She lifted her head after what felt like hours, her nose clogged and her eyes swollen with crying. She wiped saliva that had collected on her chin. Her tears felt cool against her reddened face and there was a familiar feeling of blood pounding in her ears. Her hair stuck to her face like the cream from the king's dessert.

Dawn was breaking. The ground was flat as far as the eye could see and, at the horizon, there was the beginning of bright yellow against the silhouettes of the shrubs and mounds in the distance. Closer, it stopped abruptly and a flaming orange merged with magenta, ending with the dark bluish-purple above Tia's head.

Her head felt swollen and thinking was difficult. She could feel a dull ache pulsing in her left temple and her breathing was ragged through her mouth, her nose completely occluded.

Winter was coming. Two days later, there was a noticeable icy sheen on the sandstone ground. Her travelling cloak was doing less and less for her; the air cut through her like a knife as she shivered and huddled deeper into the folds. She snivelled; her ears hurt from the wind blowing past.

The carrier was feeling the cold too, stamping, restless, with its long, slim legs and trembling in the drop in temperature. The long path from Capital was bare and empty.  Dry, yellowed grass sprouted in dismal sparse groups. Trees stood at angles, their yellowing leaves dangling, about to fall. Not an animal could be seen. This journey was a stark contrast to the lush green pastures they had passed from Mooncliffe.

She swallowed with great difficulty as a lump came to her throat.

The wind billowed again, chilling her to her core. Her stomach growled and all of a sudden she felt rather light-headed. Leaning into the carrier's neck, she breathed down the neckline of her cloak, trying to warm herself. It seemed so long ago she had fled Capital. It was almost like waking up from a bad dream.

The death screams of the Windcasters echoed in her mind. She shook her head, trying to clear her head as well as her vision, which was blurring at a steady rate. In the distance, a row of houses came into view. Her spirit soared. She urged the carrier ahead, fresh energy coursing through her veins.

It tossed its head but accelerated. It, too, was getting weak from hunger. Civilisation brought food, and it was eager to spend a night eating and resting.

The houses – no, they were more like huts – were sloppily built and there was evidence of repeated repairs, using worn-out material. Thin blocks of grey stone were cemented together, without paint or other materials to protect them against the elements. Chunks of the edges were cracking and some bits had crumbled away. Most of them had no doors, merely holes in the walls where people ducked in and out.

There were a few sellers, but they were nothing more than sale carts parked on the streets. The merchants looked gaunt and were dressed in tattered clothing and their merchandise withered and dusty-coloured. Children dawdled on the streets, with no energy to run and shout, and instead just shivered, huddling close to each other. Their large, dead eyes gazed with a hunger at her as she passed.

This place reminded her of the backstreets of Kiramone, but without the glamour. This wasn't the dark secrets of the pride of Dernexes; it was the poorest regions of the apparently well-to-do country, with a few thousand starving people. The streets were bare and pitiful, the houses worn-down and filled with holes. This was one of the dark corners of Dernexes, with its poverty laid out for the world to see. It was worse than what was depicted in the books.

This was Ratho.

The sun rose higher in the sky; the light only emphasised the decrepit conditions. Sticks were tied together in clutches, stacked on the side of those precarious stone-brick walls. Tattered old clothing hung on washing lines that stretched from one home to another, drying in the day. Even the adults were skeletal, with gaunt faces and bony wrists as they clutched at their patched shawls and shuffled weakly from house to house.

Tia sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She could barely breathe as it was so cold and her nose so blocked. She slid off, grabbing the reins with her half-frozen hand, the other clutching the precious tome and her staff to her chest. She pulled her carrier along; even the animal was exhausted. She needed shelter to rest and she needed food, but she also needed to keep going. No doubt the Mawlinese were aware of the few Casters who had escaped and she knew it was only a matter of time before they found her.

There were no inns in Ratho that she could see. Her stomach burned, her throat was dry as sand and her limbs were weak; her legs carried her of their own accord down the streets, stumbling past the malnourished merchants and the emaciated children. Where could she stay?

"Please..." she said, her voice rusty as she approached a woman who had just left her home. She was wrapped in a thin shawl, her hair tied carefully back, and she carried a small child in her arms. She gave the young girl a wary look. "I need water and shelter for the night. Will you help me?"

