Hard to fit in: Kehendaki realising that caring for people is important. But he did at some point work out that it is important though it probably doesn’t make you important. It was about a week from Kushesh — no, New Dol-Rayen — to “the city”, Solay or Aumen Síth,…

The town was all full of people but everybody was busy! Where the ramshackle barracks had been there were several large tents, each with a sign in letters so clear that I could read them: BOUNCERS, WHORES, and so on. Kehendaki wanted to talk to soldiers, and I wanted to…

We found a sharp stone to cut open the beast we’d caught and ate as much of the meat as we could. There wasn’t much on it and it was hard to get it off the bones, so we had to leave most for the foxes and we were still…

(Note: this starts about six months after Khushi and Moyri visited Valdis.) When I came out of my mother’s belly I was the colour of cinnamon bark so she called me after that, Sinkauli. It’s a pretty name! I’m glad I’ve got it. There are lots of worse names to…