Djola said little and listened for truth underneath their words. Hope had become a bad habit. The alternative was despair, and Samina prevented Djola from indulging in that. She’d probably encouraged Nuar to come to Council.

“Xhalan Xhala!” Djola murmured. He would bring Smokeland to the everyday, conjure truth from illusions, from possibilities and maybe-nots.

What else could he do with the bones of the future?

8

Iyalawo

“You know every other spell.” Emperor Azizi’s voice echoed from a hallway. “You must know Dream Gate conjure.”

Azizi stormed into Council followed by Kyrie, Iyalawo—wise woman—of Mount Eidhou and Samina’s older sister. The masters jumped to their feet. Azizi barely acknowledged them. He focused on Kyrie.

“You’re as bad as mobs rioting at our gates.”

Lank gray hair fell over rheumy hazel eyes and made him look older than Djola, yet he was scant thirty-nine. War stole his youth, treacherous peace his middle age. His bones ached and his vision blurred. Azizi had become a bitter old man, seeing enemies and traitors even among his staunchest supporters.

“Why do you thwart me?”

“I am for you.” Kyrie lowered her head.

She trailed Azizi as he limped to the stone-wood table. Short, round, and crisscrossed with silver tattoos, Kyrie was a fortress of knowledge and power. Jewels nested in a cloud of silver hair. Silk tunic and pants floated over an agile form. Her moon face was nothing like Samina’s, yet her voice was almost identical to Djola’s wife’s.

“I’ve never conjured Dream Gates.” Kyrie’s musical accent made Djola ache for Samina like a youthful lover. She nodded at chief cook Lilot lurking in the shadows. Older brother was wrong—the women were here! Kyrie was Djola’s staunchest ally. She’d support his map to tomorrow. “Hezram perverts Lahesh conjure.”

Azizi turned and loomed over Kyrie. “Do what you can do.”

“Arkhys City shelters too many citizens and foreign refugees.” Kyrie used Samina’s inflection for a fact not to be argued with. “We can’t feed them all from Mount Eidhou.”

Azizi hissed, a pot about to boil over. Masters shuffled their feet, tugged beards, and rubbed eyebrows. Azizi contemplated friend rat whose cheeks bulged with goat meat and seaweed. “Be reasonable.” He feared Kyrie might let Arkhys City starve to save her mountain people and wild land. “Be generous.” He dropped into a Lahesh waterwheel chair at the head of the table. “The fire’s gone out. It’s cold in here and dark.”

“Iyalawo Kyrie, esteemed wise woman,” Djola spoke over grumbling masters, “we ask for no more than your people, your land can spare.”

“In Anawanama Eidhou means all rivers flow from my heart.” Kyrie scratched a fingernail across a rock wall and lit a candle with the sparks. “Plundering my mountain—”

“Eidhou is not your mountain, it’s the emperor’s,” high priest Ernold said.