It was like fighting a hurricane. They came at me from all directions, weapons buffeting my defenses like a storm-force gale. Mephi growled and snapped his teeth behind me. My staff connected, once, twice. Two of the Ioph Carn flew backward. I couldn’t see their faces in the darkness, but I could hear their cries. Damned fools – only doing what Kaphra asked them to do. The way I’d once done, not caring for the consequences. I wondered if he had something hanging over each of their heads, if they had families at home that they cared about, or if they were simply motivated by greed.

I just wanted them to leave me alone. A knife grazed across my arm, and the glimpse of blood seemed to embolden the rest of them. They crowded me, blades flashing like teeth. I knocked a sword from someone’s grasp, kicked another Ioph Carn out of the yard. Still too many of them.

And then I heard Mephi scream.

A sick feeling of shock froze my innards. I couldn’t care about the Ioph Carn at my back; Mephi needed me. I whirled around and saw him bleeding from a gash above his shoulder. Kaphra stood over him, triumphant. Leaning down, he grabbed Mephi by one of his horns. The strange sword dripped blood onto the floor.

“Don’t!” I cried out. The word felt ripped from me. If anything happened to Mephi, I would die. I wouldn’t know how to go on. I’d lost Emahla. I couldn’t now lose Mephi too. I couldn’t take my eyes off of Mephi’s wound, waiting for the bleeding to stop, waiting for it to heal.

“Don’t what?” Kaphra said, raising the sword.

“If you hurt him, I’ll never help you.”

Kaphra only laughed. He shook Mephi a little. “All this power at your beck and call, and you cannot let this beast be hurt. Why is that?”

Oh, I hated him. I’d never cared for Kaphra before, but now all I wanted was to crack his head open with my staff, to shut his smug mouth for ever. “I think you already know.”

“Your… ossalen. You are Alanga,” he said. I’d already suspected that he knew, but hearing the word said aloud, from his lips, still shocked me into stillness. “Ossalen is what they used to call them. A bond that, once formed, cannot be broken.”

“Then what do you want with him? Let him go.”

Kaphra nodded to someone behind me – the Ioph Carn. “Collateral, obviously. Put down your staff, come with me quietly and I’ll tell you how you can earn your freedom.”

I dropped my staff because I couldn’t do anything else. “The sword,” I said, feeling a pressure against my chest, an ache. I’d done something very wrong here, and I wasn’t sure yet what that was. “What does it do?”