As the sky lightens, we ride into a village of thatched log cottages. Prince Jakut leads us to a dilapidated boarding house beside a pig farm. The stench of the creatures lingers unpleasantly in all the rooms. We are less than a night's ride from Lyndonia, and no one has told me why suddenly we risk stopping in a public place.

The Prince warms his hands by the blazing fire while we wait for breakfast in the small dining room. I would do the same, but I do not wish to stand so close. Throughout the night, in the intervals between our hard galloping, I avoided trotting by his side, brooding instead over how neglectful I have been in my search of his shrouded memories. The brokenness of his mind disturbs me and quickly drives me out.

"You are sure of this?" the Prince asks Deadran as the old tutor sits down by the fire.

"That will be for Mirra to answer."

I blow on my frozen hands. "Answer what?" I say, impatient for a warm breakfast to banish the chill of my body.

"Whether the innkeeper's wife is Delladean," the Prince says. He walks across the room, passing the small windows and dusty, velvety curtains and takes a seat beside me. He pulls his chair close. Once again, I am conscious of how filthy I am. My dark hair is one huge tangled knot. My shirt clings to my back with sweat, despite the cold, and my face must be as grubby as my hands.

"Delladea is an isolated fort near the northern border," he continues, gaze flickering to the door in case the woman in question returns with our meal. "The mountain pass can only be crossed during two weeks in the summer, so few come and leave, yet it is not far from where I was healed. We will say you grew up there."

Brin, who sits with Tug at the next table along, fiddles with the purple glass medallion beneath his furs. Tug dodges my gaze. I wonder what I've missed in the Prince's plans for me.

"If the woman is Delladean—" Jakut says.

"She's Delladean," Tug interrupts.

"Then this afternoon," the Prince continues, ignoring Tug, "after you have rested, you will stay here, learning as much as you can. I have business to attend to. Tug and I will go together. Brin and Deadran will stay with you. Then we will take a late evening meal here, ride through the night and announce ourselves at the Lyndonian fort tomorrow at dawn."

The innkeeper's wife enters with a great platter of crispy bacon, mushrooms stuffed with melted cheese, and a steaming vegetable broth. I use the entrance to move away from the Prince.

Tug's eyes track the multi-colored bead bracelet slipping out from under the cuff of the woman's shirt. She sets the tray of food on the table, hands trembling. She has not looked at Tug or Brin once.

I have grown so used to their savage tattooed faces, I barely notice them anymore. The Prince might hope to pass me off as a Delladean serving boy, but how will he explain the company of two mercenary bounty hunters? As the woman moves to leave she nods and mutters, "Sirs, Miss."

"My father," I say, addressing her, "thinks he can tell the birth town of any person by the clothes he or she wears."

"Which one is your father, Miss?" the woman asks, wiping oily hands on her apron. I point at Tug. His eyes narrow.

"Oh." A little of her nervousness vanishes. "He barely looks old enough."

"It's the tattoos. They hide his wrinkles." Tug's gaze locks down on me. "My father," I continue "says the bracelet with the colored beads shows you are not from these parts."

The woman ruffles up her sleeve and her fingers hover over her bracelet. "It's Delladean," she reveals. "I've not returned these fifteen years. Too much to keep me busy here." She tilts her head in a respectful nod and returns to the kitchen.

Jakut watches me curiously.

"What was that?" Tug asks.

"You were making her nervous. She needed some assurance a human exists beneath your beast face."

Brin snorts.

The Prince reaches forward to serve himself. "How did you know about the bracelet?" he asks.

"Tug was staring at it," I say. The Prince frowns. Perhaps he thinks I understand Tug too well.

We eat in silence and I am suddenly struck by something. Though I'm dressed as a boy, and my hair is a long tangle like Brin's and I am in the company of men, the Delladean woman did not hesitate in calling me Miss, even before I spoke and my voice gave me away. When Tug and Brin first saw me in Blackfoot Forest, when they took my skinny rags and bones to the Pit, people assumed I was a boy. I have fattened up in the last week. I may have to stop eating so much.

Afternoon sun leaks through the closed shutters. I wake on the bedroom floor with tears in my eyes and the sense of Kel so close, my swollen heart feels ready to burst. While Deadran still sleeps I take off my shirt and wash using a jug of cold water, noticing my rib bones aren't sticking out so much and my breasts are fuller.

I decide to skip eating until later, and spend the next couple of hours inside the innkeeper Addy Mulburry's mind, scouring tedious memories of days that bleed into months, and months into years that all look the same.

By late-afternoon, stars twinkle in the deep night-blue sky. I stretch my legs and stare out the window at the pigs, my thoughts numb from so many hours of Addy's kitchen-hand drudge.

The sound and smells of pigs snuffling and squealing drifts up. In the stables, a horse whinnies.

"I never knew pigs could be so fascinating."

I turn. Jakut stands in the doorway, tufts of hair falling into his eyes. Half his face glows from the candle in the wall sconce, while deep twilight gives the other half of his bronzed skin a silvery tint. He reminds me of the portrait paintings of elegant noblemen and women hanging in the boarding house dining room. His breath is ragged from riding which means he has come straight here after leaving his stallion.

I point to Deadran on the bed, then cross the room. Jakut retreats into the narrow corridor. I join him, clicking the door shut behind me and stand crushed against it to create a little space between us. At least I have washed.

