Anna looked into the flames, silently.
"I was thrown into that pit after saving Ayenna from a guard." Rowan said, his voice warm, his eyes far away. "They threw wave after wave of beasts at me. Eventually one tired and ripped my arm from its socket. That's when the clay dolls arrived."
"The next thing I knew pain jolted me awake, and I was looking at my master over there." He pointed to me.
He then drew his sword, and handed it, hilt first to the princess. "And this is the sword I used to defend myself."
"How old were you?"
"Let's see… it was fifteen? Sixteen years ago wasn't it sir?" He said, asking me. He looked apologetically at the princess. "I'm not quite sure how long ago it was, to survive the slave pens, I had taken to chewing the gora root. It tended to make things fuzzy."
"Seventeen years this August." I said.
"Which would make me thirteen, back then."
And Anna turned to me. "And how old were you?"
