“You want to become his mate?”

“More,” she said.

He frowned. “More? What more is there?”

She made no reply. Instead she turned to Kundalimon, who said, “I will return to the Nest very soon. The Queen calls me. My work is done here. I ask Nialli Apuilana to go with me, to the Nest, to the Queen.”

The quiet words went through Hresh like scythes.

“What?” he said. “The Nest?”

Earnestly Nialli Apuilana said, the words pouring out all in a rush, “You can’t possibly know what it’s like, father. No one does who hasn’t been there. What sort of place it is, what sort of people they are. How rich their lives are, how deep. They live in an atmosphere of dreams, of magic, of wonder. You breathe the air of the Nest, and it fills your soul, and you can never be the same again, not after you’ve felt Nest-bond, not after you’ve understood Queen-love. It’s so different from the way we live here. We lead such frightening solitary lives, father. Even with coupling. Even with twining, We’re all alone, each of us, locked into our own heads, going through the meaningless round of our existences. But they see a vision of the world as a whole, as a unity, with purpose, and pattern, everything and everyone connected to everything else. Oh, father, everyone thinks of them as sinister evil bugs, as scurrying buzzing hateful machine-like things, but it isn’t so, father, not at all, they aren’t anything like what we imagine them to be! I want to go to them. I have to go to them. With Kundalimon. He and I belong together, and we belong … there. ”

Hresh stared at her, numb, stunned.

This too had probably been inevitable ever since her return from the Nest. He should have anticipated it. But he hadn’t allowed himself to think about it. He hadn’t allowed himself to see it.

“When?” he said, finally. “How soon?”

“A few days, a week, something like that. Kundalimon isn’t quite finished here. He’s teaching the children Nest-truth. Teaching them Queen-love. So that they’ll understand, in a way that none of the older people possibly could. There’s still more that he wants to tell them and show them. And then we’ll go. But I didn’t want simply to slip away without telling you. I can’t tell Taniane — she’d never allow it, she’d clap me in prison to keep me from going — but you, well, you’re different, you see everything so deeply, so profoundly—”

Hresh managed a smile, though shock waves still were rippling through him.

“What I see is that you’ve made me a co-conspirator in this, Nialli. If I speak of it to your mother, you’ll never forgive me, is that correct?”

“But you won’t speak of it to her, or anyone. I know that.”

Hresh contemplated the pads of his fingers. Something cold and heavy was spreading within his chest. The full impact of Nialli’s words only now was beginning to reach him: his daughter, his only child, was lost to him forever from this moment on, and there was nothing he could do about it, nothing at all.

“All right,” he said, at length, hoping he could hide the sadness in his voice. “I’ll keep quiet.”

“I knew you would.”

“But one thing you have to do for me before you go. Or else no deal, and Taniane finds out within the hour exactly what you two are up to.”

Nialli was glowing again. “Anything you want, father. Just ask.”

“I want you to tell me about the Nest. Describe the Queen to me, and tell me what Nest-bond is, and Queen-love, and all those other things. You’ve been keeping everything to yourself since you came back to live in the city. Do you know how eager I’ve been to know about them, Nialli? I couldn’t force you, though. And you wouldn’t open up, not for a moment. Now’s the time. Tell me everything. I need to know. You’re the only one who can teach me. And you will, as soon as the games are over today. That’s the one thing I ask of you. Before you and Kundalimon go back to the Nest. Before you leave me forever.”

Curabayn Bangkea was busily polishing his helmet in the little cell beside the Basilica that was his office when Husathirn Mueri appeared. The guard-captain’s mood was somber, and had been for days. Nialli Apuilana haunted him, sleeping and waking. She danced for him in his dreams, naked, grinning, mocking him, hovering just out of reach. He longed for her in a way that he knew was an absurdity. She was beyond his reach in more ways than one, a woman of the city’s highest nobility, and he nothing but an officer of the justiciary guard. He stood no chance. It was ridiculous. All the same, it was eating at his soul. There was a constant metallic taste in his throat, a pounding ache behind his rib cage, all from thinking of her. These idiotic fantasies, this miserable self-torment! And hopeless, absolutely hopeless. From time to time he would see her in the streets of the city, always at a distance, and she would glare balefully at him the way she might at some creature that had come wriggling up out of a sewer.

“There you are,” Husathirn Mueri said, entering the room.

Curabayn Bangkea let his helmet fall clattering to the desktop. “Your grace?” he said, almost barking it, coughing and blinking in surprise.

“Why such an ill-tempered look this morning, Curabayn Bangkea? Does the rain jangle you? Did you sleep poorly?”

“Very poorly, your grace. My dreams prick me awake, and then I lie there wishing I could sleep again; and when I sleep, the dreams return, no more soothing than before.”

“You should go to a tavern,” Husathirn Mueri said, with an amiable grin, “and drink yourself a good draught, and have yourself a good coupling or two, or three, and then another round of wine. And riot the night away without trying to sleep at all. That gets rid of sour dreams, I find. When the dawn comes you’ll be a healthy man again. It’ll be a long time before your dreams give you the soul-ache again.”

“I thank your grace,” said Curabayn Bangkea without warmth. “I’ll put it under consideration.”

He picked up his helmet and resumed buffing and glossing it, wondering if Husathirn Mueri had any true idea of what was troubling him. Everyone knew how hot Husathirn Mueri himself was for Nialli Apuilana — you had only to look at him when she was around, and you could tell — but did he realize that practically every man of the city felt the same way? Would it make him angry, knowing that a mere captain of the guards was just as obsessed with her as he was? Probably so. I’d do well to hide this from him, Curabayn Bangkea told himself.

Husathirn Mueri said, “You weren’t at the temple for the Hour of Nakhaba this morning.”

“No, sir. I’m on duty.”

“Until when?”

“Midday, your grace.”

“And then?”

“To the Festival, I thought. To watch the games.”

Husathirn Mueri leaned close and smiled — an intimate, ingratiating sort of smile, a disturbing smile that signaled something unusual. In a soft voice he said, “I have a little work for you to do this afternoon.”

“But the games, sir!”

“Don’t worry. You’ll get to go to the games afterward. But I need you, first. To do a little job for me, all right? Something that’s vital to the security of the city. And you’re the only one I’d trust to do it.”

“Your grace?” Curabayn Bangkea said, mystified.

“The hjjk envoy,” Husathirn Mueri said, perching himself casually on a corner of the guard-captain’s desk. “Taniane knows now about his — activities. I mean his preaching, his corrupting of the children. She wants all that stopped as fast as possible.”

“Stopped how, sir? By putting him back under house arrest?”

“More effectively than that.”

“More effec—”

“You know what I’m saying.”

Curabayn Bangkea stared. “I’m not sure I do. Let’s be blunt, sir. Are you telling me to have him killed?”