No two demons were precisely alike. Each was shaped by its preferred hunting terrain, and Everam’s Ala was vast and varied. It took her two blows to find the same pressure point on the next wood demon, but after a moment she collapsed its leg. She filed the information away, finishing the demon quickly and closing the space between herself and Jardir in two great bounds.

Jardir frowned. His pride in his beloved sister Imisandre’s daughter was overwhelming. He had commanded she be twice the warrior of her male zahven, but she had surpassed them by far, and her own father, as well. Watching the graceful and precise movements of her art, so confident and in control, was like reading a poem.

But for all his pride, her defiance of his will in coming out into the night was unacceptable. No doubt Inevera had a hand in it, but he could not allow even the Damajah to flaunt his decrees so openly. Poor Ashia would be caught in the middle when he was forced to make an example of her.

He grabbed her arm hard when she reached his side, extending his crown’s protection just enough to envelop, but hopefully not enough to alert the alagai princes who even now sought him through the eyes of their drones. ‘Are you begging to have your new blacks stripped from you, girl, to defy my command?’

‘Forgive me, Uncle,’ Ashia said, falling to one knee and baring her neck. ‘The Damajah bade me to inform you that the alagai are burning great wards into the crops outside the city, creating a net.’

Jardir felt a chill run down his spine as he looked up, seeing the magic gathering off in the distance and sensing its purpose. The demons were constructing wards to repel men. If they succeeded in creating a circle around Everam’s Bounty, they could kill every man, woman, and child within. The Skull Throne was no protection against this.

‘Did she tell you anything else?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Ashia said. ‘But when my honoured husband told her the only way to stop them would be to burn our harvest, the Damajah suggested there might be alternatives.’

Jardir nodded. How could he forget the words he had pondered day and night since Inevera’s foretelling?

– The Deliverer must go into the night alone to hunt the centre of the web, or all will be lost when the Alagai Ka comes—

He looked back at his niece. She had as much as told him that his wife and son also defied his will, but that seemed an insignificant thing now. ‘Tell the Damajah I understand, and will follow the path Everam has set before me.’ Ashia bowed and turned to go, but he caught her arm once more. ‘I am proud of you, niece.’

Ashia’s aura, so flat and professional, suddenly blossomed with warmth. Jardir hugged her close, then drew back, meeting her eyes. ‘Remember that, when I must punish your defiance.’

The warmth of her aura did not dim in the least as she bowed one last time and turned back into the night. Only then did her detachment return, like a cloak she threw over herself before stepping into battle.

Jardir threw off his robes, stripping down to his white bido to reveal his warded flesh. Beyond that he wore only plain sandals, his crown, and Leesha’s cloak. In his hands he carried only the Spear of Kaji.

He looked back at Jayan, spotting his son’s aura in the crowd of warriors even more easily than his white turban.

Everam grant you be worthy, my son, he prayed.

There was a whispering on the night wind, and without understanding how he knew, he understood it was the demon princes, speaking to one another with magic rather than simple words. He could not understand what they were saying, but he isolated the nearest of the voices and followed it into the night. Warriors cried out and attempted to go with him, but while a berth appeared in the demons barring Jardir’s way as the crown forced them aside, they closed in quickly behind him.

It was not far before he began to see the currents of magic flowing towards the wheat fields. Demons patrolled the area, but they walked by him, oblivious to his presence as he crept through the stalks to the edge of the alagai princes’ wards. The tall wheat stopped abruptly, and before him the ala was scorched clean, glowing with magic.

Jardir marvelled at the precision of the lines. Flame demons could burn almost anything, but their magical fires tended to start very real ones. The fact that the burning went only in one direction, stopping as abruptly as it began, spoke of other magics involved.

He could feel the ward pushing at him. At first approaching had been like walking against a heavy wind, then like striding in deep water. When he reached out to the edge, it felt as solid as a wall of thick glass. Energy skittered along his fingertips, but he embraced the sting, tasting the magic.

Finally understanding the power, he concentrated, and felt the Crown of Kaji warm at his brow. He thrust his hand into the ward, and the magic parted around him like the stalks of wheat he had pushed through to get here.

Still the call on the night wind led him on as he walked openly along the lines of the demons’ web. He kept the power tight around himself, seeming no more than a slight ripple in the warding, like a pebble thrown into a rushing river.

He walked for some time before finding his quarry. The mind demon wasn’t even looking his way, its attention on the blaze of flame demons burning a path in the wheat. The demon was drawing wards in the air, snuffing the flames along precise lines. Its bodyguard, an amorphous blob of flowing black scales, hot with magic, slithered at its side.

The demon’s aura was bright with power, like looking at the sun, and it moved with casual security. And Jardir could see why. Magic was woven around the creature to protect it from prying eyes, but not, it seemed, his crownsight. Trusting in Leesha’s cloak, he strode right up to it.

The mimic perked up when he came within striking distance and the mind demon turned to face him, but it was too late. He stabbed hard with the Spear of Kaji, piercing its black heart.

The burst of power was like nothing Jardir had ever dreamed. He had killed powerful demons before, used to the feeling of magic running up the length of the spear, filling its well and pumping into him, making him stronger, faster. It healed his wounds, honed his senses, and polished away the years like rust buffed from steel.

But that feeling was a sip of water compared with the flood that ran through him, threatening to drown him in magic.

The demon prince shrieked in agony, and its pain was reflected in the screams and convulsions of the mimic and every other demon in the area. The demon reached for him, and while the claws at the end of its spindle arms were no longer than a pillow wife’s manicured nail, they were sharp as razors.

Jardir growled, sending a blast of the magic suffusing him back through the spear. It shocked through the demon like lightning, rattling it so hard its teeth ground and shattered. Its body began to smoke and stink, and Jardir pulled the spear free, swinging it in a tight slash that took the razor edge right through the slender demon’s neck.

The lesser demons collapsed as the mind demon’s head struck the ala, but the mimic took longer to die, shrieking wildly as its flesh bubbled and shifted, sometimes taking on familiar shapes, and others taking forms only seen in nightmares.

Still awash in power, Jardir pointed at it and drew a ward with the tip of his spear, blasting the creature back to Nie. He could hear bits of gelatinous flesh strike the ground as the smoke cleared.

Jardir stood still in the silence that followed, listening hard, but the calls of the other demon princes were gone.