I stood up and walked back to them. I shook from weariness, cold, and dread. My lips, cracked from the icy wind, were caked with dust. I took off the blindfold. To my amazement I saw that the skies were already darkening towards evening. The priests were in the distance, standing in a long line on a ridge. Behind them the towers of Kasimarra rose in mist. The priests were in black, and blackness hung like evil over them. They all wore swords. I strode across the ground between us, climbed the ridge, and threw the blindfold at Maelmor’s feet. I was breathing hard; my throat hurt, and sweat ran down inside my clothes.

“You lied,” I said. “There are no firestones.”

He gave me a strange look, a twisted smile, half victorious. But he said nothing. A fury hit me, so great I could have struck him. For a long time we looked at each other, eye to eye, unflinching; and while I looked at him I saw again that other thing – that slippery, insidious, secret thing. I looked at the priests standing alongside him. They wore the same look. I knew then.

“As God is my witness,” I said, “I am a true diviner. But you are liars and deceivers, and not even true priests.”

Then I turned and started walking towards the city. I had to pass their ranks, and as I passed each priest, I knew I passed the possibility of death. I wondered when they would strike, here or at Kasimarra. And yet a strange peace came over me, an unaccountable certainty that all was well. And through that peace – because of it, perhaps – as I passed the final priests in the line I was aware of a faint vibration. I stopped, transfixed. It was small, a shadow, a merest whisper. But it was there.

I walked back the way I had come, slowly. The hum grew stronger, called to me, drew me. I stopped in front of one of the younger priests. He met my gaze, his face flushed and apprehensive.

“You have a firestone,” I said.

He glanced past the line towards Maelmor. The high priest came towards us, quickly. His face was inscrutable, but he nodded at the priest. The priest slowly put his hand in a pocket and drew out a small object wrapped in scarlet silk. It was bound tightly, and tied with gold thread.

Maelmor stood behind me. He gave an order in the high language, and every priest reached into his pocket and took something out. There before me, bright as fire against the black robes, were two hundred scarlet packages, all identical. I stared at Maelmor, not understanding. He gave me that odd smile again.

“You said there were no firestones, handmaid,” he said. “You see, there are two hundred of them.”

Still I smelled trickery.

“No,” I said. “There is only one firestone. This one.”