Ysabet smelled hot wool.
There was no wool in the fire. The coals had burned down to powder, and the blanket under her hand was cold. Yet the smell filled her mouth, thick with grease and wet stone.
Pip’s shell touched the dagger. Its feet locked.
For a moment Ysabet saw the ledge and another place occupying the same ground. A vast dim interior, not a room. Upright shapes distributed through it, connected by something she felt in her teeth. Somebody was falling. Somebody else tried to hold an arm which was already gone.
She reached for Pip.
The bond tightened against her hand.
Fear came through with such force that she mistook it for her own. Then the fear divided. Hundreds of small separate movements pressed outward. Behind them was a greater pressure hauling inward, bewildered that the motions did not agree.
Not words. Nothing she could repeat as testimony. A bodily conviction that loosening the grip would be a betrayal of everyone held.
