He was handsome enough, in that savage, Dog-Runner way. But it was the soft smile playing across his full mouth that caught her attention. ‘What so amuses you?’ she asked.

In answer, he made a series of gestures.

She shrugged. ‘I do not know that manner of Dog-Runner communication – your silent talk. And please, do not start singing to me either. That, too, means nothing to me, and when two voices come from a single throat, why, it’s unnerving.’

‘I smile at you,’ the youth said, ‘with admiration.’

‘Oh,’ she replied. They continued walking, silent. Damn you, Korya, think of something to say! ‘Why are you here? I mean, why did you come? Are those tears painted on your cheeks? Do you hope to find someone? Someone dead? You long to bring him, or her, back?’

Tentatively, he reached up and ventured a touch upon one of the red-painted tears. ‘Back? There is no “back”. She never left.’

‘Who? Your mate? You seem young for that, even for a Dog-Runner. Did she die in childbirth? So many do. I’m sorry. But Hood is not your salvation here. This army is going nowhere. It’s all pointless.’

‘I have made you nervous,’ he said, edging away.

‘You wouldn’t if you answered a single cursed question!’

His forearms were freckled, a detail that fascinated her, and they moved as if to hold up the words he spoke. ‘Too many questions. I wear my mother’s grief, for a sister she lost. A twin. I follow to take care of her on this journey. Mother’s dead twin speaks to her – even I have heard her, shouting in my ear, waking me in the night.’

‘The dead woman talks, does she? Well, what does she have to say?’

‘The Jaghut and his vow. They must be heeded.’

‘It’s not enough that the living want their dead back – now the dead want to come back, too. How is it souls can get lonely, when their entire existence is alone? Is mortal flesh so precious? Wouldn’t you rather fly free of it, sail off into the sky? Dance around stars, feeling no cold, no pain – is that not a perfect freedom? Who would want to return from that?’

‘Now I have made you angry.’

‘It’s not you. Well, it is, but don’t take it personally. I just can’t make sense of any of you.’

‘You are Tiste.’

Korya nodded. They’d walked to the camp’s very edge, and before them was a plain of scattered stones, shaped but broken or eroded, the city’s dwindling demise. ‘A hostage to the Jaghut, Haut. The Captain. The Old Misery. The Lord of Riddles. Crier of Aches and Imagined Illnesses. He has made me a Mahybe – knock me and I’ll ring hollow.’

The youth’s eyes were wide now, studying her avidly. ‘Lie with me,’ he said.

‘What? No. I didn’t mean – what is your name, by the way?’

‘Ifayle. In our language, it means “falling sky”.’