We were running out of breath again, and I don't think we'd ever been back to the Basin so quickly. We had to wait until the smoke, the snorting of the horses and the colorful felt of the yurts were only a few hundred spans across the open moor, before we finally allowed ourselves a break. While fear was fading away, my mind was boiling. If the demons of the clan tales reappeared, if a Seïd walked the ground of Brown-Horn, then it seemed to me that this being with superhuman attributes could be an ideal culprit for the murder of Narsi and the fatal wounds that had been inflicted to Nad.

I had seen the terrifying grace of the creature and believed it was more than capable of infiltrating the walls of Castle-Horn without alerting the guards and delivering to my master the inexplicably powerful blow that had ended his life.

As the breeze freshened and Dera breathed, folded in two, her worried gaze twirling at the edge of the woods, I tried to weave even more links, for there remained the essential question of the dreams. My dreams had something to do with all this, I was convinced of it. However, I did not think that the Seïd was the origin of it, for the simple reason that the One in my dreams was unquestionably a female being, and that the demon that had chased us in the simplest device was obviously not. Apart from this detail, which I found very annoying, there was something much simpler. I did not understand. It didn't make any sense. The dreams, the murders, and now the demon and his scal. It was Dera who pulled me out of my thoughts as my gaze wandered through the undulating yarrow:

"We should have been dead, Fyss."

She looked at me almost intrigued, her forehead wrinkled and her nose red, but her chin had become firmer.

"That's what I thought," I replied softly. "The scal could have killed us, easy. So could the Seïd. They could have killed Bard and his bucellarii, and us too if they wanted." Dera nodded. The wind made her locks flicker. "I have to tell dad." She frowned. "He's never going to believe me." I pouted, because I was facing the same problem. I had to tell Sesh about what had just happened, but after his violent warning about the dreams, I doubted that he would listen to such a crazy story. "We shouldn't tell the adults," I said, after a moment of reflection. "You have to take them with you, the hunters. So they can see the tracks. Then you'll tell them." Dera sighed, then shook her head. "No," she said. "I don't want the Seïd to kill my father. I'll never go into the woods again." I sniffed, then spat on the edge of the black granite block at the foot of which we had stopped. "It didn't kill Shortoar or any of the other softies in town. It won't kill your father, huntress." Dera smiled, ruminated a little more, then finally gave in.

"I'll try to come up with a trick so I don't have to go with him alone," she said slowly.

I breathed in sadly as I looked at my feet. "I'm going to have to go home now." "I know," Dera replied soberly. She took my forearm in a warrior salute and hugged me tightly. "Will you come and help us take the yurt down next week?" I nodded, suddenly dull and hollow inside. Dera gave me a furtive kiss on the cheek, her lips fluttered like a butterfly, and then she fled towards the Basin. I hastened on the way to the ridge and then plunged towards Brown-Horn. My overloaded mind had a lot to think, digesting at the same time the departure of Dera, the Seïd, the enigma of the dreams and the improbability of being still alive.

The next day, at the castle, while we were changing sir Shortoar's bedding, Morton told me about the previous day's hunt, which he had heard from the legate himself. The horses had behaved strangely, stumbling and snorting like frightened foals, and, in the kennels, some dogs were still barking fearfully. Bard's people murmured anxiously that this was a bad omen, and the glances and whispers directed at me only redoubled. I thought that this was a good thing, one more argument to be made when I would face Sesh. Even though I knew there was every chance that he wouldn't listen to me, Dera was going to leave, and there was no way I would spend an entire winter keeping the secret, waiting for other bodies to come along and put him on the right track, however whimsical it might be. I was still working out my plan of attack when the fourth day arrived, and I had to, unwillingly, go to the Lemis estate.

It was cold that morning. Holen had been sick, bedridden all the previous week, and his cough had worsened to bloody mucus. I had spent most of my time locked up in the stables, since no one else had bothered to keep an eye on me.

Invariably, when I returned to the estate, the first day was the one I feared the most. Sometimes the stables had not been cleaned while I was away, and I could expect to inherit long hours of hard work and the fierce aches and pains that accompanied the handling of the shovel.

I began my morning trip to the manor with a mind as numb as my frozen fingers, on which I blew regularly. It had frozen, perhaps for the first time in the fall, and I had forgotten my pair of mittens in my room. As I was already late, I couldn't afford to turn back without exposing myself to a solid correction from the stable master, if he was back on his feet. Between the cold and the stick I made up my mind, while hoping that I would warm up working. The upper town district was plunged into an almost unreal silence, each step I took awakened a whole army of echoes. The volutes of a spectral mist hovered around street corners and clung to the walls like ethereal sheets. Eventually I reached the big door of the estate and knocked as hard as I could on the reinforced oak. As always, the doorman (who was half deaf) let me pass by without saying a word to me, and I headed for the stables, while absent-mindedly ogling the frosted flowerbeds.

