‘No,’ she cried. ‘I didn’t say he was taken over by a forest-ghoul. I said he might have been.’
The man with the stone hesitated. The others waited, looking uncertainly at Deva.
‘We can put him to the test. We can see if he has been invaded or not.’
‘How? How can we test him?’ the villagers demanded. Deva thought quickly. She did not want the responsibility of a death by stoning. She was already a little ashamed of what she had done. It had started as an idle game, a speculation, and taken on a deadly earnestness she had not originally intended.
‘Leave it to me,’ she said. ‘I am daughter of the High Priest of the Temple of the Sun. I will be able to tell.’
The villagers murmured, knotted together in a tight band, leaving Berd and Deva standing separate from the rest.
She stood direct
