Rial gasped for air that would not come as he lay on his side, pain blossoming through his body. The Kotaku must have come up behind him, emerging from the mist to drive a sword through his back.

A ring of servants and the two huntsmen surrounded them now, facing outwards with bows and swords that drove away the khiladri. The animals would lunge forward out of the shadows only to be forced back by steel points, their frustrated barks and growls filling the night.

The Kotaku stood over the gasping Rial, blood dripping from the sword held loosely at his side. He stared down at the ichor, rendered a deep black in the gloom, coursing from his victim’s wounds and forming an expanding patch of darkness on the ground.

Rial thought maybe the lanterns had been knocked over in the chaos. It was dark, and seemed to be getting darker.

“So you turn even our gami against us, do you boy? You bring your foulness down onto the beasts as well? ...Ah!”

The Kotaku did not take his eyes off the doubled-over Rial as he raised his sword towards Trian. Trian froze where he had been reaching slowly for a knife dropped by one of those taken by the khiladri just a short while ago. A servant, looking hurriedly over his shoulder, took in the scene and kicked the knife away before returning his attention to the shadows moving through the mist. Rial recognised him as the one who had locked the cangue around his neck.

The khiladri were no longer lunging. Their silhouettes paced around the group, circling them as a hagetak circled a carcass. They appeared and disappeared in the mist as they darted further towards or away from the humans trapped inside. There were no longer any barks, but their growling had become one long, deep rumble that was felt rather than heard. Violet eyes glimmered in the lantern light.

Someone let out a whimper of terror.

The Kotaku swung his sword forward, placing the blade against the side of Rial’s head.

“You have brought your poison to the village for the last time. I should have got rid of you years ago,” he spat.

Rial was barely aware of the blade to his skull; he was staring into the mist as he lay on his side, the pain forgotten, only shock remaining. Shock at what he had just seen.

Tendrils of fog moved in the night-time breeze, curling around each other and the villagers. They obscured everything, yet gaps were opening, gaps through which khiladri dashed as they circled the group. Further back loomed the dark silhouette of the First compound, the blue light of the vivinder tree visible even here.

And there were… other shadows.

They moved slowly, practically indiscernible in the roiling clouds, shadows amongst shadows. Rial would not have spotted the first of them had the fog not cleared at just the right time, in just the right place.

The glow of violet eyes grew clearer, more vivid as they approached through the mist, crossing the moving line of the beasts until even the Kotaku’s defenders saw them. Not khiladri eyes but human, though far more violet than any an ordinary person could possess.

“Who walks there?” shouted one of the men, the huntsman who had meant to slice Trian’s head from his neck. “Name yourself!”

No reply came, and the eyes grew closer and closer. They glowed.

There were more now, approaching from every angle. Rial could see them despite his weakening vision. He struggled to focus as the grass grew increasingly slick with his blood.

The Kotaku was no longer watching the boy bleeding at his feet. He strode over to stand behind one of his servants and peered into the mist.

“Who are you? What do you…?”

A pause.

“What? How? We were told you were dead!" His voice faltered. "What happened to your eyes...?”

Rial could see him clearly too. He could see Brin, striding forwards towards the Kotaku.

The man Rial had seen fall to the khiladri walked strangely, feet dragging along the ground rather than lifting as he moved. His leather armour hung by a single strap, turned to an odd angle that would offer little protection from blade or arrow, and his hair hung matted and damp.

It was his skin, however, that stood out the most. His usually dark complexion was gone, and in its place… no one should be that pale. He was as pale as the mist through which he strode, as if he were a part of it or it a part of him. His beast-torn clothes moved in the wind to reveal ragged flesh beneath, yet with no sign of blood, only the same pallid white as the rest of his body.

Rial could not see his breath.

Whereas the cool night air turned to vapour at every panicked gasp of a villager, at every heavy puff from the still-frozen Trian, whereas even the warmth of the blood pouring across the grass raised a layer of steam in front of Rial, Brin's breath formed not once.

Blackness made rings around Rial's vision, as if he were in a narrow tunnel whose end was moving further away. The last things he saw before the light vanished entirely were more violet eyes appearing out of the shadow.

The night filled with screams.