Louen saw the flare of magic between the farm-wife and Bresgion, and stepped out of its reach as it crackled through the air, licking at the ends of his hair, flickering over his skin. Bresgion obviously had powerful magic. That it was also sex magic didn’t concern Louen: he knew he could withstand magic like that. He had done so before and he knew the trick to it. He’d grown up honing that particular skill. He suppressed a shiver, remembering why.

Even so, for a split moment, his cock stiffened in response. But he was practised at ignoring arousal. A heartbeat later and he was himself again, a man carved from marble, cold and serene. He watched Bresgion lead the dazed farmwife away to her bedchamber, and then went up to his own room.

He paused on the stair outside the room just at the top and listened to Bresgion declaring in low and golden tones that he was going to fuck the farmwife’s brains out and she’d beg him for more though she’d be worn raw with his loving; she replied he could bring it on and she’d show him how to chafe a woman properly, and that she'd ride him into oblivion too.

Louen gritted his teeth, his fists clenched around a dark and dangerous spell.

The evening was passing over fast into twilight, the air like cool velvet. He opened the little window, set under deep eaves of thatch. There was a house martin nesting there; he smiled and spoke softly to it, letting it know he was no egg-thief, whatever else he might be.

From the window, he could see over the little croft; there wasn’t much to it. A small goat-byre, a couple of pigs, and a hen coop; and besides that, a verdant patch of vegetables, peppered with wildflowers. An old, weathered sign creaked on its chains in the breeze, the legend Way’s End faded now, though once the lettering had been vibrant and bold. In another life, Louen could have fancied himself the owner of such a place. But it wasn’t to be. He’d been born too far above such simple pleasures to ever really know them.

He sighed for that lost future. But he couldn’t really see himself bent and aching, a hoe in his rheumy hands, a fat and strident wife shrieking orders from the kitchen and ten unruly brats clamouring for food all the daylight hours. He smiled wryly. It would be too much – romance always was, the promise gilded with a cheap tin that tarnished as the years went by. He’d escape that fate, at least, whatever else there was in store for him.

To the South lay the forest. The last rays of the dying sun cast a dusty golden glow over the trees. They’d come out of their way in order to avoid Erwillian and his men, but the Eyrie was just about visible, for someone with the kind of eyesight Louen had. He leaned his elbows on the windowsill and stared out. In five years, his way to his home had never been blocked. Dangerous, yes, if he didn’t take care, but never blocked. If Erwillian made it to the Eyrie before he did, Louen would lose everything.

Including those he loved most.

He wasn’t going to let that happen.

Not if a thousand hells sprang up to bar his way.

He stifled a yawn. Sleeping for him had, out of necessity but also out of discomfort, been too light and broken in recent years for him ever to be truly rested. The little broom cupboard had afforded him some peace, but in a brothel as busy as House Willow, that still wasn’t enough. The only sounds here were evensong, and the occasional giggle from the farmwife in the other room, punctuated by gasps as Bresgion did Nol-knew-what to her.

Louen breathed the night air deep into his lungs and pushed himself away from the window. He generally had no time for gods, but was willing to concede there were times when sitting quietly, bowing one’s head, and asking humbly for some sort of sign or guidance were perfectly fine. He wasn’t going to turn into a raving god-fearing lunatic just because he said a small, quiet prayer now and then.

He had no candle, no wine, nothing else to offer, and he’d looted Nol’s shrines repeatedly for five years, so he chose instead to beseech the Goddess Alwa for his deliverance from Erwillian’s wrath. She only required a promise. He bowed his head and waited to discover what she would extract: the knowledge came soon enough.

He didn’t like it. He’d known he wouldn’t. But, if it was that or die, he could make the sacrifice.

Grim-faced and thin-lipped, he pricked his finger with the tip of his knife and smeared it across his forehead in the sigil for Alwa’s Promise. It bound him to her. It bound him to keep his promise, or be struck down in eternal agony. Alwa was benign and kind, right up until she was betrayed. Her nickname wasn’t the Three-Faced Harlot for nothing.

He wished Duhnos had other gods, but all they had were obsessed with gold, sex, and blood. Louen supposed that was probably to be expected from a nation built on piracy.

If I’m going to turn into a god-fearing lunatic, I’ll have to find other gods to piss off.

Feeling as though he’d spent a week being shaken around in a barrel, he sank onto the bed and closed his eyes. It didn’t take long for sleep to overwhelm him, and he sank into strange and disturbing dreams.

