Xessa leapt to her feet and backed away, her fingers tight in Ossa’s scruff until he came with her. She paused one last time at the corner and the Drowned was watching her. Watching, and tapping a long talon against the wall. Amused.

‘We should kill it. I don’t trust it. It’s doing something.’

Xessa’s hands were shaking so badly she could barely sign, and she was breathing hard after running from the womb. She’d told the ejab on guard up there to be extra vigilant and then come straight to the new elder’s house. Elder Rix had been elected by the surviving ejab to take over from Tika, but he was cautious. No doubt he’d relish killing their captive.

Toxte had spotted Xessa as she ran through the city and followed her, not wasting time asking questions. He knew where she’d been, of course, and therefore that the news couldn’t be good, but he looked rattled when she explained what had happened.

‘Of course the womb has magic,’ Elder Rix signed now, with more calm than seemed appropriate. ‘We have known this forever. It was likely the goddess attacking it.’ He paused, thinking, and then nodded, as if that explained everything.

Xessa gaped. ‘It didn’t look attacked. It sang and Ossa wagged his tail. He responded positively to it. He’s knows a Drowned’s song is a warning – all his training reinforces that. And then it did something else and he howled. It, it knows something.’

Rix laughed. ‘The Drowned know nothing other than the hunt and the kill and the imperative to breed. Just because they have hands and can stand on two legs does not make them like us.’

‘I never said they were like us,’ Xessa signed, fuming. ‘I said it was clever. You wouldn’t say a jaguar or a snake is stupid; they are perfectly adapted to their environment and—’

‘And a Drowned’s environment is not a cave two hours’ walk from a water source,’ Rix signed, his face darkening. ‘It is captive and it is hurt. It was probably just … whimpering.’

Xessa knew she’d get nothing else from him. The elder still hadn’t forgiven her – or Toxte – for their reckless behaviour in capturing it in the first place, without telling anyone, without preparing the city or readying the stops along the way where they could put it in water to keep it alive. All those things had been done in a hurry, in the frenzied moments after Xessa had had to set Ossa and Ekka both on Toxte to keep him back from the Drowned and then club it in the head to stop its song.