Little Cloud moaned softly in his sleep and turned over. He had a worried expression on his face and Sorrel half considered waking him before deciding just to let him rest.

She looked at her sleeping companions and sighed. How could she sleep when this time tomorrow night she would be in the Kingdom of Malinas? She drummed her fingers and wondered if there was anything useful she could do while she was up. Then she turned back to Cloud again.

Something was missing. She studied her friend's face wondering what it was. He looked the same, wore the same clothes, had the same...

She looked around the cave in the dim light. They were all there. Gaeshi, Maemi, Orsino, Lachlan, Honovi the seamstress, Malin, Kirin, Jia, Old Synan, Leif and Saoirse getting ever closer and...

Mariko Kint was gone.

And so too had Cloud's dragon amulet!

Sorrel clenched her fist and bit her lip until she tasted blood. Knew we couldn't trust a Lamya! Well there was no way she'd allow this to happen, not while she was awake. She rose to her feet and hurried out to Silence Gorge. She'd find Mariko Kint and the dragon amulet.

#

Mariko had quickly put some distance between herself and the Elani in Silence Gorge. She now sat on top of a small mound of earth in a scrubby field littered with bits of old Lamya rubbish not far from where the slavers slept in their quarters. She studied the dragon scale amulet and then looked out to the line of houses, all in silhouette in the moonlight. Rising behind them in the distance were the green mountains of the Midori.

The row of houses was on the very outskirts of the Kingdom and was occupied solely by the slavers and their families, and the Slavemaster himself. Beyond the homes lay the fields and underneath those, the dank cells where the Elani slaves were kept.

Mariko's nerves twisted in her guts. This was the first time she had been back to her old home in many years. She didn't want to be there, in fact there were a million other places she'd rather be. But there was a battle coming. She knew it and the Elani knew it, Corrinus probably knew it too, but the rest of the Lamya, the ordinary citizens of the Kingdom, were oblivious.

Not that she cared much for them. What had they ever done for her? But she wasn't there to warn the people. Or gain favour with Corrinus. Or even to simply try to make a profit from the amulet.

She had come back to do something which she had never done before. Something good and brave and noble. She sighed and thought to herself that she'd probably spent too much time with Leif and the others.

Because Mariko had come home. To protect her family.

#

Sorrel followed the Lamya's trail through Silence Gorge easily enough, Mariko hadn't made any attempts to cover her tracks, and she was soon completely out in the open away from the Elani safe haven.

She marched on with a head full of angry thoughts, a few were aimed at herself but most went to Mariko Kint. Thieving Lamya! How was she meant to stop the dragon from attacking her friends if they didn't have the amulet? Gaeshi wouldn't be able to turn into a dragon that's all, and then they'd never win back the Kingdom!

She growled in irritation and continued on her way. It would be some time yet before she caught up with the Lamya and when she did, she hoped for Mariko's sake that she had calmed down.