‘I am Fidele,’ she said to the giants, ignoring Alben, ‘once Queen to Tenebral’s King, and now regent in my son Nathair’s stead.’

The giantess regarded her impassively with small dark eyes. Her face was pale with a sharp nose and high angular cheekbones. She was muscular beyond belief, wearing a mixture of leather and animal skins. Her wrist was red and scabbed, and Fidele remembered the iron chain that the giantess had wielded in the dark, bound at her wrist with an iron collar. Gone now. Tattooed thorns spiralled about her right wrist, curling around her forearm and disappearing into a sleeve.

‘Can you speak the common tongue?’ Fidele asked.

‘I speak a little of your tongue. Enough.’ Her voice was like gravel sliding across granite.

‘You are mother and son?’ Fidele asked, looking at the giantling, who was still lying upon his cot, but he had propped himself up on one elbow and was watching with interest.

‘Yes.’

‘What are your names?’

The giantess’ eyes flickered to her son, then back to Fidele.

‘I am Raina. My son is Tain.’

‘And what clan are you?’

‘We are of the Kurgan.’ As she said it, something crossed her face. Longing? It was hard to read. Her son tugged at his wispy moustache. It was a surprisingly old gesture on his young features, like an infant copying his grandfather.

‘Why did Lykos hold you prisoner?’

At the mention of the Vin Thalun’s name Raina snarled, fists bunching, and for a moment she was savagely feral, more animal than human. She did not answer, just glared at Fidele.

Fidele sighed, recognizing some of that pain and rage. ‘How long have you been his prisoner?’

The fire dimmed in Raina’s eyes. She shook her head. ‘I do not know. A long time. I tried to count the moons, but they faded, blurred into one another.’

‘Eight years,’ another voice said. Tain, from his cot. His voice was flat, emotionless, a rasp to its edges.

‘Alben tells me that you are our prisoners. Yet I see no chains of iron, no collars or bonds. And last night, you seemed willingly to climb our wall and enter this fortress. You fought beside our warriors.’

‘For which I thank you,’ Maquin said, nodding to Raina. He was leaning against a wall where he could see both Raina and Tain.

‘You are welcome, little man,’ Raina said with a twitch of her lips. ‘Ones that fight so fearlessly should not be left to die in the street.’

‘I thank you for that, too,’ Fidele said. ‘But my question still stands. How is it that you are not bound? That you did not take advantage of the flight to Ripa and flee your new captors? How is it that you fought with us?’

‘Your healer is persuasive,’ Raina said.

Fidele turned her stern eyes upon Alben. ‘You speak giantish, then. How is that?’