He saw her expression suddenly change, and when she spoke again the tone was urgent. ‘Return to your realm, L’oric! Another circle has been closed – terribly closed.’ She drew her hand from the pool.

L’oric gasped.

It was covered in blood.

His eyes snapped open, and he was kneeling in his tent once more. Night had arrived, and the sounds outside were muted, peaceful, a city settling down to its evening meal. Yet, he knew, something horrible had happened. He went still, questing outward. His powers – so weakened, so tremulous – ‘Gods below!’ A swirl of violence, knotted upon itself, radiating waves of agony – a figure, small, twisted inward, in shredded clothes soaked through with blood, crawling through darkness.

L’oric lurched to his feet, head spinning with anguish.

Then he was outside, and suddenly running.

He found her trail, a smeared track through sand and dust, out beyond the ruins, into the petrified forest. Towards, he knew instinctively, the sacred glade that had been fashioned by Toblakai.

But there would be no succour for her there. Another abode of false gods. And Toblakai was gone, off to cross blades with his own fate.

But she was without clear thought. She was only pain, lancing out to fire instincts of flight. She crawled as would any dying creature.

He saw her at the edge of the glade, small, bedraggled, pulling herself forward in torturous increments.

L’oric reached her side, a hand reaching to settle at the back of her head, onto sweat-snarled hair. She flinched away with a squeal, fingers clawing against his arm. ‘Felisin! He’s gone! It is L’oric. You are safe with me. Safe, now—’

But still she sought to escape.

‘I shall call upon Sha’ik—’

‘No!’ she shrieked, curling tight on the sand. ‘No! She needs him! She needs him still!’ Her words were blunted by broken lips but understandable none the less.

L’oric sank back, struck mute by the horror. Not simply a wounded creature, then. A mind clear enough to weigh, to calculate, to put itself aside ... ‘She will know, lass – she can’t help but know.’

‘No! Not if you help me. Help me, L’oric. Just you – not even Heboric! He would seek to kill Bidithal, and that cannot be.’

‘Heboric? I want to kill Bidithal!’

‘You mustn’t. You can’t. He has power—’

He saw the shudder run through her at that.

L’oric hesitated, then said, ‘I have healing salves, elixirs ... but you will need to stay hidden for a time.’

‘Here, in Toblakai’s temple. Here, L’oric.’

‘I will bring water. A tent.’

‘Yes!’

The rage that burned in him had contracted down to a white-hot core. He struggled to control it, his resolve sporadically weakened by doubts that he was doing the right thing. This was ... monstrous. There would be an answer to it. There would have to be an answer to it.

Even more monstrous, he realized with a chill, they had all known the risk. We knew he wanted her. Yet we did nothing.