Cywen looked at Brina, then Meical. She wanted to tell Corban about the book, ask Brina what it was that she’d just read, and what exactly Brina was doing, but something stopped her. Deep down she felt something horribly wrong was going on, like an infection in a wound that ends in gangrene, but Meical and Balur’s looming faces served only to keep her mouth closed.

‘She was sleepwalking,’ Brina said. ‘I woke and saw that she was gone – found her and woke her. She screamed.’

Sleepwalking! Is that the best you can do?

She looked to Corban, saw the question in his eyes and on the tip of his tongue, but for once he kept it firmly behind his lips.

If Corban can keep his mouth shut, then so can I. Besides, Brina may not wish to remove my intestines with her bare hands if I keep her secret – is it a secret? – a little longer. I’ll talk to Corban alone.

‘You were sleepwalking?’ Meical asked her, one long finger prodding Cywen.

‘I – I don’t know,’ Cywen said. ‘I was asleep, and then . . .’ She gestured around her. She stopped her eyes from flickering to Brina.

If anything, Meical’s frown bunched deeper.

‘Is this a regular occurrence with you?’

No.

‘What’s that?’ Akar the Jehar said, pointing away from Cywen, into the darkness.

They all stopped and stared. A flicker of light appeared in the distance, like a distant candle. As they watched it grew and spread a little, blazing brighter in the darkness.

‘What is that?’ Corban repeated.

‘Elyon, no,’ Meical gasped. ‘We need to rouse the camp and move. That is Gramm’s hold, and it is burning.’

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

HAELAN

Haelan crouched in the darkness and cuddled Pots.

He was sitting on a barrel of apples in the cellars beneath Gramm’s hold, a single candle burning, Pots at his side with ears pricking at every strange sound that filtered down from above. And there were a lot of those.

Why did I send Tahir away? I wish Tahir and Wulf were here. They had left a few days after the bear-hunt, riding away one cold morning towards Dun Kellen. Wulf had given Haelan a note to pass to Gramm. When the time is right, Wulf had told him.

Gramm had read the letter, stared at it a long time, then crumpled it in his fist. His gaze had shifted to Haelan, who’d stared back at him, or tried to.

‘They’ll be back,’ Haelan had whispered weakly.

‘I hope so,’ Gramm had said and walked away. Haelan had not heard him mention Wulf or Tahir since that day, but he saw him each evening standing on the wall staring into the south as the sun faded into the horizon.