The Queen had a visitor. She’d prepared herself well in advance of his arrival, perfumed and painted so that she resembled a doll bought from a Karoni fair: all pink silks and velvet roses and shimmering, gossamer organzas that swathed her tall, lithe form. Dainty feet, encased not in slippers but in jewels, glittered as they tapped an impatient rhythm on the marble floor. Her heartbeat could be heard by anyone sensitive enough to tune into her anxiety; Louen felt it, and agitated, and constantly twisted to clutch at his father’s hem. A warm, firm hand came down on his head and stilled him. It never did to echo the Queen’s nervousness back at her.

And then the returning traveller came in.

Weeks had passed since he'd left her lands in search of a rare treasure, and for weeks she'd sat in her chamber, surrounded by her silks and velvets and the cold light of the icy sky, hoping for his return. He was here now, kneeling before her, his clothes outlandish and his skin tanned gold. She, who had never left her own lands, was fascinated. And he'd grown. Barely more than a boy when he'd left, he was now a man through and through, with fine muscles from weeks at sea and weeks on the road, and a quiet confidence that made her wish just for a moment that he wasn't so beneath her in status. Not that that had always stopped her. Not all the time.

The young man came to her feet and knelt, then rose again at her command and laid a box on her lap, carved with intricate designs. She smiled, pleasure curving her lips upward, and her eyes held the gleam of wicked greed.

'Cherry-wood and rose-wood, my Queen,' he said, as her fingers traced the carvings. His voice had the timbre of silver in it. Louen shivered again, but with pleasure this time. 'A fine example of workmanship. But inside is what you really want.'

'Ah, yes. Yes. Thank you, Erwillian.' She flicked the catch up and lifted the lid, her breath catching in her throat. He was right. Inside was the real treasure.

Her eyes turned dark. 'By all the…..'

Erwillian licked his lips nervously. 'It is the last of its kind, my Lady.'

She lifted the mirror out of the silk-lined case, her tongue pink against the cherry-red of her full lips. The traveller swallowed. She was a creature of beauty, right enough, but there was about her that erotic dreaminess that caused many men to suffer fiery dreams, their hands reaching between their legs to grasp what she'd excited, waking after the fact heavy with fulfilment and shame. He shifted uncomfortably.

She looked up, her fingers still caressing the delicate filigree of the mirror's back. Its face was black; a casual observer would think it made from obsidian, or jet. She knew otherwise: a long-dead mage had forged this thing from the black sands of the Otherlands. And it would show anything she wished to see, tell her any truth she wished to hear. It was hers, this last of its kind, the others having been destroyed by the Limean sorcerers who defamed all such magic as evil.

The young traveller, aware that he wasn't wanted but still hadn't been dismissed, coughed discreetly. She looked up.

'You may go, Erwillian,' she said, and he bowed himself out of her presence with obvious relief.

Louen sat up, drenched in sweat, the sheets clinging to his damp body in heavy folds. He rubbed his eyes. From the silent darkness outside, it was still night, with maybe an hour or two before dawn.

The dream – or was it a nightmare? – lingered. Louen drew his knees up under his chin and wrapped his arms around them, reflecting on the events that had led to his flight from the Castle. It had started with that fateful gift. The day Erwillian had returned from Limea with the Mirror had been the day Duhnos’ girls had learned how to live in fear. Men too, sometimes. Louen had watched the exchange that day with dispassionate interest. To his shame, Erwillian, already a man where Louen was still a boy, had aroused in him a terrible obsession. He had cold good looks: his hair swept down to his knees in a black-velvet shimmer, his black eyes were luminous and intelligent, and his skin was peaches-and-cream perfection, with a sheen of gold from the sun across his sharp cheekbones. As Louen grew older, he thought that Erwillian had only to part his soft pink lips and whatever he wanted would be on a golden plate in his lap before he’d finished asking for it.

Louen himself had been asked for, one stormy night, and even at twelve years old, he’d known that to be found and marched off to the General’s chambers would be the death of him. He had been old enough to know what it meant when people said Erwillian wanted flesh.

So he’d fled. He’d gone to the docks and given Raoul the pirate a promise that he’d fulfilled long ago, though he knew the debt he owed could never really be paid.

Like a bucket of cold water, the promise he’d made to Alwa sluiced the last of his drowsiness from him. He fought his way out of the sheets and pulled on his tunic.