And it was dangerous, counting the thin curtains that surrounded them. The whole of his life had turned fragile, and all of life he trusted, all of life he held as his was in his hands, in Hati’s slim, hard arms, in the confident look in her eyes. There might only be this. They might die at any moment. And life had never been worth more to him.

“The Ila knows about the healing, doesn’t she?” Hati asked.

“I think she does know,” he said. Above the tent he heard the thunder, and heard the distant shift of uneasy stone in the ruins. He was too weary to make love. He thought that Hati was, too. They simply looked at one another until Hati’s eyes began to drift shut, and then did close.

He lay very, very still, for Hati’s sake, despite the muttering of heaven and earth, and had one lengthy sleep toward what he thought must be dawn.

Then men-servants came in and provided them clothes, and brought them dried fruit and fresh bread, with butter… butter, which was a rare treat.

Memnanan came next. “Marak Trin,” he said. “Come. The Ila wishes to speak to you.”

Hati was immediately concerned, and was a move away from getting up to go with him, but Memnanan had a word for her, too. “Stay here. He will be safer if you do.”

Hati sank back down and cast him a look as if to ask if he thought that was the truth.

“Do as the captain asks,” Marak said.

Chapter Fifteen

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It is the Ila’s will that the abjori should exist, and at her pleasure and on a day to come, they will cease to exist: for this hour they are the trial of her people, gathering all her enemies together so that everyone may know them.
—The Book of the Ila’s Au’it

Memnanan brought him alone through the maze of veils, stopped him in a narrow space, and nudged his arm to gain his attention.

“The Ila spent the entire night with the au’it,” Memnanan said. “Watch yourself. Rein back that temper of yours. This time it won’t serve you, or the women.”

“Why do you warn me?” Marak asked, trying to catch the man eye to eye. “You being the Ila’s man, why should you warn me?”

“Would you come this far, through so much, to tell her a lie?”

It was the plain truth, he discovered of himself. He was not set on the Ila’s destruction.

Then what don’t you believe? he wanted to ask Memnanan, seeing Memnanan believed him that far. What don’t you believe, and what doesn’t she?

But Memnanan was the Ila’s man.