“Which few besides you and your crew can pass through.”

“Which none besides me and my crew can pass through. The compounders post sentries, and they’ve shot down bandits and tahrq caravaners two, three times since I started the crew. I had to register the route with the trade offices, and it has drawn some curiosity.”

Sorcha gave her a deferent nod. “Well played.”

“Yes, I thought so.” She retreated to the shadow of the stone ledge and unwound her head scarf. She poured some water from her canteen onto her scarf and wrapped it around her neck. Sorcha and I sat next to her. Tamir began the long and punishing climb up the stone shelf, the better to survey the land and plot the next leg of the journey. Shayat settled herself against the stone, eyes closed. “Welcome, Sorcha, to the edge of the Qin Empire,” she said.

“We’re in it now?”

“We are.”

“Thought there’d be a wall or something. Isn’t there a wall east of the City?”

“There is,” she said. She smiled. “There’s a need for it up there. The desert is passable up there. If it weren’t for the Lost River, this might as well be an ocean. This is the deep desert, the Mother’s Womb; the land is border enough already.”

* * *

Shayat looked at me when Sorcha pulled out his pipe, her face an open question. The day was slow, unhurried. The day had space in it for distractions: herb was mine, and I was hers. I smoked and watched her set up her tent in the hard heat of the day. Sorcha watched me watching her. I knew he had curiosities about her, but he kept them to himself. When I was thoroughly stoned, he took his leave. He had questions for Tamir, he said. I told him Tamir would not answer. Sorcha shrugged and stared off into the desert. “No harm in asking, though, eh?” He took Tamir by the elbow and dragged him away from camp. The look on Tamir’s face when he did it—an expression of shock and irritation, and confusion—was priceless.

I watched them go. Tamir cast one last look over his shoulder, a failed attempt to catch Shayat’s attention. “Do you need a hand with your tent?” I asked.

She didn’t. The tent was already set up; she was pounding the stakes into the hard, packed sand of the badlands. She looked up and smiled. “All I need is company.”