Late that afternoon, Irenya stood behind the physicians outside the walls of the citadel. The sun remained stubbornly hidden behind a leaden sky and the cold bit through her clothes. Elaaron had been right; riding over mountain passes in this weather would have been a disaster. Dressed in grey, Yashi’s fellow guards and friends gathered around his pyre. Something in the shape of the land, the view of the walls, triggered Irenya’s memory. I know this place. Then it struck her, a paralysing blow to the chest. The circle of fire. This is where I thought I was going to die.
She backed away a few paces and eyed Elaaron from the folds of her quilted hood, a bitterness rising in her throat. His slate-grey cloak bore the image of a stylised griffin and the stiffened, upright collar made him seem
