Yes.’

‘You are not normally so indecisive.’

‘There is a spell around you. Even I can see that.’

‘Why do you say even?’

‘Because my magesight is not good. It has always been worse than most other elves.’

‘I would not have thought you had any flaws. You don’t behave as if you do…’

Tyrion laughed. ‘You don’t like me either, do you?’

‘It’s difficult to like someone so hostile.’

‘I am not always so hostile,’ Tyrion said. He decided it was best to be honest. ‘You bring it out in me. You did before ever I saw you, if truth be told.’

‘Why?’

‘I did not want to become your champion. I was blackmailed into it.’

‘By whom?’

‘By my aunt, a very great and gracious elf lady, not unlike yourself.’

‘You don’t like her either?’

‘On the contrary, I like her very much. I just don’t like being made to do things.’

‘We are all made to do things we don’t like, Prince Tyrion.’

‘Now you sound like her. She said very much the same thing.’

‘Perhaps because life is like that.’ She sounded sad again. Tyrion did not like that. He did not like seeing her as a person.

‘What would you know of that?’

‘I was born to be the Everqueen.’

‘And you did not want to be the goddess of an entire people, of course?’

‘Of course I did. When I was a little girl I dreamed of it. It was only later, when I saw what it really meant, that I had my doubts.’

‘When you saw what it really meant?’

‘What it did to my mother and to me and my sister.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘My mother loved me, Prince Tyrion.’

‘Is that such a bad thing?’

‘And I loved her.’

‘So?’

‘We almost never saw each other. We almost never saw my sister either.’

Tyrion thought he already knew the answer but he spoke anyway – she seemed to need to talk. This was the odd intimacy of strangers met around a campfire, telling things to strangers they would not tell to their best friends. He had experienced it before on his travels. ‘Why?’

‘Because she was the Everqueen and we were her heirs and we could not all be in one place at one time in case we were all slain or captured together. There must always be an Everqueen.’

Tyrion saw the logic of it. ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’

‘A crude way of putting it, but essentially correct. I was taken away from her and put in the care of my aunt when I was small. I never saw my mother until my sister was born.’

‘So you both could not be killed at one time.’

She nodded. ‘My sister and I were not allowed to be in one place together. My mother could see one of us only on special occasions under conditions of highest security, and only for very short times.’

‘After the events of the past few days, I think you can understand why.’

‘I always understood why, Prince Tyrion. It did not make it any easier. I never saw my mother again after my sister died.’

‘Died?’

‘An accident. She fell from a tree into deep water. There were rocks, they say. I don’t know, of course, for I was not there.’

There was something shocking and accusing about her grief.