Not all the voices Maertyn heard came from outside the iron hood.

In the time between empty places in the dark, he Heard other speakers, other sounds. Sometimes they were in languages he did not know — a chirping birdlike tongue, or a rolling trill of bright, long vowels. They came with memories he did not remember having. For years after his time in the Dome, Maertyn drank to keep those voices quiet. He did not like to think of where they might come from.

“His star is dark. He will bring sorrow and woe to all who know him.”

This voice came to him more and more as he tried to think of his own memories. Anryn’s mother had been one of the voices over him once. Whenever the marks on his back burned and itched, it was impossible not to think of her. He writhed in his chains trying to scrape his back raw against the stone.

At some point, he could no longer feel the stone there. Maertyn had the dizzying sense of the world turning on its side, and the iron hood filled with sour bile as he vomited. The probing hands flipped him onto his stomach, rebinding his chains at the shoulders and legs, exposing his back to the air.

“Is this wise?”

Maertyn grabbed onto the Sound. The voice pulsed from somewhere beside him in the dark. It moved near the spell candles, sending little shivers of heat across his bare feet where they hung over the slab. A second set of hands rested against his shoulder blades where the first line of the curse began. Something cold and sharp pressed against his skin, drawing blood.

He thrashed. The chain around the back of his neck kept him from lifting his head. The sharp pain peeled down his shoulder blade, taking the skin along with it. He screamed behind the hood.

“Stop. Joachim, stop. He’s awake,” the mage Leigh called from beyond the candles.

The hands that cut the skin from him paused. A faint, frail voice answered, “Ah, so he is. Fetch the bottle and that funnel there.”

The scrape of glass and a clang of metal reached Maertyn’s ears. Fingers moved in his hair, gathering around the band that held the hood against his face. They wrenched his head up and a small grate near his mouth slid open. In another moment, he felt the wet rush of bitter liquor on his lips. Maertyn sucked at the moisture with avidity even as he choked and sputtered.

“I told you there was not enough hazebark in the concoction, brother. He thrashes when he has too much, and seizes when he has too little. Katlevus worked out the knack of it with Ammarish whiskey.”

“An expensive cure…”

Fire shot from Maertyn’s throat into his belly where it pressed against the slab. The drug inside the liquor slid across his mind, scattering the voices. His limbs sagged against the chains heavy and limp. When they were sure he couldn’t move again, Joachim’s knife returned to his back. The stinging tip traced a copy of the shortest line carved into his shoulder. Maertyn could picture the words there so well he could have drawn them himself even though he couldn’t write.

Slay thou—

Eight more lines told the world what the curse forbade, everything the archmages feared he would do and hadn’t yet done. Conquer, burn, rise… The incomplete curse was all that separated him from the life that should have ended decades ago, long before the Lightning King ever laid eyes on him. Then there might not have been a cursed queen. Or an Anryn.

Muffled voices read Maertyn’s curse aloud, backward and forward, while he slid in and out of darkness. Through the fog, he felt Joachim peel entire strips of flesh from his back. The hood filled with his screams, and the mages rinsed them away with poisoned liquor. No matter how many times they repeated the ritual, still the curse put the flesh back where it was and the scars stayed as they were.

He wasn’t sure when they stopped trying to cut it off. One day he felt one of their knives somewhere near his neck instead of his back. Maertyn had the dizzying impression of a bright silver moon gliding beneath his chin. Warm blood pooled on the slab under his throat.

“I’m with Leigh on this one, brother. Rich widows bathed in virgin’s blood for years… Fastest way in Bocce to catch the plague.” The mage named Sol was back again, his quick-talking voice strained.

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Joachim’s whispery voice turned sour. “I am eighty-eight years old, Brother Solomon, and unafraid of death. I further hazard a guess that this man is no virgin. The Ammarish marry young.”

Maertyn twisted his head away from the blade at his neck. His arm brushed against rough cloth and a soft, quivering hand emerged to clasp his wrist.

Joachim leaned his head down and spoke to Maertyn in Ammarish, “Hm? You can hear me, sir? Hello! I am Joachim Redbeard. I was twelve years old the night the Dome broke. Do you remember?”

