“Neria stopped a dozen steps from us and stared us down. She didn't go for any of her weapons—she knew that she'd be killed before she could draw them—but she was defiant, and angry, and when she and I first locked gazes, something in the world changed.” He shook his head. “I don't know how else to describe it. Even now, I don't think of what we had as love. It was more basic than that. I think it was more like respect. Two warriors, face-to-face, and if it had been fifty years earlier, our instincts would have driven us to fight until one or both of us were dead. But now there was something else happening, and I think we both felt a powerful sense of having moved on. I had left Mancoseria to find my way in the world, carrying these scars as a badge of my adulthood. And Neria, armed like the fiercest raider I had ever heard of, lived in a place where the raiders seemed to have found peace. Even their boats were sunk in the bay, like monuments to past crimes.

“Neria took out a knife, slowly, and cast it down into the sand. I drew my sword and lobbed it, and it landed a handbreadth from the knife. And that ended the brief sense of doubt any of us had for being there.

“Our time in the village was short. My time with Neria was shorter. Though both of us had found peace, our visions were still vastly different. As the days passed, she became more determined to defend her village from anyone who came, and she was terrified that our arrival would herald more explorers in the future. I could not allay those fears, because Jeriglia was already talking of further voyages. And I had left Mancoseria to travel, because I had seen what staying in one place did to people. There were horizons to meet and cross, and I hated the idea of waking to the same view every morning. The life moon gave us legs for a reason.”

He knelt, his knees clicking, and Nomi wondered how far Konrad had already walked on those legs. A long way, she thought. Farther than I have ever ventured.

“What happened?” Ramus asked. Nomi could see how serious his gaze had become, and she was trying to remember where she had heard of Jeriglia.

“It all went bad,” Konrad said. “And it was my fault. Mine and Neria's, at least. I schemed to take her back to Long Marrakash with us. And she had spent much of our time there conceiving an ambush in the hills to stop us from leaving. There were still a few raiders there with their ancestors' hot blood. And so our respect was . . . shattered. False. Even from that first moment when we locked eyes . . . false.”

“You can't be criticized for trying to help,” Nomi said.