“I fear this is something different—something new.”

She suddenly felt cold as the winds that swirled around Stormspike. “New?”

“It is not certain. But my cleric heard from his hearth brother, who is a commander of the Echoes, that I am to be given an important task by the Queen herself. A journey.”

Now the cold that had seized her threatened to become something more, a deadly chill that would freeze her where she sat and stop her heart. “How can that be? How can anyone know it if you have not been told yourself?” She had already despaired of being ready to escape the house before Drukhi’s Day. If the high magister was sent out of Nakkiga now, Tzoja knew she would not live to hear nine bells ring in the great temple.

Viyeki reached out and touched her face. “Are you weeping? How can this be? Such a task from the queen will be a great honor. It will bring great credit on my house and my child, too. Our child. You long for Nezeru to achieve honor—how much easier will that be if I bring a triumph back for the Mother of All?”

“I don’t want my daughter to have honor! I want her to be happy, to be safe!” She looked at his uncomprehending face and the gap between them, the chasm, suddenly seemed not just impassable but incomprehensibly vast. “But it is not even Nezeru I fear for, it is for me. And for you!”

“I do not understand you, Tzoja.”

She rubbed the tears from her eyes. She was furious with herself. The Norns, even the most decent among them like Viyeki, did not understand weeping over such things, no matter the depth of the sorrow, the span of the tragedy. To weep was to mark herself even more firmly as other, as little more than an animal. In her misery, she said something she knew she should not. “Are you really so foolish, my lord?”

He drew back, anger visible in the subtle movements of his face. “How dare you say that to me?”

“Because I care for you. As no one else does. And I am afraid.”

He eyed her as though she might do something even more incomprehensible than crying, might sprout wings or begin barking like a hound. “Afraid? Of me?”

“No, Lord, of your enemies. Of my enemies.”

“You fear the queen’s words too much. You do not understand how things are with my people.” The shift in his tone told her that he had decided that the animal was frightened by what it did not understand, that now he would soothe her. “You live in one of the greatest houses in all Nakkiga, and we have many slaves, mortal and Hikeda’ya. I am High Magister of the Builder’s Order!”

“And that is why you have enemies.” Sometimes Tzoja could not understand how Viyeki could be so canny about the treacherous world outside his house, but so oblivious to what passed within his own walls. “My enemies are right here in this great house. Your servants. Your wife.”

“Khimabu?” Again, he was mystified. “She does not like you, it is true, but she would not dare harm you. You are the mother of my only child.”

Tzoja could do nothing to contain her despair. “That is exactly why she would kill me if she had the chance, my lord. Can you really not see that?”

He shook his head, his expression grave. “If I leave, I will make certain that you are protected. You are accredited to our household list. All is in order and my will has been made clear. Nobody will dare to question it, even if I am absent on the queen’s business. I promise you will be safe.”

It was all she could do simply to find strength to answer him. “And who will keep you safe, my lord? If your enemies destroy you, what will your promises mean then? Great Ekimeniso promised to keep his people free—what did his promises mean after he was dead?”

“Do not quote my own race’s history to me, Tzoja, especially in a way that treads close to the heretical. I allow you much liberty, but that is taking a step too far.” Viyeki rearranged his robes and stood. “I wished only to tell you important news—glad news, in fact, at a time when all is uncertain among the nobles and magisters.”

“No, don’t leave,” she said. “I’m sorry for speaking badly, my lord. Please, if you believe nothing else, believe that you, too, are in danger. Your enemies have been waiting for just such a moment.”

“I will not hear such talk, Tzoja. You may not understand it, but you demean the honor of my entire household.”

It was pointless. She bowed her head. “I am sorry, my lord.”

“You will be safe. I promise you. And when I return, if this great task is indeed given to me, you will be as much the victor as I, because our daughter will also benefit.” He moved to the door. “Do not light any more candles. If you are fearful, remember that your own mistakes can be your worst enemies.”

And with that cold comfort, Viyeki slipped from her room. Like all his kind, he moved with the silent grace of a hunting beast.

But I think it is you, my lord, who does not understand. For all the centuries you have lived, you still do not understand that when great changes are afoot, the old certainties are no longer useful.

When she had given her lover enough time to depart the corridor, she set her bench to block the door and took the hide-wrapped bundle from its hiding place, then carefully spilled the contents onto her bed. A knife, some rope, the stubs of several candles, flint and firechalk, all the things she had hidden away so long ago, as well as the gloves she had bought at the last Animal Market. But she still needed more, much more, and instead of the weeks she had hoped for she now knew she had only days of safety left.

Even if her lover did not realize it, Tzoja knew that nothing in Nakkiga would ever be the same. The queen of the Norns had awakened after her long slumber, and her shadow had fallen upon her people again. In fact, shadows were thickening all across the ancient city

She slid the bundle back into its hiding place, and though she did not dare light the candle again, she still prayed one more time to gods old and new.

Jarnulf knew that in the end, he would have to swallow his hatred of their kind and agree to lead them. The Hikeda’ya scouts he had killed the day before still lay at the far end of the valley, propped against a tree, their destruction marked with the sign of the White Hand. He needed to make sure he kept these Talons from discovering the bodies. Their recent deaths and his own sudden presence would surely seem too much of a coincidence in lands as untraveled as these.

Hiding his vengeful acts was not the only reason he had decided to guide them: whether these Norns were a war party or a scouting party, they were also one of the strangest groups Jarnulf had yet encountered. Their leader Makho was nothing surprising, a cold, practical tactician, a hard-eyed killer armored in the Way of the Exiles. His second in command, Kemme, also seemed a familiar quantity, a soldier who would die happily as long as he could do it with his teeth sunk in an enemy’s throat. But as Jarnulf watched the rest of them coming up the rocky scarp, the snow-covered plain where the diggers had attacked ever more distant below, he found he could not readily understand them. The other Talons, unusual though they might be, the halfblood Sacrifice Nezeru and the young, halfblood sorcerer Saomeji, were at least members of the usual Orders to be found making up a hand, as the dead Whisperer Ibi-Khai had also been. But the largest giant that Jarnulf had ever encountered trudged through the snow behind them, shaggy pelt curling and waving in the breeze, and the presence of Goh Gam Gar confounded him most of all.

“Up here,” he called back to them. The sky was gray and lowering and even in mid-afternoon the light was beginning to fail. He did not want to face night on the ground, not so close to a nest of Furi’a. He also wanted to keep the Talons safe as well, at least until he understood their task, however much he might desire them all dead otherwise. Jarnulf had killed many warriors of their race over the years, but the presence of the giant told him that these five were something different; until he knew what made them so and what they were doing, he needed them alive.