The woman had sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, which were grey. She clutched the baby closer to her chest as though afraid that Tia might bite.

Tia withdrew a little, scared.

The woman suddenly spoke, in a strange, flat dialect.

"I am sorry?"

The woman repeated herself, eyeing Tia up and down. She couldn't understand a single word.

"Please... I just need a place to stay. Shelter." She pointed at the home the woman had just exited from. The woman blanched, shaking her head furiously.

"No," she said in a heavily accented voice. "No. You. Trouble. No."

"But I just need–" Tia's knees suddenly buckled, to her immense surprise. Her vision blurred and for a fleeting moment, the world spun. She grabbed for the carrier's neck to hold herself up, not releasing the grasp of the precious tome. Her staff clattered to the floor as she slowly eased herself onto her knees with as much dignity as she could preserve.

"Windcaster!" A hiss came from somewhere behind her. She couldn't locate the voice as her head was still spinning. Several voices echoed in the same urgent whisper. When she next looked up again, a group of people had surrounded her, staring at her with their huge eyes, wearing indecipherable expressions. The whispers rippled through the small crowd.

"Windcaster," said a gruff voice, in the same toneless accent, from somewhere. "Come with me."

She swivelled her head this way and that and finally located the speaker: a middle-aged man dressed in a tattered tunic, with a long beard that was greying. Beneath bushy eyebrows, he had intense, blue-grey eyes. The spectators all parted as she delicately picked up herself and her staff, and pulled her carrier after her as the man turned around and hobbled off.

Her head continued to feel light, but she tried her best to ignore it; instead, she focused all her energy in steering her feet to move in the same direction as the older man, all the while keeping her firmest grip on her valuables with her frozen fingers. It was hard to believe the gentle wind she knew so well could have easily killed her.

She couldn't make out where he was going; she could only hope that it wasn't too far away and that they could give her something soon. Her knees were so weak she worried she would collapse on the streets, from which she would not be able to get up.

In the haze that crept in without her noticing, she somehow found herself sitting in an enclosed side-room, protected from the piercing wind. A heavy blanket, smelling very musty, was thrown around her and she shivered violently, grateful for something thick at last. The pile of straw beneath her was prickly, but it insulated her against the cold stone ground.

A cup came from nowhere and she gulped at it; the contents burned her tongue and seared her throat, but she didn't care. She couldn't taste it, but that didn't matter. The warmth as it arrived in her stomach was rejuvenating. The gnawing pain that had been in her abdomen for the past few days dissipated somewhat and the hollow, lifeless sensations ebbed away. She finished her drink and felt warm down to her fingertips. She huddled closer into the thick material, her eyelids drooping, her joints aching and fatigue settling in.

She suddenly became aware of two figures staring at her from across the room.

"We do not normally have Windcasters in this town," said the man in his gruff voice. The other person, an elderly, frail-looking woman, gave her nervous looks.

"I am sorry," whispered Tia, "but I am desperate. I will not be of any trouble. Please, just let me stay for tonight and I will be gone on the morrow. I beg you."

The man shook his head.

"Windcasters are of no trouble to the people of Ratho. We are still indebted to the Windcaster who helped us Rathians and protected us from extinction six years ago."

The woman behind him muttered something in the strange language. The man tilted his head to the side and then nodded in affirmation.

"My mother said she is happy for you to stay here for as long as you wish. We have little to offer, but at least you will not die here." Tia nodded, tears of gratitude brimming in her green eyes. "She says you may leave whenever you please, but we will not forcibly remove you. We are forever grateful to your kind. My name is Tammuz," he added.

"I am forever thankful for your kindness, also," she said, her voice breaking. Her gratitude must have shown on her face, for the wizened woman nodded at her reply without the need for translation.

Tia settled on the pile of straw. It wasn't the most comfortable of beds, but after three days of riding non-stop, terrified and without food or rest, she could easily have slept out in the cold. The man exited soon afterwards, but the old woman sat across the room from her, stitching clothes in her old wooden chair, looking at her every so often.

Tia soon dozed off, curled into a tight ball, keeping as warm as she could, her arms wrapped around the Book of Wind and one hand clutching her staff. She slumbered long and dreamlessly, and when she woke up, it was already the next day.