I found the courtyard of the estate deserted, I pushed open the stable door. One of the steeds was chomping at the bit. I was not angry at the animals, despite all the work their digestion was making me do. To tell the truth, I liked them rather well, because they kept me company during the day, warmed the hay at night, and I think I even gave them little nicknames that I don't remember. I walked to the stalls to greet the horses as I did every morning and suddenly I found my knife.

I should have known better. I should have questioned the unusual silence in the neighborhood that morning. I should not have relaxed my vigilance, nor should I have abandoned the tradition I had established from the beginning of checking my things every night, as Sesh had advised me to do, in case someone tried to smuggle a stolen object into my bundle. But as my attention had been dulled by the monotonous aching and scraping of the shovel, half of the time I even forgot that I was supposed to be a spy on the estate, I'd finally let my guard down. And someone had taken advantage of that to stick the knife Sesh had given me right into Holen's chest.

He was lying on his back in the straw, his clothes torn off and his torso cut off.

There was no blood, not much, and from his sunken complexion I understood that he had been dead for some time. I approached slowly, trying to contain the waves of panic. I grabbed the handle of the knife and pulled. The blade came out in two jerks and appeared much less red and sticky than I had expected. The rest of the hairy trunk of Holen had been clumsily slashed and notched as well. However, the marks seemed random to me. This was not the symbol that had been carved into the meat of Nad or Narsi. It was not a symbol at all. Looking at the wounds more closely, and the lack of blood, I even doubted that the master of the stables would have been killed by the knife. Then a shadow appeared, there was a scream outside and I saw, framed in the doorway, the silhouette of Randu Lemis. He began to scream, again and again:

"Assassin! Assassin! He killed Holen!"

And as I stood there with the knife in my hand and the dead man at my feet without understanding anything yet, common sense absolutely left me and I started running. Randu rushed towards me, Vorhand, the valet, on his heels. Dogs immediately began barking everywhere and it was as if the whole upper city had just woken up. Randu skidded on a clod of manure while I escaped through an adjoining stall.

The horses were stomping because of the swearing and the commotion, and one of them almost trampled on me when I rolled under its belly. Vorhand tried to grab me by the collar as I climbed a fence to the exit, managed to grab my cloak before losing his grip, and I fell heavily on the other side of the stall. I got up, and then Randu was on top of me. He grabbed me screaming and lifted me off the ground, his face red with excitement. "I've got him!" he triumphed. "I've got him!" In my panic I had forgotten the knife, and I think Randu had forgotten it too, but when he grabbed me I suddenly perceived that I was still tightening the shaft. In panic, I sliced through the lot, and Randu screamed in a falsetto voice. I fell on my ass, Vorhand kicked me in the ribs and tossed me into the hay. Randu squeezed his hand against him, and this time there was blood, "My finger! The little savage cut off my finger!" The young aristocrat seemed to have difficulty believing it and yet, curled up in the dirty straw like a small pink larva, was his left index finger. As I was panting in a corner trying to catch my breath and the two men were blocking the only way out, Vorhand judged the time was right to make his master leave the stables. I heard the heavy latch fall back behind him. Outside, new screams were already resounding. "Guards! Guards!" I was trapped.

It took me a while to come to my senses. This time, if the guards managed to get their hands on me, I knew that I would not escape the rope of the Cloister. Driven by fear and despair, I searched for a way out, which I knew all too well didn't exist. After turning like a caged lion, I heard the heavy footsteps of the militiamen, the tinkling of iron in the street outside, on the other side of the walls, and the exchange with the doorman. I thought of hiding in the hay pile without imagining for a moment that it would work, and I thought of the spears probing the straw. My legs began to shake uncontrollably. Maybe I could free the horses and try to throw them at the militiamen when they came for me, but that would take courage, and I didn't have any. Then there was a brief whistle above and I saw the hand, a small hand that had made its way through the thatch.

I climbed the short ladder to the attic in such desperation that I was ready to accept help from any stranger. To my surprise, I discovered Crumby, the little mute who brought me my bread, crouched in the straw. She made a gesture to indicate to me the back of the attic, where the pulley that was used to assemble the haystacks was located. "I unlocked the door," she said quickly. "You can jump the wall from there. Hurry up."

I opened my mouth. Suddenly it appeared to me that she must have been a little older than me, with blond, trimmed hair, but that she looked younger, because she was very small and very frail, like someone's pale shadow.

Obviously, she was not mute at all. "Hurry up," she repeated insistently, while I looked at her in disbelief with round eyes.

I came to my senses as the guard's footsteps pounded the cobblestones of the courtyard. I murmured a very confused "thank you" before rushing to the upstairs door, which I opened instantly. After a few contortions over the void I managed to pass my leg around one of the joists overhanging the roof.

From the courtyard I heard someone shouting. I grabbed the edge of the estate wall, almost lost my balance when the moss slipped from under my fingers, and then, with difficulty, I climbed up on the wet stones. Behind me, in the middle of the soldiers, a man with sharp features pointed at me while shouting. I recognized the face of Franlake's assassin. I swallowed and scraped my stomach when my cloak clung to the rubble and let myself tip over to the other side.

