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Isendter was standing at that notional boundary, and dropped to one knee as if to survey the ground. He shot a glance at Tynisa, and understanding passed between them without the need for words.

He nodded, just once.

Tynisa began to advance, not in a headlong rush as previously, but at a slow shuffle, pushing the boundary back and back, her sword extended before her as though she were facing a fellow duellist at the Prowess Forum. Her eyes were fixed on her opponent, which meant tilting her head back considerably.

Isendter reached out a hand to his master. ‘To me, my Prince – but slowly. Move as the girl moves, stop when she stops. Do not look back.’

Alain gritted his teeth, keeping his eyes only on Tynisa. She shifted forward three steps, and he crawled the same distance towards Isendter. Two cautious steps in, matched by two careful steps out. Behind and above Alain, the great forest mantis shifted again, its all-seeing eyes watching each of them simultaneously. Alain was still well within the range of its spined forelimbs.

Tynisa could sense something else now, the same presence that had caused the stag to turn at bay. It was not the predator – though that was surely up to making a meal of the huge beetle – but something beyond it.

‘Do your own people live here, Whitehand?’ she hissed at Isendter from the corner of her mouth.

‘Once they did,’ he replied, which was the worst answer for her to hear. She had known places before where the Mantis-kinden had once lived, but dwelt no more. Sometimes they remained there, even though their living bodies had departed. She had not expected to find such a place in the Commonweal.

Another few steps in and she had passed Alain, usurping his place within reach of the insect’s killing arms. As she held up her tiny needle of a sword, a subtle succession of sounds behind told her that Alain had made good his retreat, and was being drawn away by Isendter.

Which just leaves me, she thought. She heard the creak of the bow again, and knew it was Orian, and that the young nobleman was intending to do something noble and foolish. She thrust her left hand back towards him, palm out: Wait!

No arrow sped past, although the insect’s head was cocked to one side now, the mandibles twitching like knife-tipped fingers. Slowly she reached for her brooch, tugged it from her jacket and held it up at arm’s length. You recognize this, don’t you? her gesture said.

Its triangular head tilted further forward, and she somehow knew that it was regarding the Dragonfly-kinden arrayed behind her. ‘They are under our protection,’ she murmured, knowing that Isendter was still there and ready to back her up. The overarching mantis swayed again, as though trying to study the situation from all points of view.

Then it was picking its way backwards, with its killing arms still raised, until it reached a precise distance from her where their circles of influence no longer intersected. Whereupon it dropped down and moved off unhurriedly between the trees, a long, dark insect that was soon lost amid the confusion of trunks.

In its place, Tynisa now saw what she had known must be there. Twenty yards behind where the mantis had reared up was a circular clearing. It was not large, and the vegetation had made ample inroads into recolonizing it, but the weathered stump at its centre had been a totem once, such as she had seen far south of here on the same night she had earned the badge that was still clutched in her left hand.

A Mantis-kinden ritual site. Any questions she might have had about whether the Commonwealer Mantids were substantially different from their Lowlander kin were now answered. Blood had been spilled here, year after year, and though the Mantis-kinden had moved on, their legacy remained.

And then she saw him, hovering grey in the air above the ruined idol. Filmy and translucent he might be, but unmistakable. She risked a glance at Isendter, then at Alain, and it was clear that neither of them could see. Only she could