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giant petrified fingers, their shape lit by the towers on the islands
both before and after. At the top of each tower, massive cauldrons of fire consumed hideous amounts of oil to cast a light across the lanes that the ships used when approaching Yeflam. But it had
been the length of the country behind the towers and docks that had caught his attention. There, millions of lamps ran along the bridges and into the cities and, for a moment, Yeflam looked like a
giant funeral procession.
    Zaifyr had not seen its like before, but he knew, even as the ship drew up to the docks, that Yeflam had not been designed by Aelyn. He knew of only one being who could design such a city and
that was his brother, Eidan. The realization had not surprised him. He knew that Eidan and Aelyn would have stood together after Asila. The two would not have been divided from each other, as the
others had been. Yet, before Zaifyr had come to Mireea, Jae’le had told him that Eidan was not in Yeflam. He had left years ago, his brother said, and whatever calming influence he had had
over Aelyn was long gone. It was one of the reasons, he said, that Zaifyr should not linger in the city.
    ‘Where are you taking me?’ Zaifyr asked, turning from the window.
    ‘Nale.’ Behind Aelyn the sky stretched in a long empty brightness. ‘I have a home there.’
    ‘No cell, then?’
    ‘There is a cell for you in the Broken Mountains.’
    ‘No.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I’ll not go back there. You know that.’
    She looked away, turning to the window where Yeflam lay below. There, Nale had come into view. It was easily three times the size of any other settlement in Yeflam and sat at the artificial
country’s centre, a massive city dominated by huge buildings, with none larger than the Enclave, the white tower where the Keepers of the Divine worked. Yet, as the wind-made horses began
their descent, Zaifyr could not see the tower. Instead, he saw a series of sprawling estates, each of them kept behind high stone walls and steel gates. It was before a large, yellow-stone building
defined by two towers that the horses landed, bringing the carriage to a halt.
    Her home
. Aelyn’s home.
    Yet she did not live there. That was clear from the moment she opened the door and led him inside. Dust coated the long half-filled shelves and still tables and chairs that lay beyond the
doorway. The air was musty and dry and tainted by the smell of blood and salt from Leviathan’s Blood. In Maewe – in the kingdom his sister once ruled – Aelyn had built a house
identical to this, but the inside of it had flowed with air, with life, and with her. This house, Zaifyr thought as he followed her, was but a keepsake of the life she had left behind. It was like
the churches he had found in rural communities after the War of the Gods. Each had been made as a place of worship while the gods had been alive, but rather than being a building that men and women
and children could enter, the houses had existed as homes for the gods. Inside were items that the communities had associated with the god – books, idols, weapons – and each building
had been sealed so that no one could enter. Reportedly, when the gods had been alive, the houses had been pristine inside, but by the time Zaifyr saw them, the remaining ones had been broken open
like eggs, their insides scooped out for the sustenance they provided. They looked like Aelyn’s house, a monument of a time long gone.
    ‘Before you went to Mireea, Jae’le came to see me.’ Aelyn stood in front of a wine rack, her fingers running along the old bottles. ‘Not in person, of course. Just in one
of his little birds. He told me that you would pass by. He said that he had asked you to come to this part of the world. He said that he was not interested in Yeflam. He was interested only in the
war the Leerans had begun. I had already sent Fo and Bau by then, but he promised me that you would be no threat. He said that you had