Here, a clip of Shira's thought during the chapter: Her mind and (Grandfather’s) were but sparks in the vastness of time and space. What if they were blown apart, away into that immense uncertainty, never to touch again? Only a heartbeat ago she’d been grumbling about the Bourg, and wishing for change. Now she wished all this had never been.

The tetralogy (The Last Legacy) connects in my mind with an aria from Benjamin Britten’s opera, Peter Grimes. Unhinged, Peter is raving. Deranged people often have insights not shared by the sane, especially when they are having attacks. But the rants can contain deep truth. Parts of the aria preface the first 3 volumes, and the whole rounds out the 4th. Here, the clip for the second book: Who can decipher in storm or starlight/ The written character of a friendly fate/– As the sky turns, the world for us to change? Are local disasters really long-term rescue from bigger ones? Hard to see, especially when you are in the middle of the local one! 

The Orborgon is only book 2. The local disaster - Torc's assassination - is history. Will it eventually turn to the long-term good? Maybe. Remember that the Earth segments are continuous throughout the series, while there has been the huge gap on Phrynis between books 1 & 2. As this second book begins, the Earth players are fleeing a rapidly approaching threat. On Phrynis, we witness an event apparently remote in time and place and action from The Atheling.

No spoiler quotes this time. The chapter, which marks end of The Atheling, sets up Book II of the quartet, The Orborgon, which marks drastic change in both worlds. On Earth, whose timeline is continuous, the players scatter, while the action on Phrynis begins 1000 years after Torc in a remote region far removed from Gurnyac.

Torc dipped his head, feeling the unaccustomed weight of the crown, and as he did so, it slipped slightly on his bare scalp so that he had to snatch at it and push it back into place. Feric, still beside him, his back to the crowd, bowed. “I think, sire,” he murmured, “that the crown sits insecure upon a shaven head.”

“Gar is an ever-present danger while he lives. For that reason he must die before the sun sets on your crowning—and there’ll be edicts tomorrow for you to sign to that effect. If not, I’ll not, nor would any man in the whole Known World vouchsafe your future as king.”

Even as Ramoni’s warning came, a slight sound came from the window. He crossed the room, felt his way along the thick harpile, slipped around into the bay. Reminder: While mindspeech is clearly indicated by italics in the book, here it cannot be so easily distinguished. All speech between Ramoni and Torc is silent: the interactions with Feric are normal talk.

Torc looked to the empty blackness where once the king’s tower had stood. He wanted above all to stand in the ashes where his father had lain. Later. He must see Feric first.

It was a sombre vigil. His thoughts went again and again to the old visions: of tattered flame and blood and masses crowding the countryside, of his father’s last cry, of the tocsin, the screams of those dying in the fire. Of Ramoni toiling up the hill and the mentor falling in his own blood. Those hours were the among the loneliest in his life.

“About Kabun—”

– Poor Tanna. It were well if she ‘d died in the fire. Such hopes the girl had had of him. How long was it since he’d thought of her? His mind turned to Ramoni. Bridge of love. As if he were not heated enough already. He squirmed a little, then relaxed his body joint by joint and in the closeness of that cramped space sought comfort in the Canticum.