“Ngurra.” Tanaros regarded the sun. “What do you want?”

“Truth.” One simple word, spoken in the common tongue. Tanaros sighed and turned. Ngurra squatted on the desert floor, squinting up at him, his brown face a map of wrinkles in the sun’s unforgiving light. “It’s your choosing-time, isn’t it?”

After a day in the Yarru’s company, Tanaros didn’t bother lying to the old man. “Why?” he asked instead, resting one hand on the black sword’s hilt. “Why did you do it? Why did you send this boy, this Bearer—”

“Dani.”

“—this Dani to extinguish the marrow-fire?” Tanaros’ voice rose. “Why, Ngurra? Has Haomane been so good to your people? Did he have a care for your welfare when he scorched the earth? Look at this place!” He gestured at the desert. “It’s barely enough to sustain life! We would have perished here if you’d not shown us how to survive! For this, you seek to thank Haomane First-Born by destroying my Lord?”

“No, Slayer.” Ngurra shook his head. “This is Birru-Uru-Alat. Here, where the Well of the World abides, is the center, the choosing-place. We are the Yarru-yami, and that is the trust we preserve.”

“Haomane’s trust,” Tanaros said bitterly.

The old man gave a weary chuckle. “When did the Lord-of-Thought ever hold choice to be a sacred trust? No, Slayer. He gave us no choice when he brought the sun’s wrath upon us, no more than your Lord Satoris did when he fled to this place. Together, they drove us into hiding. This wisdom comes from the deep places in Uru-Alat, from a time when the world was newly Sundered.” He held up his empty hands, palms marked with ordinary, mortal lines. “Such is the burden we carry. That, and the promise that one among us would be born to Bear a greater one.”

“Aye.” The words came hard, sticking in his throat. “To extinguish the marrow-fire, freeing Godslayer. To fulfill Haomane’s Prophecy and destroy my Lord.”

Ngurra nodded. “That is one choice.”

“It’s the choice he made!” With an effort, Tanaros controlled his anger. It would do no good to shout at the old man. If nothing else, a day among the Yarru had taught him that much. “Why, Ngurra? Why that choice?”

Tilting his head, the old Yarru regarded the sky. “Where were you, to offer another? There are things I could say, Slayer, and the simplest one of all is that it is the choice he was offered. Was Dani’s choice right?” He shook his head again. “I do not know. I only know he is the Bearer, and it was his to choose.”

Tanaros gritted his teeth. “That’s not good enough, old one.”