The gurzas were waiting for us further down the path, beside a large pond. The one called Tuupa lifted its head, water dripping between its front teeth. It trilled and pranced ahead, leading us down the road toward the village.

As we drew closer to the buildings, I could hear voices, snatches of conversation. Figures milled between the rows of crops, occasionally calling out greetings to our group as we went by. Eventually the sea of farmland thinned, and we reached the village. The long, squat buildings were cobbled together with mud and stone and the branches of trees. The town itself seemed to have taken on a green hue—trailing vines climbed up the sides of the walls; trees emerged from the roofs of houses, creating a thick green canopy. The buildings were clustered together in circular formations, separated at intervals by the various worn-dirt paths. Here and there, small gaps between the buildings formed miniature plazas where groups of people congregated, talking and laughing while they worked.

I hesitated as we passed an open-fronted house. Inside, a woman was grinding grain with a smooth stone, while three children ran around her, squealing noisily. As I watched, one of the bigger children chased the smallest one out from under the table she was hiding beneath, and they ran, giggling, into the road.

“Look out,” I said, throwing my hands out as the smaller one nearly ran headlong into me. The child wobbled on her heels, grabbing onto my hand to steady herself. Then she looked up at me, grinning wide enough to show me every tooth she had—and a couple of missing ones—and laughed.

The woman at the grindstone looked up. “Sasin, what do you say to her?”

The girl glanced over her shoulder, then tugged her earlobe in a playful, exaggerated way. “I’m sorry,” she said to me.

“Oh, uh,” I said, “that’s all right.”

The child grinned again and then ran off again, the older one chasing her at top speed.

I glanced at the woman at the grindstone. She smiled. “Children, right?” she said, if that were meant to explain everything. Then she called after them, “Sasin, Enros, if you’re going to play outside, watch where you’re going, please!”

“Yes, Maetrin!”

I started, staring at the children with my mouth open. Maetrin. That was a word in the old language—the word for mother. Those children… she was their mother. All three of them were her children.

Iamos didn’t have parents. None but the geroi. But Elytherios did.

“Something wrong?” Isaak asked as we continued down the track.

I shook my head like I’d seen him do before. He smiled crookedly and tugged his earlobe in reply.