I screamed. “Red, look out! Behind you!” My voice came out rasping, and broken, and weak from years of silence. But he heard me, and turned, and the arrow took him in the shoulder with a sickening thud.

The enormity of what I had done was like a blow straight to the heart. After all this time, after everything, I had spoken. I had not been able to stop myself. I had broken the silence. There were flames everywhere; the platform by the pyre was starting to turn black. There were little fizzing, popping sounds from the uppermost layer of wood. I watched blankly as Red reached up behind him and snapped the shaft of the arrow in two, as if breaking a twig; and wrenched the other part out, teeth bared in a grimace of pain. Still he was shoving his way forward. And now, the crowd parted quickly to let him through, and he reached the foot of the pyre. Richard thrust out an arm to stop him, his features suffused with rage, and received in return a blow to the face that sent him reeling back into the crowd. Then Red jumped, jumped through the flames and the heat to the second tier of logs, booted feet agile on the smouldering wood, stepped to the top, slashed once, twice with the little knife at the ropes that bound me there. His face was white as death. The flames were licking at the highest logs. He grabbed me around the waist, slung me over his shoulder like a sack of vegetables, and leaped again, awkwardly this time, so that the two of us landed in a heap on the middle of the smouldering wooden platform which stood beside the pyre. An instant later there was a flaring, and a whooshing, and the fire began to take on an eerie green hue, its strange light illuminating the whole courtyard, playing on open mouths and startled eyes, shining on the figure of an archer carefully backing away from an open window, lighting up the staring features of Richard of Northwoods, on which rage now warred with fear.

I felt Red’s arm close around me like a shield against the rest of the world. His mouth was against my hair, and his heart thumped violently under my cheek. I shut my eyes, and held onto his shirt with both hands, and wept. Now I had lost them, I had lost them all. How could I? How could I do it? How could I speak, after so long, after all this time, how could I let the words out, before the spell was broken? And yet I knew in my heart that I would not have stayed silent, for in that moment, the only thing that had mattered was for Red to be alive. I had saved him; but I had lost my brothers.

Chapter Fourteen

The fire burned green and gold, and small explosions popped and crackled. There was a smell of scorched feathers. The crowd gave a great gasp, and another, and broke into a babble of sound. Under my cheek, Red’s shirt was wet with blood and tears. “It’s all right,” he said over and over. “It’s all right, Jenny, it’s all right.” Neither of us seemed able to move. Then, suddenly, I felt his arm tighten around my shoulders.