For a full twenty-four hours preceding the battle, Anapa had lain in a dark room with a cold compress strewn across his forehead. The headache seemed to throb throughout his body and made him physically sick. He’d sent word to the king as soon as the premonitions of impeding deaths had started, but had not received an elaborative response back. Anapa guessed, from this, that the king knew about the upcoming battle. Presumably he was the orchestrator.

He pressed the cool flannel against his forehead, watching the unintelligible images flash through his brain like fireworks. Anapa had learned long ago never to try and suppress them. It was as well he didn’t, because among the nameless faces fleetingly appeared one painfully familiar one. Anapa sat up on the bed, pulling the flannel away from his face, his skin tingling. The headache seemed to recede slightly as a single thought, clear an inarguable, lodged itself firmly in the front of his mind. Without giving himself a chance to mull it over, Anapa slid off the bed and pulled on the boots he’d acquired over the winter when it was too cold for the sandals he’d traditionally worn on his home planet. The weather was warming, but he’d appreciate the extra protection. As an afterthought, he unpinned the dark cloak he invariably wore. In the hot climate of the kingdom of the Canids, toga-style robes were the norm; although similar robes on Shaman required additional clothing underneath, Anapa had been reluctant to part with the concept. For modesty’s sake he always wore dark trousers and a shirt under the robe but kept the outer layer in spite of the weather. He avoided glancing at the mirror as he stepped up to the door, trying not to think about what he might see – or not see. How much of his former life had been stripped away, now?

One benefit to being the castle’s creepy oddity: no one ever stopped and questioned him. Anapa barely even caught anyone’s attention as he slipped out of the main building and over to the stables where Asper, his thestral, was kept. He mounted, noting with pleasant surprise how easy it was without his robe, and urged the animal up into the air. Asper didn’t need to be told where to go; he followed the smell of death over the castle grounds and towards the forest. Anapa brought him down early, amongst a thicker set of trees, and dismounted. While Asper plodded off to find an animal carcass to scavenge, Anapa crept through the undergrowth towards the battle. It wasn’t hard to work out where it was: the clatter of swords, the smell of burning and the pounding headache all told him he was getting closer. The urgency in his premonition told him he needed to get closer faster.

Relying on his psychic abilities to warn him if he was in impending danger, Anapa threw caution to the wind and ran. Princes trained in the art of embalming instead of the ancient skills of the warrior were not, as he had occasion to note, designed for running. His chest heaved as he broke through the line of trees and entered the melee, ducking and weaving around bodies both dead and alive. The thumping in his chest told him it was going to happen, soon. Where was he?

Then he saw it – the archer perched in the tree. Anapa followed his line of sight and felt a surge of adrenaline as he spotted his target. He bolted forward, darting around a blue-uniformed woman with an outstretched sword, and rammed right into the side of Tahl a split second before the arrow whistled past. It hit the tree opposite and exploded, setting the branches on fire. If Anapa had been a second later, the only person on Shaman who had ever treated him like a normal person would have just been a very messy spot on the floor.

It was probably a good moment for a witty comment, but the adrenaline had ebbed away and left him out of breath. Anapa pointed at the archer instead, trusting Tahl could take care of the problem.