The gates were open, flames flaring high from one of the oil-filled braziers that burned day and night, and smoke and flame crackled and spilt from one of the stables edging the courtyard. Horses screamed within.

Combat ranged about the courtyard, steel clanging. Shapes of men silhouetted by flame were fighting, wrestling, as a wave of dark-cloaked figures surged through the open gates, hundreds, it seemed to Bleda, though it was hard to tell through the smoke and flame. White-Wings were forming their shield wall, more shields locking into place with every moment, and then a horn blast and they were slipping fluidly into movement, pressing towards the gates, the dark-cloaked enemy falling before their short stabbing blades.

Two figures crashed into a wall nearby, came careening towards them, a White-Wing and a Dark-Cloak. There was a wet, punching noise and the White-Wing fell at their feet, blood bursting from his mouth, black in the starlight. The Dark-Cloak stood over his enemy, his hood fallen away to reveal a pale-faced man, shaven-haired and wild-eyed. He looked about for more White-Wings to kill and threw himself back into the battle.

‘Stay back,’ Bleda hissed at Jin when she took a step forwards, ‘you’ve only got a knife.’

‘And you’ve your present, I see,’ Jin said, not able to hide an edge of venom from her voice as she glanced at the bow in his hand.

Jin had been awestruck when she saw Bleda’s bow, a little less so when she’d heard where it had come from.

‘All these years she’s kept it from you,’ Jin had said.

‘She has,’ Bleda had agreed. ‘But she has given it to me now.’ And Jin had seen something in his eyes then that she hadn’t liked. Not one little bit. Ever since then Jin had hidden it well, but whenever he used his bow or spoke of it her voice had been gilded with spite, veiled threads of jealousy leaking from her.

Jealous of his bow, or of Riv, he did not know.

‘Don’t worry for my safety,’ Jin said as she stood over the dead White-Wing, turning the fallen man’s head with her foot. ‘I just wanted to make sure he’s dead. I have no intention of getting involved. Let them kill each other, what do I care? Good, I say. The world is better for fewer Ben-Elim and White-Wings.’

A short while ago and Bleda would have agreed without thought, but now, at Jin’s words the first image to flash into his mind was Riv.

A fledgling White-Wing.

He had missed her since she’d been gone, over a ten-night, which had surprised him, but now he just felt a sense of relief that she was not here, was not fighting, risking death in this courtyard.

Though she may be no safer, wherever she is.

He pushed the thought away, brought back to the present by another death-scream.