Chapter 4
The Rusted Blade
Otchigen didn’t bother to change. He was already in his ceremonial best, though his clothes seemed to have gone through the same ordeal his soul had undergone during this past day. The golden embroidery of suns and moons and stars on the pale grey silk looked more like faded copper wire. He considered putting on a cloak edged in the ermine of his office but, even in the evening, the heat was oppressive, as though the air itself had fled to the wine cellars to wait for night.
As he walked out his front entrance, he was struck dumb by the sunset. The summer sky was streaked with bands of clouds that darkened in color from pale orange to wine-red the farther they rose from the far line of peaks which served Vasyllia instead of a horizon. The air just above him pu
