It hurt, but more disorientating was seeing the land and sky becoming interchangeable. Moon and mountain passed each other. With each rotation, the dragon hanging above her grew closer, a silver outline against a black sky.

She stopped, eventually, abruptly, catching herself around a boulder like a ragdoll, all the air in her lungs forced out by the impact. The shadow deepened around her in a rush, and her back opened up to cold air and hot blood.

The most remarkable thing was that she was still alive enough to register the pain. She reached up a ragged hand and pushed herself away from her anchoring rock, rolling over and staring at the darkness of the sky and vastness of the moon.

Apart from her own heart, she could hear the steady pulse of beating wings. The dragon was coming around again. This was it. Could she stand? Could she work out how? Nothing seemed to be responding properly. She had one arm, one hand, and the rest seemed useless.

Not like this. She turned over again, on to her front, and somehow managed to wedge a knee under her. Here it came, all night and teeth, and she was determined she would face it. As she half-rose, because that was as much as she was able to manage, the stones of the mountain rose with her.

The dragon, full of pomp and arrogance, checked its advance, uncertain as to the threat. Mary didn’t dare look away, in case the slowly turning rocks fell. If this was her doing, then breaking her concentration as well as her bones would be the end of her.

Whatever instinct or intelligence drove the dragon on told it that it would come to no harm. It bent its head low and clawed at the ground, then rushed her.

She willed the rocks to stop its charge, and they flew at it, a solid storm of stone, battering its scales and membranous wings. The dragon stumbled and fell, and still the stones kept coming. It turned, lashed its tail, and ran.

The rattle of falling stones like rain marked the end of her resistance. She was alone in a world that was not hers, more than half-dead, halfway up a mountain she’d just fallen down.

‘Enough,’ she said. ‘Enough.’

20

20

Something had changed, possibly because the guards now realised that they were no more valuable, and no more protected, than the prisoners they were keeping. The man who’d died – Dalip heard him referred to as ‘Charlie’ or ‘Old Charlie’ – had been, if not well liked, not so unpopular that his singling out by the geomancer made any sense. His fate could have been theirs: they knew it, and resented it.