One day she had come to the window only to find all the flies gone. The sun’s warmth had brought them all back to life. That day had been the most frightening day of her young life.

I should have fed them to the spiders. If I had not swept their homes away.

In this place … ‘I have begun remembering things,’ she said.

He grunted, not turning, not slowing his stride. ‘And are these memories yours?’

‘I think so. Who else’s?’

‘That remains to be seen, hostage. But it has begun.’

Mahybe. The vessel waiting to be filled. Trunk of dolls. Reach in, quickly now! Choose one, upon your life – choose one!

Another memory assailed her, but it could not be real. She was outside the tower, hovering in the hot summer air. Before her, the window, and through its grey glass, she saw row upon row of faces. She floated, looking upon them, wondering at their sad expressions.

Now at last, I think I know what the gods and goddesses were all looking at.

Jewels crunched and rolled under her feet. She imagined herself old, bent and broken, with at her hand all the gold, silver and gems of the world, and in her heart there was yearning, and she knew that she would give it all up … for one child’s dream.

* * *

Children died. Feren held those words in her mind, swaddled and snug-tight in bitter embrace. Some fell from the womb with eyes closed, and the warmth of the blood upon their faces was cruel mockery. They were expunged in waves of pain, only to lie still in dripping hands. No woman deserved that. For others, there were but a handful of years which only later seemed crowded, cries of hunger, small hands grasping, luminous eyes that seemed wise in the ways of things not spoken. And then one day, those eyes stared out from half-closed lids, seeing nothing.

Mischance was scurrilous. Fate had a way of walking into empty rooms with smug familiarity. Children died. The laments of the mothers were hollow sounds to anyone’s ears. People turned away and studied the ground, or some feature upon the horizon, as if it were changing before their eyes.

She remembered the look on Rint’s face, her beloved brother, and how it crumpled with comprehension. She remembered the old women working quietly, businesslike, and not meeting her gaze. She remembered her fury at the sound of youths laughing nearby, and then hearing the bark of someone hushing them. It was not that death was rare. In dogged step it ever remained close, cold as a shadow. The blunt truth was, the world beat upon a soul until bones bent and hearts broke.

Since then, she had been crawling away, and it had been years and for all that she had aged since that time she felt but a day older, the bruise of grief still fresh beneath her skin, with the echo of insensitive laughter hard in her ears.