‘That’s what he is, your substitute father. It makes me sick how you’re blind to his faults.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘Yeah, well why are you defending him so much?’

‘I don’t need a father. I survived by myself for years in Hacilith. Worse than anything you’ve seen. And-’ I swept a hand, rattling the bangles around my wrist ‘-for example, these peel towers. I won a battle myself at the furthest one, at Summerday in nineteen ninety-three. Yours truly and Shearwater Mist beat the Insects before Lightning had even ridden out of Awia. We were the only Eszai in command; the brains and the brawn.’

‘Which one of you was the brains?’

‘Me! Damn it.’ I poured hot water into two cups of coffee. ‘Mist was bitten through the shoulder and I had to look after him almost as much as the Zascai.’

‘I wish I could be involved in something like that.’

I would have laughed if she had led with a trace of humour in her voice. ‘You’re not joking, are you?’

‘No, I’m not…I want out.’

‘Stay here, Cyan. Insects are running everywhere. These towers provide enough shelter to last a swarm. There are rainwater butts on the roof and enough stores in the cellar.’

She said, ‘I’ve been watching the archers drill all afternoon. I can see everything from up here. Daddy was riding up and down in front of the ranks as if he’d forgotten me. There are two enormous women soldiers guarding me and all the money stored here. Not men, worse luck; “Bitchback and Nobless” from Midelspass.’

‘Really?’

‘Mm. They don’t pass on my messages. They don’t listen to me, even.’

‘Wonder where Lightning got them from?’

‘I don’t know but they adore him. They’re so desperate that if they knew a man was up here they’d strip-search you…And the lake reeks,’ she went on. ‘All day when the wind was gusting I could smell it.’

She pushed Lymer aside and lifted the chessboard onto her knees. ‘Do you want a game?’

‘Huh? No, I don’t know how to play.’

‘In all this time, you haven’t learnt chess?’

‘No. Can you fend off wolves using only a sling?’

‘No.’

‘Well then.’

‘I’ll teach you,’ she said.

‘It’s a stupid game. I can’t think of one good reason for it, and besides, my time’s nearly up.’

‘You mean you don’t have the patience.’

I picked a lancer and offered it to her, but palmed it so Cyan found herself grasping at empty air. She giggled. I placed it back with a click on the board. ‘Check! Now, why don’t you read Rayne’s letter? She likes you.’

‘Yeah, I like her too…but I find her accent a bit impenetrable.’

‘That’s the seventh century for you.’

Cyan unfolded the letter. ‘Rayne must be an amazing doctor to hold her title for as long as Daddy.’

‘She is. As time goes on, it seems less likely that she’ll ever lose a Challenge. The mortals’ behaviour benefits her, I think.’

‘Why?’

‘Other doctors all stunt each other’s growth. They never share their discoveries because they all want to Challenge her. Rayne’s fond of saying that the branches of science wouldn’t be so separate if scholars were less secretive.’

‘I suppose, living in the university, she’s the first to hear of anything new.’

‘Yes. She loves it when novices notice something different. She encourages them. Otherwise they’d just follow her and ape her experiments.’

Cyan read the letter for a few minutes while I played with the chess pieces and sorted out my eyeliner, and then she passed me the letter. ‘Why not have a look while I write a reply?’ She pulled a pillow from the bed and sat down on the floor next to the low table, her long back rounded above it. She began to fiddle with the nib of her pen.

While she scrawled her reply, I perused Rayne’s pages of neat, close writing.

Slake Cross Hospital

17th May

1.30 a.m.

To be delivered by the hand of Comet

Dear Cyan,

I know you are trapped and must be feeling miserable. Your father’s rage seemed shocking, but I hope at some time in the future you will agree he may have saved your life and that life is indeed more precious than you currently hold it. Lightning loves you with all his heart but you simply refuse to understand how much strain he’s under. He does not want to lose you and he must concentrate on reaching the dam. I didn’t think he would do anything like this no matter how hard you pushed him, but San has never put us under this pressure before.

In the coach on the way from Hacilith I enjoyed our conversation. How agreeable it was, for an old lady who does not need much sleep, to talk through the night with a young lady who is too excited to sleep. And then when the Circle broke and you consoled me…Please turn over in your mind the tales I told you of your father’s life, and understand that in Hacilith you were fed a lot of slander. It shouldn’t colour your opinion of him now.

Once you realise of how little consequence you are in the immensity of time, you gain a great power, a liberty and you can follow your own path in peace. Bide your time and learn.

You probably don’t feel lucky, but let me tell you, you have been living in a time of such equality and freedom it almost seems to me that the people of this era act like spoilt children. People like myself have toiled over decades and centuries so that you may have such freedom. I expect you feel you have little choice in life but in times past you would have had even less. When I was mortal, girls could not be students and few people could read. I guided Hacilith University to develop in the image of the Castle, so it’s run by merit, not by dodderers. These days an applicant to the university must have worked in the outside world for two years, so the prospective students are people who know how to put in a day’s work and their mature approach recognises the great worth and luxury of study. You never needed for anything, Cyan, so you never needed to learn until now. I urge you to put your time to good use.

Watch your father from the window as he leads the battle. Would you be able to do what he does, so well? As a Challenger you seem to think you could do better. Lightning and the others who surround you are not simply faces, not simply there to grant your wish but every one has a long and complicated history to which his reactions pertain, just as much as they do to you. The road to becoming immortal is so uniquely steep and tortuous that every man travelling it has a story to tell. Your father is no exception.

Lightning and I discovered the privileges and tribulations of immortality at about the same time, though it meant different things to us both. During six nineteen, when the Emperor’s First Circle was defeated, I was scrubbing out the washing coppers in Chattelhouse’s laundry room. We were aware that San was losing Awia but the intense fighting was happening somewhere far off in the north. We could only keep going and wait until the Insects arrived at the walls of Hacilith. Every day the news came, the atmosphere grew more and more ominous and we lived under a constantly encroaching threat. How Lightning can call it a golden age I don’t know.

Until I was about ten years old I lived on the street with no roof over my head, but I hung around the gates of the College of Surgeons as if drawn to them. I was sitting playing knucklebones on the track outside when I saw the cleaner being sacked. She hefted her bags and stomped away in a huff. The porter began to close the gates but I slipped between them and begged to be allowed to clean the floors. He rolled his eyes but he hired me and I became the most lowly servant to the Guild of Barber-Surgeons. Guilds disappeared before the close of the first millennium, but they were very influential when I was mortal.

I dreamed of being a subsizar, a scholar’s assistant, but girls were not permitted and, besides, they would never employ an orphan with no clue as to her parentage.