Back in his chamber, he prepared the huqqah and smoked the bowl down to its dregs. Martise. The smiling woman who’d emerged from a cocoon of cautious passivity to laugh and joke with him, touch his arm and offer the fire of her kiss was gone. In her place, a shard of ice had sat across from him and eaten her dinner as if the world beyond her plate had ceased to exist. She hadn’t raised her eyes long enough to see the pity in Gurn’s gaze, but he had, and his chest tightened. “You are Conclave,” he muttered around a ribbon of smoke. “You serve the will of the priests. I am your mentor. You are
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