“Welcome to my home, Elsha,” the man said, taking my free hand. His smile changed, became an almost boyish grin, full of apology and humour. His eyes were the clearest blue, and looked striking against his dark skin. “I’ve put firestone dust all over you, I’m sorry.”

I looked down at my clothes, and thought that I would never wash them again. “It doesn’t matter, lord,” I said. “I am used to firestone dust. I worked in a mine myself.” The admission punished me, but he had to know, as he must have missed my brand.

“So I noticed,” he said. “Don’t call me lord, Elsha. My name is Teraj.”

He released my hand, and we began walking across the dusty plain towards the houses. Teraj walked with his arm about my lord, tenderly, like a loving son with a father. I took the rope about the donkey’s neck and walked a little way behind. People came out of the houses or over from the gardens to wave to us and call greetings, and many children appeared and skipped alongside us, enchanted with my bird.

I noticed that most of the people were Quelled, and had been terribly injured. Many of them limped or walked leaning on their friends, or had no arms or hands. I saw a man walking with a stick, tapping it on the ground before him, as though he could not see. One of the children ran over to him and talked excitedly of us, and he looked in our direction, and waved. It suddenly struck me that I had never seen a Quelled before who couldn’t work. Dannii was the only one I had ever seen who was too crippled to work in the mine, but she had been able to do caretaker work. Yet many of these people here could not even have been caretakers; they were too crippled, beyond being useful to the Chosen. I marvelled that I had never wondered before what happened to the Quelled too injured or sick to work. I had never seen any. Had the Chosen killed them? Or had they all been brought here?

I stopped walking, and stared at a girl with no legs, who moved herself around on a small wheeled platform on the ground, propelling herself along with two pointed sticks. I was shocked, appalled, almost sick. She came close by us, and said something to Teraj, and he pushed her with his foot and sent her racing down a gentle slope. She shrieked with laughter, her sticks waving joyously above her head.

Teraj, seeing my face, my horror, said gently, “I will explain all this later, Elsha.”

“But how does she live?” I cried, almost in tears. “And that old man over there, with his eyes and half his face gone – where is he from? What happened to them all? What is this place?”