This was his last night, the guards had told him. He had been deemed a troublesome prisoner. The guards hadn't bothered to hide what would be done with him — why hide it from those who would soon die anyway? With the morning light they were going to take him out and slice his throat. His blood would sluice into a special well, and when it was all drained out of him they would toss his corpse into one of the huge vats. Killian's body would provide the fuel that powered the enemy's war machine.

Perhaps he'd been too arrogant, too confident of himself. When Killian had seen Evrin on the cart with all those other prisoners, back near Seranthia, he'd followed them to this camp. He had been looking for Evrin and now he'd found him, and Killian could hardly restrain himself. It was all about to be revealed. He would find Evrin, they would escape the camp, and Killian would help Evrin with his quest, while Evrin told Killian who he really was.

His mind so fixed on his objective that he could think of little else, Killian had scouted the terrain before deciding he was ready to break into the camp and free Evrin.

The defences had been stronger than he'd expected, or perhaps he was simply unprepared. He hadn't even had a sword; it was just him and his skills with stealth, his strength and his agility.

He had clung to the bottom of a goods cart to get in, then let go when the guards were distracted by a commotion in the yard. He'd hidden behind the base of a guard tower, getting his bearings and deciding on a search order to be executed when the camp went to sleep, when he realised what the commotion was.

At the same time Killian saw the cause of the tumult, and recognised that the fleeing man in a scraggly white robe was Evrin, he'd felt a sword prick under his armpit.

So close; but not close enough.

Evrin had made it out, but his rescuer had not.

Now, after living in the camp on starvation rations; after a failed escape attempt, with three guards killed, two gravely wounded, it was Killian's time to die.

He almost wished they hadn't told him. The knowledge made Killian's last night torture. Somehow it both dragged interminably and was going much too fast for his liking.

Killian wished he could have a chance to fight, but his legs were manacled, tied by a chain to a sunken stake, and his hands were bound together. He was to spend his last night in the small hut where they put those who were destined to die.