Then they rose away, rushed back up to the watery pool above their heads, which was shrinking; with a sudden roar—the room had been nearly silent, save for awed whispers—the water began returning to the fountain, rushing down like torrential rain. The Riverghosts lost their shine, became shadows, less than that. In a matter of moments, the court was as it had been before her father came down. Save that now the people began to shout, shout her father's title. Chakunge!

The warm feeling in her gut had begun to feel "wrong" again by the time her father reached his dais. Hezhi noticed that during the strange performance, her mother and sisters had emerged from their rooms and were already seated on the benches. As the Chakunge joined them, he turned and clapped his hands briskly. The cleared place on the floor—where he had stood so recently— grew wider as many young boys in the dress of priestly acolytes ran about, ushering everyone back. Hezhi watched, interested despite herself. Her father had demonstrated his kinship with the River, shown that he could speak to it, bend it to his will—or more likely, beg its indulgence. What now?

The drums began again, a slow, powerful rhythm like a heartbeat. The dancers came out.

They seemed fragile creatures, men and women alike, until they began to move, to swirl to the ponderous drumbeats; then they became as strong as the drums, as supple as drumheads. This Hezhi had seen before; it was the more standard court performance. Still, the dancers were beautiful to behold, with their sleek muscles and their costumes of silk and feathers. The crowd around her began to squat, or sit cross-legged. Tsem rolled out a little mat for Hezhi—had he been carrying it all along?—and she sat, too.

The story was an ancient one; Hezhi knew it well. It was the story of the first Chakunge, the man born of water. Now the dancers portrayed his mother, Gau, bathing in the River, and now she was heavy with child. Others portrayed the People, harried by the terrible monsters who once inhabited the River valley. A monster under each stone, living in each tree. They were terrible, tyrannical. They captured the daughter of the headman, surrounded her with ugliness and pain.

Hezhi studied the woman portraying the daughter; she was slim, a slip of a girl no older than herself. Sad, she was, bereft of kin, surrounded by monsters. Without hope, for none of the People could save her or even themselves. Hezhi felt a little glimmer of identification. It was easy to guess how she might have felt: alone, threatened, unable to understand the monsters surrounding her.

Now came Chakunge, the Riverson, laughing, full of power. He was clad in the rainbow, in armor of shell and fishbone, in plates from the giant Rivercrabs. His weapons were wit and water, swords and spears formed of the very substance of the River. First he tricked a few of the monsters, one by one. He convinced the first of them—the Black-headed Ogre—that his power came from bathing four times a day in the waters of the River. The monster emulated him and was drowned.

Soon enough, Chakunge was done toying with his foes, however. He went among the monsters who held the chief's daughter and slew them all, turned them into stones and sharks, ground them into sand. He took the captive woman away, asked her to be his queen.

Who will take me away? Hezhi wondered. She had never considered such a thing. But it would be so nice, if a hero like Chakunge would come, free her from her problems, her worries. Perhaps that was where D'en was, off becoming a hero, so that he could come back and rescue her.

After the dance, the people in the hall lined up to file past the fountain; each drank from the water in their cupped hands, praying for their city, their emperor, themselves. Hezhi followed dutifully, and when she came to the fountain her mind was still picturing the dashing dancer portraying Chakunge, laughing, full of power. When she drank, she prayed silently. Send me a hero, she prayed. She felt weak, doing so. She felt as if she were betraying something. But at that moment, it was the foremost thought in her. Send me a hero, she beseeched, and she drank the water.

She had taken only a score of steps, and the water reached the hurtful place in her belly, and there it seemed to erupt, like pine knot thrown on a fire. She gasped and fell, saved only by the quick arms of Tsem from cracking her skull open on the hard marble floor. The water roared in her, rushed out into her veins, fiery. It made her skin feel like dough, like something soft and barely real; reality was the heat, the insides of her.

A hundred times she had taken sacred water, and it had always been just drinking. Now she thought she would die.

Her senses returned soon enough, though. No one but Tsem seemed to pay her much heed; he picked her up, carried her to a bench near the wall, and the two women occupying it leapt up hastily at the look he jabbed at them.

Perhaps Tsem, is my hero, she thought, but no, Tsem was as surrounded by the monsters as she; he was like one of the men the chief sent who failed. But he was a comfort.

Tsem laid her on the bench, and after a few moments the flame became a tingle, an itch, was gone. But something was different, changed.

"I should take you back home now, Princess," Tsem whispered.

"No." Hezhi shook her head. "No, I'm better now. It was just the water… I'm better. I should stay for the rest of this."

"As you wish, Princess." Still, he made her remain on the bench long after she was capable of walking. When finally she wobbled to her feet, his face was filled with concern.

"I'm fine, Tsem," she assured him, but her feet felt like wood and she sat back down, as best she could, with her dress's tail hanging off the back of the bench and resting on the floor.

The ceremonies were over; now servants passed here and there, bearing trays of steamed dumplings, fried fish cakes, strange foods that even Hezhi could not identify. She wasn't in the least hungry; she took a small cup of wine when it was offered, however, and the first few sips of it made her feel better.

She was taking another sip when she heard a polite cough.

"Princess? May I?"

It was the boy, Wezh Yehd Nu. He was dressed in as silly an outfit as anyone, a long robe of silk, green pantaloons, a shirt cut to look like a breastplate.

Hezhi reluctantly inclined her head in assent. The boy sat down. Tsem seemed to have withdrawn to some distance.

"You seem to be feeling unwell," Wezh remarked. "I thought I might ask if there was anything I can do."

"It's nothing," Hezhi said. "I felt a little faint, but I am much better now."

"I'm glad to hear that," Wezh said gravely. He moved his mouth as if to say more, but instead turned his attention back to the crowd. The two of them sat in awkward silence for a few moments.

"My father says these gatherings are the lifeblood of our society," Wezh said at last. "Don't you think that's true?"

Hezhi remembered her father, a blurred image with the River at his beck.

"I suppose," she replied.

There was another awkward silence, during which Hezhi began to feel well enough to be rude. Still, she held her peace. Perhaps those near her—Tsem, for instance—might be a little less annoying if she indulged their wishes just a bit. And of course, her father had probably been so insistent that she come for just this reason. Daughters were best married off early.

Wezh was not unkind or unpleasant looking. Perhaps, if not a hero, he could be a friend. She flinched at that thought—the thought of having another person as dear as D'en to lose—but it was no longer unbearable, as it had been a year or even a few days ago.

"I have a boat," Wezh said cautiously. "A little barge with a cabin on it. My father gave it to me for my fifteenth birthday. Do you like to go boating?"