the sight search. Make sure they have a drink.’

Yannrith gave a curt nod. ‘Sir.’

Slvasta sat on a rock, pushed back his wide-brimmed hat and started to examine the vista laid out before him. The hill wasn’t particularly high, but it showed him the lands stretching south, a rumpled expanse of forests and savannah. Shining silver rivers sliced through it. Lakes were dark gashes. He could pick out several hints of cultivation, ranches and cane farms, but the majority was wild and unsettled. Beyond the horizon, the river Colbal wound its lazy way south-west towards the capital.

They were two days south of Adice, now. Behind him, the land was heavily populated with big estates and a mosaic of prosperous farms. Towns and villages were connected by good roads. Long strands of smoke from the beacon fires still wound their way up into the sky above the worried residents. Slvasta wasn’t interested in that kind of territory; any eggs Fallen there would have been spotted immediately. But out here, in the hinterlands, where roads were few and people fewer – that was a different proposition altogether.