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The movement, when it came, was so swift that Tynisa nearly missed it, and she was caught by a weird sense that she had been here before: only then she had been the victim, and another’s blade had stood in the way. Salme Elass had taken more than she could bear, and Tynisa would never know whether it had been the loss of her son or of her ambitions that snapped her.

Her blade whistled up towards Felipe Shah, who had not even drawn his own. The world seemed to stand still.

Tynisa found that her own blade was already moving to intervene, but the angle was wrong to simply flick the woman’s blow aside. To beat it away from herself would only be to speed it on its way. Instead she snaked her narrow sword between Felipe and the blow and put all the strength she could into her parry, so that Elass’s sword swung round at her, narrowly missing her torn face as she fell backwards. Elass was screaming, blade raised to impale her, heedless of rank and station, and Tynisa lifted her own weapon with trembling arms, knowing she was not strong enough even to roll aside.

The arrow struck Salme Elass in the jaw and drove in halfway to the fletchings, snapping the princess’s head sideways at an unnatural angle, a brief, bloody choking sound the only exclamation she could muster. The sword fell from her fingers, end over end, on to the snowy ground, then she collapsed.

Dal Arche lowered his bow, his hand automatically reaching for his quiver, but finding no more arrows there. If he was satisfied that he had, at least, been permitted one last act of rebellion, his face showed none of it. Indeed there was a tense silence that overcame everyone there, each face frozen as they waited for the prince’s response. The only true mourner of Salme Elass, judging from his expression, was Felipe Shah himself.

‘Another dynasty ended, then,’ he murmured, so that only Tynisa could hear him. ‘Another prince to find.’

His private thoughts seemed to exercise a magical power over the watchers for, although Felipe’s head remained bowed, all other eyes were drawn to Lowre Cean.

‘No, no.’ The old man shook his head. ‘Not that. Not again. Don’t ask me, Shah.’

‘There must be someone, or Elas Mar will become a new Rhael within a year. Find me an alternative. Give me their name, their pedigree. I must work with the tools that I have, Cean. You must rule from Leose, or what have we gained, out of all this?’

The slump of Lowre Cean’s shoulders indicated a despondency every bit as profound as Dal Arche’s.

‘Gather up, all of you,’ Felipe Shah called out, his voice again reaching all ears. ‘Followers of the Salmae, know that at the end your mistress betrayed her Monarch and her prince. You serve the Lowrae now, and may that bring you more honour than your service to the Salmae.’ The words were merely formal, for Tynisa knew well that Cean was the last of the Lowre bloodline, just as Elass had been the end of hers.

The motley collection of followers that Elass had kept with her formed an awkward group, sullen and uncertain, whilst their former enemies drifted together into a distinct band with Dal Arche – Prince Dal – at their head. Tynisa took the chance to sit up painfully, grateful when Che reached out to help her.

‘This is the will of the Monarch,’ Felipe Shah stated ‘declared through me, her Prince-Major. I hereby invest Lowre Cean as Prince of Leose, and Dal Arche as Prince of Rhael, and I charge them both to keep a better order in their new domains than has been the case there before now. Let us have peace and prosperity, as much as this late age allows it.’ He broke off, looking beyond the gathered groups, and Tynisa followed his gaze. Another rider was coming, and she recognized the same youth who had served Lowre Cean as messenger.

‘Marcade, what news?’ Lowre called out, for the young man’s expression was pale and terrible, and he gripped a scroll in a hand that shook when he proffered it to the old man.

Lowre read the contents grimly,