The reception, on the cold cobblestones more than three spans down, was rough.

However, when I managed to get up, the survival instinct took over and I started running. There were people at the windows and doors, some even rushed after me, and the clamor of a small crowd still chased me when, out of breath, I finally managed to reach the upper city gate. I rushed under the arch at full speed, passed under the nose and beard of the two barely awake militiamen who stood guard there, before sinking into the maze of alleys in the lower part of the city. As I stopped to take a breather in the shelter of a winding alley, the alarm bell of the belfry began to ring in the heights of the old wall. I spat on the ground, without the slightest idea of what I had left to do, and tears came to my eyes. It was too late. The guards were about to lock the gates, and I would not be able to leave the city. I left and trotted cautiously to the lower parts of the town, where I would not run into patrols.

I finally found shelter in one of my old hideouts in the Stream district, a small shaky hut clinging to the floor of another building. This abandoned perch overlooked a backyard on Trap street, filled with garbage and pigeon feces. There I sat on the pitted wood and set about recovering my senses.

I had few options before me. I was going to be accused of murdering the stable master and, in my escape, of mutilating the son of one of the most influential men in Brown-Horn. As such, even if I managed to prove my innocence, which seemed unlikely given my reputation as a sorcerer, the finger alone could cost me an ear or a hand. I involuntarily shivered at the thought of the thick blade of the executory legate. I had to leave town, I had no choice. I conjectured that perhaps, perhaps, I could disappear, leave with Dera and her family, go live with the clans in the Highlands and never return. In truth, I saw nothing else to hold on to. So I had to go through the walls, and I had no idea how I was going to do it. What was certain was that I would have to wait for things to settle down. The guards would probably sweep the town and I would have to hide, play hide-and-seek, but for real this time, just like I had done before in the Stream.

Calm seemed to return as I thought about a solution. I took the only apple I had brought from the kitchen that morning out of my cloak's pocket, and as I was biting into it, I realized that I would also have to go out to feed myself. Outside, I could hear the inhabitants of the Stream coming and going, the echo of the barking of stray dogs and the occasional crash of a cart being unloaded. I sighed, my mind swirling as I thought of the assassin, of Crumby who was not mute, of what Sesh would think of all this, and of the black eyes of the Seïd.

My eyes blurred with tears, because I didn't understand, I didn't understand anything at all, and everything had gone so fast. My whole life had just been reduced to nothing. I was a fugitive in my own city and they were looking for me to hang me.

I spent the day without leaving my refuge, wavering dangerously between determination and despair, pacing through slippery feces, building incredible plans that collapsed when my mood changed. Slowly, the night began to fall, and with it, a light rain that dripped on the rotten boards of the hut. I was already hungry, I was also going to be cold. I took refuge in a corner drier than the others and wrapped myself up in my cloak, miserable and furious. Sleep won me over, carried by the darkness and the numbing temperature. Then a familiar voice drew me out of my tormented drowsiness and I opened my eyes to the glow of a torch burning in the courtyard below.

"Fyss! Are you there?"

It was Sesh's voice coming up to me. I was up in an instant, torn between hope and terror. I dragged myself to the entrance like a frightened dog and looked outside with a suspicious glance, my heart beating. The soldier stood in the courtyard, alone, and his torch was raised to the heights. I had told him about my hiding places, of course, but I didn't think he could locate them all with certainty. If I didn't say anything, he would probably go on his way. But at the same time, to see him like that, to see this perplexed face that I knew so well, I felt like hoping, a terrible desire to be reassured. I was so tired, and I wanted to think that he could take care of everything, fix everything, and that things could go back to the way they were before. I withdrew into the shadows and took a deep breath. "I'm here," I said loud enough to be heard over the sound of his footsteps walking away. The soldier turned towards me, his body stiff, and his face was plunged into darkness. I saw him sigh. "Come down, Fyss," he said in a flat voice. "No," I replied. Fear was overwhelming me again, but Sesh was able to find the words to erase it. "You've got yourself into a lot of trouble, boy. We're going to have to get you out of Brown-Horn. I've got a horse waiting for you in Well square. Hurry up, now."

My heart leaped in my chest. I began to cry softly as I crept into the courtyard along the damp woodwork. Sesh was waiting, his moustache trembling, his pale, moist eyes gleaming in the flickering glow of the flame. "I want to go with Dera and the other Chaigs," I told him. He nodded. I followed him, weeping, and we left the courtyard. My protector paused as we entered Trap street. Sesh was looking straight ahead. Around us, the Stream was coming alive for its nightly games. "I'm sorry, my boy," he said in a strangled voice. Then Natime's hand tightened on my shoulder and four militiamen left the twisted shadows where they were hiding. "Don't try to run," Natime said. "I've run enough for the day." I looked up at Sesh in disbelief, and the first-blade turned away. His lie split my soul like an axe, worse than all the hangings in the world. My strength gave up on me all at once, and I was floating in the middle of the bumpy street. Betrayed. Abandoned. Emptied of all substance.

I didn't run.