Around the bulge of Karis’s bicep Zanja could see into the public room, where a couple of hardened drinkers stared at them. “Surely there’s a path by the river,” Zanja said.

Zanja’s limp gave them as good a reason as any to walk arm in arm despite the sweltering heat. She felt dazed, in a strange land, with no familiar landmarks. Dear gods, she thought, what boundary didI just cross? As they walked through the town, Karis stopped to buy some steamed buns from a stall, which did a desultory business. The streets were largely deserted, dogs lay panting in what shade they could find, and every window was propped open. On a day like this, the entire population of Asha Valley could have been found in or near the river, and so it was here. The shady shoreline was crowded with lounging or dozing adults, and still more swam along the banks, keeping an eye on the shrieking children. They found a solitary place at last, where the current was probably too swift for swimming, and they sat side by side upon the damp earth. Damsel flies covered a branch over the water like jewels on a rich man’s jerkin. Karis gave Zanja a dumpling. Its meat filling was so spicy it made Zanja’s eyes tear up again.

“Now stop that,” Karis said.

“It’s really spicy. Gods know I’ll cry at anything lately, but this time it’s not sadness.”

Karis took a bite, and closed her eyes in concentration, chewing. “I guess maybe I can taste something,” she said finally.

“It’s like eating coals from a fire,” Zanja said.

“Is that good? It certainly sounds interesting.”

“In a painful kind of way.”

Zanja had not quite remembered the utter chaos of Karis’s hair, which grew in every direction and was twisted into vinelike tendrils that looked impossible to comb or tame. She had not quite remembered the intense blue color of her eyes, or the fine lines that radiated out from them like the splines of a fan. She had remembered that Karis’s physical presence was a kind of a shock, like a stone tossed into water or a live voice penetrating a dream, but when they last met Zanja had been unable to truly feel the impact of it. Now, with every breath that lifted Karis’s shoulders, every pulse in her throat, Zanja felt her own heart turn over. When Karis turned to her, she did not know what to do. Should she confess? Should she look away?

Karis said, “I’ve thought about you constantly.”

Zanja opened her mouth, but didn’t trust whatever might have come out of it. “How is it possible that you can act like this without desiring me?” she might have said.

Karis said, “Take off your pants.”

Zanja felt a disorientation, then got a grip on herself and said with difficulty, “My leg is healing.”

“Please, Zanja, I beg you. The trajectory of the pistol ball has torn up the muscles of your thigh. Even if it heals you’ll have scarring inside your leg, and the muscle won’t work right because of it, and I’ll never be at peace if I don’t fix it.”

Zanja unbuttoned and pulled down her breeches and lay upon her side while Karis cut the bandage from her thigh. She would turn this experience into a test of discipline, for she seemed to be sorely in need of such an exercise. “Can you leave the scar?”

“For bragging rights?” Karis sounded amused.

“I was abandoned by my fellows in the middle of a firefight because they wanted me dead. That hardly seems a thing to brag about. But I’d rather not have to explain why I don’t have a scar to show for it.”

“All right. I’ll try to restrain myself.”

The violence of metalsmithing had not spoiled Karis for more gentle crafts. She almost made the healing seem as if it were not work at all, except that occasionally a drop of her sweat fell and landed on Zanja’s skin. Zanja worked to keep her breathing steady and her muscles relaxed; her old trainers would have been proud of her. When Karis’s warm hands lifted from her thigh, it was a relief but also a loss.

“That’s better,” Karis said.

Zanja pulled up the bloodstained remains of her pants. “How do you do it,” she asked shakily, “without being able to feel?”

“I feel a little. It’s not much, but it’s all I have.”

“When I think of what you could do …”

“Don’t think about it.”

“The man that got you addicted to smoke–”

“He’s dead already, not that it does me any good.”

“I’d like to kill him again.”

“You’d have to wait your turn.”

Behind the clear eyes, the powerful, passive muscles, the soot ground into her skm, and the quiet, waiting expression of her face, lay a deep anger. Zanja said, “Karis, you are not tame, merely caged.”

Karis made a sound as if she had accidentally sliced a finger. “You know, talking to you is a bit like chewing on hot coals.”

Zanja broke into a startled laugh.

“My raven said you were in a black despair.”

Zanja said grudgingly, “Norina has been as kind as I would tolerate, and I guess it’s done me some good. You must have done something dramatic, to force her to treat me so gently.”

Karis showed her teeth. “Oh, I did.”

“Did you threaten to come get me yourself?”

“Threaten? No, she is immune to threats. I started to South Hill moments after I’d gotten your message, and I challenged Nori to give me a reason to turn back and let her go in my place.”

Karis lay upon her back and gazed up into a sky as blue as her eyes. Her shirt collar was unbuttoned and sweat collected in the hollow of her throat. Zanja shut her eyes and begged the hot afternoon to anesthetize her. After a long time she said, “But Norina seems desperately worried, and much as I don’t like her I must respect her. I wish I understood what she understands.”

“Mmm. This is what you sound like when you’re being diplomatic. It’s not chewing coals anymore, it’s more like–oh, I’m no good at metaphors. You tell me one.”

Zanja tried to think of texture, for although Karis could not taste, she surely could feel enough to be able to tell soft from hard. “Those crisp cakes with chewy pieces of fruit in them,” she suggested.

“They feed those to me when I’ve forgotten too many times to eat. They must be mostly butter. What are you laughing at?”

“You don’t like those little cakes?”

“I hate being treated like I’m an invalid.”

“I apologize. It’s my own ignorance that makes me resort to indirection. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say or know. I don’t know what might hurt or offend you.”

Unlike the sun‑parched sky at which she gazed, Karis’s eyes were a bright, unfaded blue. She squinted them shut suddenly, as though sweat stung them. “When Norina takes you away, you won’t know any more than you do now.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Zanja said.

Karis turned her head. “Norina is my protector because she’s dangerous.”

“Yes, but she has more to lose than I have.”

“Are you going to make me demand that you obey her?”

“Are you going to treat me like a servant?”

“Are you going to make me choose between you?”

“Why not? Norina makes you choose.”

“She has a good reason.”

“What good reason could she possibly have?”

Karis said unsteadily, “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m bound by obligations I can’t explain to you. Why are you so cantankerous? Is it the heat?”

Zanja said, “From beginning to end, this year has been a disaster. But I’ve learned something that you and Norina both don’t know: how impossible it is to really make a choice, when the best choice of all is an option you couldn’t even imagine.”

Karis blinked up at the glaring sky. “Say that again, but fill it up with human experience and leave out the abstract words, and maybe I’ll understand it.”

“The Sainnites defined my choices for me. And before that, the Ashawala’i did the same. Because I am a katrim, and because the Sainnites are fools, I am living a life that I hate. I’m thinking I should do something else.”