I was dimly aware that Swallow and Analivia had drawn back to the other side of the fire and begun to occupy themselves building it up as Dameon sat down beside me on the log and gently took the mug from my fingers. He set it aside and took my hands in his. There were tears on his face too, I saw, but gradually I felt the calmness and acceptance he was empathising. I did not fight or resist his Talent. I let it bring me across a sea of grief to a quiet shore.

‘I am sorry,’ I said at last. ‘I have known for so long that I would have to leave him but it makes no difference.’ My throat was hoarse as if I had wept for hours.

Analivia brought me another bowl of stew, watered into a thick soup.

‘Eat,’ Dameon said. ‘You can be frugal later. It seems we might all have to be frugal soon, if the way ahead is as bare as the way here.’

‘I don’t understand any of this,’ I said, heaving a sigh and warming my hands on the bowl. ‘I was always told to say nothing of … of what I had to do. Right from the beginning it was a secret. Only Maruman and Gahltha knew, and Swallow, a little, because of the ancient promises.’ No one spoke so I asked Dameon to go on.

He shrugged. ‘Rasial and Gavyn were waiting for me not half an hour from Obernewtyn. Faraf and I had ridden towards the high mountains as Rushton had bidden and Faraf saw them ahead and signalled me. When we came to them, she told me that the dog said the boy would lead me to you. I bade her ask where you were and the dog told her they knew not, but that we were to travel to a place in the high mountains where the sky lay at the bottom of a valley, and that you would come to us there. I did not know what this meant but I had no doubt the same voice that bade me learn to ride had summoned the boy. I did not know why a child would be chosen for the task and not someone older who could communicate with ease and protect us; a child, moreover, with no horse to carry him nor supplies of food or water. On the other hand, what right had I to question his choosing when I was blind? I consoled myself with the thought that we must have been chosen for a reason, though when Analivia told me what she had seen, I wondered what possible use I could be given what you must do.’ He smiled diffidently and then shifted back to his original seat. No doubt my emotions were discomforting him.