Saomeji made a sign of regret. “My only real master is my duty to our queen—but no, Makho, I cannot lead us where we need to go. And unless you wish me to talk about it in front of this mortal you so distrust, the reasons will have to wait until you and I are alone.”

Makho stared at him, eyes and face empty as a statue’s. “So what are you saying?”

“This queen’s huntsman knows these lands. We do not. Perhaps after what we have just suffered—and from which we still must escape—this is a stroke of good luck we should not ignore. Perhaps this one can help us find our way, so we do not have to go back to Nakkiga in defeat and failure.” Nezeru heard a gentle increase of emphasis before “we.” What he meant was “so you do not have to go back,” and Makho knew it too.

“None of you has asked me whether I have any interest in leading you anywhere,” pointed out Jarnulf. “To be honest, I am not sure I wish to spend so much time in your company, however exalted it might seem to an ex-slave like myself.”

Makho glared at him before turning back to Saomeji. “Come to one side then and speak your mind to me, Singer. But, mortal, remember this: even if you are a freed slave, the shadow of the kuwa will be on your neck forever. Remain here until I decide what to do with you.”

Jarnulf did not reply to this, but only smiled at him—smiled yet again at an angry chieftain of the Queen’s Talons, as though he feared Makho not at all.

Nobody should ever be that brave—or that foolish, Nezeru thought. What manner of odd creature has found us?

More than twenty years in the heart of Stormspike had taught Tzoja caution, and most of that had been in quieter, safer times, when the queen still slept. Now Utuk’ku had returned, and Tzoja could almost feel Nakkiga shuddering into its old, dark wakefulness.

She opened the door of her small room and peered out into the corridor, the dark, silent corridor that sometimes made her feel she had arrived at the very end of the earth, so far from everything she had known as a child that even memories could no longer reach her. She saw no one, and what was more important, heard no one. Relieved, she ducked back inside.

She grabbed the frame of her bed, which despite not being very large took up much of the space in the room. She pulled it away from the wall, then felt for the sliding panel hidden behind it. When she found it she took the griefstone key that hung on a chain at her neck, turned it in the lock, and slid the panel open.

Inside were her most precious things—a straw doll, a colorful head scarf, a coin—all bits of her childhood and the free life she had led, although they were no longer the only secrets she kept there. She pushed them to one side and removed her candle and two carvings, one a soapstone statue of the Green Mother, Frayja, and the other a Holy Tree made of polished wood, with the upside-down body of tormented Usires upon it. Over the years, some had tried to convince her there was only one god, but Tzoja could not afford to limit the scope of her prayers.

“Please, great ones in the sky, keep my daughter Nezeru safe from harm. Do not let the shadow of death fall upon her. Do not let evil men whisper in her ear, or sing to her songs that will make her heart grow fearful.

“Reward a mother’s devotion, Lady Fray. As no one may enter your sacred bower without your permission, let nothing that means Nezeru harm approach her.” Finished, she kissed the little statue and moved on to the Tree.

“Reward a worshipper’s devotion, Lord Usires. As you gave yourself to protect us all from your Father’s wrath, protect my daughter from the wrathful ones that would harm her.”

All prayers finished, she remained on her knees for some time watching the candle flame, which stood as steady in the breezeless room as if it were carved stone. She stared until she felt almost as though she could surround herself with that flame, could wrap it around her like a magical cloak and fly away from this place. Oh, if only that were true . . . !

Tzoja fought back pointless tears, then realized with a start that she had no idea how much time she had spent gazing at the candle. The noses of her captors were so sharp that the smell of it, small as it was, might be noticed by any Hikeda’ya who entered the corridor. She licked her fingers and snuffed it, then closed the sliding panel. She was just reaching for the goatskin bundle hidden at the very back, which was now her most precious possession, when the door rattled behind her. It was all Tzoja could do to stifle a cry of fear as she tried but failed to slide the panel closed and push the bed back before the door opened.

Her master stepped in. “My shining one, what are you doing?”

She was trembling all over, her relief unable to quiet her terror. She sank down onto her bed as the high magister closed the door behind him. “Oh, my lord Viyeki, you frightened me,” she said. “I was only looking at my things, those few odds and ends you have kindly let me keep.” She prayed he would not ask to see them: she had not been able to hide the goatskin bundle.

“You have lit a candle again,” he said. “I can smell it. That is foolishness, Tzoja—dangerous foolishness.” He knelt beside her, his heavy magister’s cloak rustling. “You are shaking.”

“Your arrival surprised me. I thought it was someone else . . . that I had been found out.”

“Look at you! So terrified!” He sat on the low bed, gestured for her to come into his arms. “And yet again and again you risk your freedom—and mine, I should remind you—for a few superstitious trinkets.”

“I am sorry, my lord,” she said. “I am an ungrateful wretch, it’s true—a fool. But it gives me happiness, to remember my life before coming here.”

“Is your life as my mistress so unhappy, then?”

She pushed her head against the hardness of his narrow chest. He felt more like a slender youth than a grown man, this creature so many times her own age. Sometimes she felt his antiquity as a fatal chasm whose depths might destroy her but could never be known. He was as foreign to her as a horse or a bird, but she did not doubt his kindness. Sometimes she even loved him with the helpless, grateful love of a favored slave, but what else she felt for him she could not say: the emotions were too confusing, too strange. “No, my lord. You—and our child—are the great fortune of my life. If you had not found me I would have died in the pens with the other breeding slaves. How could I be anything but grateful?”

Viyeki leaned back and looked her over carefully. “Grateful is not happy. A pampered slave is still a slave. I hate to see you troubled, my bright gem.”

He was very clever, this immortal who had given her such extraordinary gifts of freedom, had granted her privileges far beyond what any of her kind had ever enjoyed among the Hikeda’ya. Tzoja reminded herself that whatever happened, she must always respect his intelligence. Many of his race were so steeped in the old traditions and hatreds that they could not see her kind as anything except animals, but Viyeki was different. He had thrived in the confusing years while the queen slept, discerning opportunities for useful change where others saw only destruction, failure, the end of everything.

“How can I be troubled now that you have come to see me?” she said, eager to change the subject. “Your company is a cure for all ailments.”

Instead of smiling at such a fanciful notion, as she had hoped he would, Viyeki’s thin mouth pulled into a tight line. “Ah. But I have news for you, and I do not think it will bring you that sort of happiness.”

“What do you mean?” Her heart stuttered. Had she somehow been found out? “You have told me already of the queen’s anger at slaves like me living in the houses of the nobility.”