‘They have and they will return to lead us,’ I said, wanting to ask what she meant by the boy sharing her dream, but Rasial had already turned away, her eyes seeking out Gavyn. Having finished his meal the boy had wandered down to the lake. He was just visible at the outer edge of the light cast by the fire, hurling stones into the water. Watching the big white dog pad down to the pebble shore to stretch out beside him, great paws just short of the edge of the water, it struck me that she could no more bear to be parted from him than he would let himself be parted from her. Was the closeness of their bond connected to what the ridgeback had said about the boy sharing her dream? I thought of how I had seen them gazing raptly into one another’s eyes on the farms some weeks past and wondered again what I would see were I to look at them with spirit-eyes.

At last the sun set and the moon rose. It looked like a worn silver coin above the high sharp peaks surrounding the valley. A thin blanket of mist that had arisen from the lake turned silver in the moonlight as we finished loading the horses, then all of us stood about the fire restlessly, talking in nervous fits and starts and looking expectantly out into the darkness every time there was a sound.

Gavyn gave a hooting cry and we all turned to see the little owl that he had won from Kella winging across the lake towards him, her white feathers glowing in the moonlight. She uttered her own hooting call as she flew down to close her small talons on the boy’s outstretched arm. Rasial had risen and sniffed at the bird who endured it without alarm. Belatedly it struck me that it was this owl that I had seen the night before, flying across the face of the moon.

‘Tell us more of the wolves,’ Dameon suggested, when we had turned back to the fire again. ‘Why were they so full of anger and sorrow?’

I pushed my hands into my pockets. ‘The old wolf that ran off and the she-wolf that led the pack before Rheagor came wanted to kill me, because I am what they call a dinrai. That means a human who can reach the minds of beasts. They loathe us because Ariel was a dinrai and he used his Talent to capture their cubs. The two old wolves were taken captive with the rest of their litter, and held at Obernewtyn before the two of them escaped.’

‘Who is Ariel?’ Analivia said.

I asked Dameon to explain to the others who Ariel was, but after he had done so, he turned his blind eyes to me, and said, ‘Do you mean to say that Ariel was a beastspeaker, as well as empath and coercer?’