"How have you been getting on?" he asks.

From his casual tone, it sounds like polite conversation, but I sense he is already testing me. "I know the names of every cook, serving girl, butler and footman. I am familiar with the running of Lord Tersil's fort and the names of his wife and children. But my information is fifteen years out of date."

Jakut stares as though he's listening to something other than my spoken words. The sincerity in his eyes tilts me off balance. I think of Tug's words in the forest. I should not need to be warned to distrust the Prince. A child would know this. Yet instinct betrays me.

"If that is all," I say, fumbling for the bedroom door handle.

"Mirra, please, take a walk with me." I grope for an excuse, but he turns before I find one and I am left to follow him through the dark hall.

Outside the moon is bright, lighting our way as we cross towards the stables. This is some consolation as I wish to check on my mare.

"Tomorrow, we will dine in Lyndonia," he says. He ambles with his hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed. I fleetingly wonder where he and Tug have been for the last two hours. "Deadran has instructed us together, but I will need as much help as you can give me. I will not recognize my uncle or aunt or the guards or anyone from the fort."

A sudden thought strikes me. "I could sketch them for you," I say. "I am not practiced with people, but I used to draw some of the forest animals and—" Kel. I stop myself before my brother's name slips from my lips. What is wrong with me? I almost said it aloud.

"Mirra," he says in a low, gravelly voice. My stomach rolls, and I wish I had eaten earlier. I flinch as he takes hold of my shoulders and turns me so we are face to face. "Mirra," he says again. This time his voice sounds softer, almost wounded. "I am sorry for putting you in this situation. If anyone suspects your true nature, I will do everything I can to help you escape."

I stare at my boots and twist my hands together. "My true nature?" I ask, trying to tame the anger rising from the bottomless waters inside me. "Umbra, shadow weaver, glitter-eyed... Are these the words you search for? Is your true nature that you are a prince?"

His arms fall to his sides. "You are right."

The release of his touch returns me to my senses. I shake my head. "Excuse me, Your Royal Highness. I thank you for your consideration."

He snorts in mild amusement. "You reveal me to myself."

I glance up. In the shadows of his face a smile brushes his lips.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I wanted your understanding, Mirra. I wanted you to lighten my guilt, and yet I did not realize this, until you gave me what I wanted without meaning it."

With a sensation I have misstepped, I frown. Why would he need my understanding of his acts? The strong take from the weaker in their quest for better survival. It has always been the way of the world.

In the starry darkness it is easier than normal to meet his probing gaze.

"You do not act like a slave or a prisoner," he muses, almost to himself. "Because you do not believe you are one."

A fresh wave of anxiety pulses under my skin. What is he driving at now? Does he think Tug, Brin and I are working together to trick him? Does he suspect I go with them to Lyndonia because I desire it? He saw Tug and me arguing in the forest. Perhaps captive girls aren't supposed to argue with their abusive captors. And mercenaries aren't supposed to put their lives in the hands of an untrustworthy shadow weaver after killing her parents.

"I have been free for sixteen years," I say. "Two weeks' captivity cannot take that from me."

"It would most. They would know they are no longer free. They would be attempting escape, or giving up."

"The last time I tried to escape," I say. "Tug left a scar across my neck."

I walk further into the stables. A lantern hangs on the barn door, its dim candle flickering in the wind. His words have reminded me of Kel. Pain swells in my throat. The stable boy is brushing down Tug's horse. I find my mare at the other end of the shack, check her water is clean and she has plenty of hay. Will Kel have given up by now? Will he believe there is no hope?

Jakut follows me inside, stopping an arm's length away. He holds the lantern in one hand and strokes the white, splattered star on his stallion's nose with the other. I take deep breaths until the panic ebbs.

"There is something specific you wish to ask me?" I say.

"Yes. Tug and Brin murdered your parents, yet the other day Tug was teaching you to hunt." He speaks in a low voice so the groom cannot overhear. It makes the atmosphere thrum with intensity and I regret coming in here. "He does not act towards you the way he should. The way Brin does. He does not fear and loathe you and you do not fear and loathe him."

"Tug is not superstitious. He pays no heed to the wild stories of the Uru Ana possessing shadow magic. But you are wrong. I would be an idiot not to fear him. And I hate him for taking me from my home, though it is true, I would hate him more if he had killed my parents."

"He said your parents were dead."

"Not by his hand." I am glad it is dark so that Jakut cannot read the lie on my face. "May I ask you something?" I say, hoping to deflect his attention from my family.

"Please," he nods.

"If the attack was from inside your own escort and you were the target, how is it you are still alive?"

His shoulders rise and fall as he sighs. "I have no answer for this puzzle. I only hope Rhag has spared my life because he has some higher purpose for me."

I think of his endless praying before the long-sleep; his decision to risk the spiritual cleansing despite how vulnerable it would leave him. Tug wishes to isolate and control me through my distrust of the Prince. Yet the Prince of Caruca seeks to fill some higher Godly purpose.

"Come," he says, raising the lantern and touching me lightly on the back. "We must return. You are needed in your bedroom before supper. And tonight we have a seven-hour ride ahead of us before we reach the fort."

THANKS FOR READING; THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE POSTED ON FRIDAY 24TH APRIL :)