Maertyn’s mind tripped over the words. Not since Ciamon had trickled whiskey into his mouth and promised him Anryn still lived had any mage addressed him directly. The old rage clutched at his throat and Maertyn swallowed it before he could scream.

He made himself answer, the words softened by the iron hood: “I know where I am. I have been here before…”

Maertyn could retrace each step he’d taken to reach the Great Dome that first time. The first stumbles outside his village while he climbed into the silver cage sent for him. The long, slow climb up over the mountain where they made him get out and push his own prison up over the top. Then the despairing trek down the other side into Nynomath’s hot, hateful land where Ammar sent its witches to die. All except him, went up their infernal steps and came away with a curse.

“You said I could go home. You said if I climbed the Steps, I would be home…”

“Joachim, mind his hands. The Winze can kill with a touch when he has a mind to it.” The mage Leigh stood well away from the candles today, somewhere outside the spell circle. “Would you die without a successor? Stand back a bit!”

Maertyn twisted his head toward the sound of her voice. He pictured Anryn’s mother, her face tight with rage while she stood over him. Again and again the mages called him that name. Winze, fell star, bad luck… They had so many words to condemn him and never once used his own name.

He dug deep into the tangle of secrets. Maertyn fetched back the stolen words to roll around in his mouth, gritting out broken, borrowed phrases: “Liars. Leaving, I cannot. Dying, I cannot. It is because of you, I cannot.”

The spell candles flickered. Maertyn felt the heat change as the flames burned brighter, hotter. Without even seeing, he knew they’d turned black. He could feel it in the blades of fire curled under his fingers, licking the air around his palms.

The mages scattered like dogs, shouting for oil and salt. Only Joachim kept his place. His hand never left Maertyn’s wrist, gripping him with a ghost of strength.

“Tell me why you are here, then,” said the archmage.

Maertyn pushed himself to stare past the hood over his face, the Sight piercing through the iron long enough to See his face. The man looked as old as he claimed with dozens of sunspots all across his tawny skin. Dully, Maertyn wondered whether he would have looked like that without the curse holding it in place.

“My king told me to save myself.” Maertyn blinked the mage away. He faced the darkness of the hood and knew that they would put him back into his drugged slumber. He let go of the stolen words and fill his mind with thoughts of Anryn. Veil pushed back over her shoulders. “She is cursed… So am I.”

“So you do know the Witch King,” said Joachim. The tip of the scythe left Maertyn’s throat. “Tell me more. I’ve heard it said he’s quick, he’s clever… not like his father. Few mouths speak the whole truth — he is she. Her. A woman enspelled into the body of a man. Son of our enemy, and daughter of yours. I wonder… does that mean you are on our side, Winze? Could your purpose here be more than only bad luck?”

Maertyn fell silent. The mage’s kind tone confused him, totally at odds with the firm grip on his wrist. The candles guttered as Maertyn’s spell faltered. Joachim’s, so friendly-sounding in Ammarish, slipped past the wall of hate Maertyn built inside himself.

“Or will you tell us the true name of our enemy? Say it, if you know,” Joachim urged him. “Nine names and yours vanished from the Nomina when the Dome broke. Say them all and we will summon them. If you did not deserve your fate, let us name those who must face justice.”

Somehow he saw his wife’s face hovering over him. Maertyn could picture it so clearly, he almost called her name. When he opened his mouth, all the voices within him exploded. He shrieked at the sudden roar inside the iron hood. They shouted a name at him, over and over, and Maertyn babbled it aloud to fling it from his mind.

“Maeva Sininen. Maeva Sininen. The first name Lost was Maeva Sininen’s.”

Joachim let go of his hand. The thunder of footsteps rushed past the smoking candles. Hands seized Maertyn’s head, and the grate of the iron hood slid open. His furious scream broke off when something hard and bitter forced its way between his teeth. Liquor flooded his mouth and the drug mixed with it burned its way down his throat.

The fire left him as quickly as it came, snuffing out rage and reason. Maertyn rolled his head with the lull of their poison in him. Dizzily, he heard Joachim Redbeard say,

“I will give your regards to King Anryniel. Beyond this, I make no promise. That day is close when she must answer for her mother’s crimes.”