I had only a short time – too short – to go and say goodbye to the Quelled, and to Dannii. I came back to the Firelord in tears, and as we climbed the mountain road out of Talbar, rain fell. I walked a little way behind my lord, and noticed that his shoulders were stooped, his walk weary and slow, and he leaned on his donkey for support. He could not ride, with the flowing road so treacherous. Our boots squelched in the yellow mud, and water dripped off our hoods and streamed down our clothes. The way was steep, the rocks rising rugged and watery on either side. The rain stopped after a while, but all around us water dripped and trickled, and on the puddles, ice formed.

The Firelord walked more and more slowly, and I crossed the rain-washed track between us and peered anxiously into his face. “Are you well, lord?” I asked. “You seem tired. Worse than tired.”

He gave me a faint smile. “You read my soul, handmaid.”

I lowered my eyes. “Sorry, lord.”

“It matters not, Elsha. I would rather it were read by you than by anyone else.” He stopped walking and faced me, his breath white on the chilly air. “The earth grieves, Elsha. The earth grieves, and I grieve, and I am weary of the fight. For almost all my life the burden of the Quelled has been my burden, and I have fought to lift the prejudices and the hate against them. And the Chosen still won’t see, even when I give them you. I grieve that they are so blind. I grieve that it is so hard, and will take so long, to change the laws. I am afraid that when I am gone there will be no one else to carry on the fight.”

He started walking again, slipped, and almost fell. I took his arm. “Lord, I will carry on the fight,” I said.

He smiled and put his arm across my shoulder, and leaned on me a little, and we went on walking.

“What damaged my sign around your neck?” he asked presently.

“I did. The house-owner’s wife told me that you made me your handmaid only to appease the Quelled, and to keep peace in the mines that threaten revolt. For one brainsick moment, I believed her.”

He laughed quietly. “For a purpose far greater than that, handmaid, I chose you. Though they believe what they will, for the moment.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he suddenly started singing. A rich, deep, chanting song it was, such as my father used to sing when I was a child. “A Quelled myth!” I cried, amazed, delighted. “You know a Quelled myth, lord!”

He looked at me sideways, smiling. “Tell me one you know, and we’ll sing a myth-song together.”

I sang one of my favourites, a song of earth and ice and fire. After the first verse, he sang with me. We were still singing as we walked up over the first ridge, and saw the mountains marching on ahead of us, the world frozen, overshadowed, dark with smoke and cloud.