“Those papers are forgeries,” he said. “Cuff him to the chair and leave him with me.”

The soldier did as he asked. I suspected I was going to be killed. I suspected it in a removed, academic way, as if it was not really happening to me. The general pulled up a chair and sat down across from me instead. “Forged papers, and even the forgeries have precinct stamps on them. I am not surprised. All elves are criminals one way or another. All elves are trespassers on the Exalted’s lands and thieves of the Exalted’s goodwill.”

I said nothing. I stared out his window, only half-listening. It was, at least, warm in the room.

He picked up my papers again and thumbed through them. “Is your name Ariah Lirat’Mochai?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me why you have forged papers.”

I looked over and smiled, reckless and stupid, defiant and wallowing in what I saw as foregone conclusions. I am prone to undignified fatalism. “I am an undeclared shaper.”

I caught the tic of nerves on the general’s face. He performed another warding. “Eyes on the floor,” he said. His voice was even, unruffled, but I had felt his hackles rise. I dropped my eyes. “You speak Droma.”

“The soldiers had me demonstrate it on a slave in Rabatha.”

“I am aware. How did you come to learn it?”

“From the slaves in Rabatha. From their songs.”

“Just from songs? No one taught it to you?”

I grinned. I looked at him, then away. “Magic.”

The general sighed. “You are not loyal to the Exalted. I need no magic to see that. You will teach my captains Droma, or you will be put to death for your likely countless crimes against the Empire. Understood?”

“Understood.”

* * *

The one thing we elves have over the tahrqin, our one greatest asset, is not our magic. It’s patience. We can outlive them, so we can afford to be patient. Time is an ally for us and a terrible foe for them. I regret to say I aided the efforts of the Exalted to take the grasslands. I bided my time, and I taught the captains Droma. They were not very good at it; it’s a strange language to someone who only knows Qin. I taught them badly, though, in that way they are used to. Lectures, just lectures. The Butcher sent them out into the grasslands on forays, or brought collected gold slaves to test their language acquisition, and grew more and more frustrated when they remained far from fluent. But I taught the way he had been taught, the way they had all always been taught, which works well for maths and spelling and history and very badly for foreign languages. He begrudgingly saw no fault in me. He demoted captains at such a rate and with such a vengeance that promotion to captaincy was met with condolences.