She did not seem to hear me as she went on, half babbling and occasionally giving a sobbing kind of laugh. ‘Almost I hated my name, because his mouth could speak it. But my mother gave it to me and … and I loved her. She knew what he would do, I think, before even he knew. She sent me away on errands as much as she could. She had the healer teach me midwifing because it meant I would have to be away from home a lot. She … protected me as best she could but she could not protect herself from my father, and when she was gone, Moss came.’ Tears had begun to stream down her cheeks and I found myself weeping too, because my own childhood, however brutally it had ended, had been full of love.

Swallow sat down on the other side of Analivia and clasped my hands and hers in his. Gradually Analivia’s wild storm of weeping became less violent until finally she ceased with a little shuddering sigh.

‘He was a monster,’ Swallow said, and never had I heard him speak with such icy rage.

‘He was my brother and I killed him,’ Analivia said. She sounded numb and exhausted.

‘You did not kill him out of hate or the desire for revenge, though you had reason enough to feel both. You killed him to protect Dragon.’

Analivia looked at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable, and then she took her hands from ours, covered her face with them and began to weep again, very softly.

We spent the remainder of the night in the hollow for Dragon’s sake, in the hope that she would wake. Her skin was very cool and pale, a sure sign of shock, Ahmedri said, and Swallow agreed. I felt only a terrible sense of weariness at seeing her lost in sleep yet again. I did not dare try to enter her mind to draw her out. I could only pray, as I had done so many times before, that she would wake and that her mind and memories would be intact.

I had farsent Dameon to let the others know what had happened, and they all hurried back to the hollow. The moon was setting by the time Gavyn and Rasial appeared, with Dameon and the horses. The little owl, which I had not seen for days and had all but forgotten until she attacked Moss, was sitting on Gavyn’s shoulder, her eyes wide and yellow in the darkness.

‘Did you send Fey?’ I asked Rasial, remembering the name Kella had given her.

‘The cub did,’ Rasial said when Gavyn did not even seem to hear the question. ‘We flew with the bird and watched in spirit-form, and when we saw that the funaga-li meant to kill the she-cub we bade her attack.’