“If we stay here,” the Ila said, and in that little time the earth shivered and shook, so that the aui’it gripped their books tightly as they wrote. “If we stay here, we will die. Do you believe that?”

“I know that for a truth,” he said, trying to gather his wits, beset by her and the restless earth. “I know the way to the tower beyond Pori.” It struck him that the Ila had sent him to Pori, not to the west, not to the north, not to the south, but specifically to Pori. She knew where the tower was. She had known before she sent him.

How much else had she known before she sent him?

“And you can guide us,” the Ila said.

“If I can’t, I have Norit.”

“You have Norit,” the Ila scoffed. “Luz has Norit.”

“When Luz is done with her,” he said, “she’s my wife.”

“Your wife!”

“Norit has no part in what Luz does.”

“Have you?” the Ila asked him sharply. “Have you any part in what Luz does?”

He asked himself. And shook his head. “No.” He added, because it was the absolute truth, “I don’t trust Luz.”

The Ila lifted her chin, looked down at him with hard and suspicious eyes. “Do you trust me more?”

“You never offered me anything.”

The Ila made a bridge of her gloved hands. “Oh, but I did.”

He shook his head, denying it. “I asked a favor of you, and you agreed. You never offered me anything.”

“So I sent you out,” the Ila said, “a man who eluded my patrols for three years, and this Luz took you up as quick as seeing you. Or quicker. She knew who you were. I doubt she had to listen to rumor to know you for the great Marak Trin Tain. You are her prize among the mad. What did she offer you?”

“What she offers everyone. Paradise. Paradise in white tents beside a green river.” That image came back to him, but the more urgent visions were of disaster. “That was before the stars fell. I have no idea what’s become of that place now. I think it’s still safe. I think Norit would act differently if anything happened to her. Luz hasn’t left her but moments at a time, all through our journey. ”

The Ila’s lips rested against those bridged fingers. Her eyes burned, dark and deep.

“I have your mother, Marak Trin, and your sister. And your father.”

So. He had steeled himself against caring. Against anything that could be a weapon in her hands.

“So you promised,” he answered quietly. And suspected everything she said, every motive in her heart. “So I kept my promise to you.”

“Virtuous of us.”

She prodded at him, wanting an answer. He could think of none. He simply kept still.