“Thank you.” Samina passed through her like mist through thin fabric. “Now rest.” Awa fell asleep in the heather. Her bees flew into the hive, escorted by sluggish sentinels. Samina slithered close to Djola. Chilly breath prickled his skin. A whiff of raintree made him quiver. “Speak, my love,” she said. “The dead are too quiet, but the living, I hear you crashing through the world.” She circled him. “I worried you might never visit me again.”

“I didn’t want a fight.” The wheel in his heart whirred. “Our last day, before I went to Council, we fought, and I don’t know why—”

“You don’t?” Samina scoffed. “Well, you’ve finally come again and aren’t drugged.” Her hand hovered over the Vévés on his chest. “What cracked your heart?”

Djola swallowed every word that came and shrugged.

She touched his foot, freezing pain. “This wound poisons your blood. It won’t heal.”

“I know.” He drew a breath of her. The raintree aroma was faint, but not just imagined. On previous trips, potions and despair had blunted a desire to cup her breasts, kiss her navel, and draw his tongue along her thighs. This time the longing to be inside her and hold her inside of him made him gasp, gave him strength.

“The golden wheel is good medicine.” Samina glanced at Awa. “An antidote to poison.”

Djola gathered himself and declared, “I have a plan.”

“You brought down Ice Mountain. The Amethyst River is a ruin.” Samina bared granite teeth, as if to tear his flesh and suck spirit blood, like demon Yari. “You will soon be shadow and ash, a lament on the wind. What plan?”

“I thought I was rescuing a girl from the huts,” he said, “yet Awa rescued me. She is the cure that Zizi needs.”

Samina released a bee caught in Awa’s bushy kinks. “What of Awa’s own plans?”

“She’ll come around. When grief dulls.”

“Have you come around?”

He looked away from her. “Yari—”

“Dances with the ancestors.”

“Sister Kyrie came with news. She leaves her mountain and travels to Arkhys City. Hezram travels also, to sit at Council and whisper in Zizi’s ear. He tells everyone you're to blame for poison desert.”

“Only half a lie.”

“You must arrive when Hezram does. Tembe makes corridors for him. High priest Ernold and the Masters of Water and Money welcome him.” Samina’s granite teeth glistened. “They lust after Kyrie’s mountain.”

“Twelve rivers are fed by Eidhou’s peaks,” Djola said.

“Zizi can’t hold out much longer.”

“What of the Master of Grain?”

Samina’s breath had the tang of a lightning storm. “Zizi needs you. Kyrie too. Grain fears someone will discover vie’s secret. They all fight. Too proud to collaborate.”

“Grain is a veson?” How had Djola missed this?

“You can weave peace between them.”