I ran to scoop up Dragon who had slid boneless to the ground when Moss released her to fend off the owl. I was terrified that he might have killed her but thankfully he had missed the vein. Even so the cut was deep enough that blood ran freely down her neck and her skin felt cold and clammy. I looked up to ask for a blanket and saw Analivia swaying on her feet, her expression a ghastly mixture of horror and triumph.

Only then did I realise that it was she who had thrown the knife.

Swallow put an arm about her shoulders and drew her to sit by the fire as Ahmedri knelt by me and wrapped a blanket around Dragon before lifting her effortlessly into his arms. ‘I will tend her,’ he said, beginning to open a pouch at his belt. He looked at me. ‘I know what to do.’

I knew he spoke the truth, for Jakoby had told me long ago that all tribesmen and women who learned to fight were taught the rudiments of healing because Sadorians believed that one capable of taking a life ought also to be capable of saving one. I was glad when he bade me get water and warm it, for it gave me something to do. But when I tried to pour water from my bottle into a pan, my hand shook so hard that I spilled most of it.

‘You look white enough to faint, too. Sit,’ Swallow said, taking the pan from me and filling it himself before setting it to warm on the fire.

Analivia was rigid beside me, her eyes wide and unfocused. Pity welled up in me as I thought of what she must have endured and I reached out to take her hands. They were ice cold and limp so I chafed them gently between my own until the blankness faded from her eyes.

She took a shuddering breath and looked at me, shame in her expression. ‘I … I dreamed so many times of killing him but I was a child and I was terrified of what he would do to me if I failed.’ She shuddered. ‘I told him that I would tell the Councilman or the healer what he did to me and he said he would cut my tongue and eyes out if I did, for he had no need of them.’

Her words reminded me too vividly of the nightmarish period when I had been a prisoner of the rebel Malik. For a moment I seemed to feel the cold touch of his knife tip against my cheek, when he had threatened to cut my eyes out. He would have mutilated and tortured me before killing me, but he had not been my brother and he had not abused me first.

‘Ana, none of it was your fault or your doing,’ I said softly. ‘Moss was stronger and older.’