‘I am here,’ said the voice again, seemingly behind Clariel. She spun around, swinging her falchion, but it cleaved empty air. The smell grew stronger, more acrid, biting into Clariel’s mouth. She coughed and spat as if she could somehow rid herself of a taint that was slowly rolling down her throat.

‘Interesting,’ said the voice. ‘So you are … Clariel.’

Clariel spun around again, so fast she was dizzy. The voice was nowhere, everywhere … it was inside her head …

The Charter. Kargrin had told her to reach for the Charter, that simply by joining with it she would gain some protection, even if she couldn’t remember the marks for a particular spell. Just reach for it, fall into it, let it wash over you, Kargrin had said.

With her free hand, Clariel traced a Charter mark in the air. One of the first marks she’d learned, nothing by itself, but a mark that could be used to find a way into the flow. She tried to visualise it deep inside her mind as she drew it, thought of where it could go, the marks that it travelled with, and there they were, glowing inside her mind. She called them to her, and more, and found herself drawing them in the air with her left hand, and the point of her falchion. They weren’t marks that she knew how to join up to make a spell, but they surrounded her and caught her up in the eternal current of the Charter, blocking out that insidious voice, the woman she instinctively did not want to hear –

‘The Charter is a prison,’ said the voice, suddenly breaking through the golden glow and single-mindedness of the marks. ‘A maze to pen you in, to make you go certain ways. You do not need marks and spells, Clariel. There is a power within you. Direct it, by your will alone. I will show you, guide you, be your friend –’

‘No!’ screamed Clariel. ‘Kargrin! Roban!’

She staggered to the edge of the rock, swinging wildly with her falchion, but cut only air. Charter marks hovered around her like bees bewildered by smoke, without direction, and she did not have the skill or knowledge to make the marks into anything, to cast a spell that might reveal her enemy.

‘Lady Clariel!’