“I want you to know me.” Before she lost heart, Awa blurted her saga in coarse detail, no music or dance embellishments, no poetic flourishes. Even such an awkward telling made her feel better. Sold to save a farm and send her brothers to study in Holy City wasn’t the worst Sprite saga. “Mother was right about Yari and Smokeland—traveling through the regions, understanding the rhythms, a treasure. But—”

“What?” Bal hugged away Awa’s sadness. “What?”

Awa savored Bal’s sweetgrass and iron scent before answering. “My family is a wound, but you’re a balm.” She stroked her friend’s bold cheeks. “Now you tell.”

“I can’t,” Bal stammered.

“Why not?” Awa trembled. The wild dog whined and licked them both. “Don’t you trust me?” She loved no one more than Bal, except maybe Yari. “I told you everything. Even older brother Kenu’s cowardice.”

“I can’t tell you, because—”

“Were your parents desperate savages selling daughters?”

Bal snorted at her. “Savages don’t sell their daughters.”

“Everybody sells their children. To slavers or brothels or enclaves.”

“Empire citizens tell this lie when they steal Zamanzi or Anawanama daughters.”

Awa didn’t believe this, but decided not to argue. “Were you stolen?”

Bal shuddered. “My mind was blank in the void.” She looked away, embarrassed. “I have no memories of before joining this enclave.”

“Oh.” Awa took a breath and scratched the dog. “What’s that like?”

“Like carrying a bit of void inside you all the time.”

“Zst!” Awa rarely cursed. Bad memories were probably better than none. “No memories at all?”

“Conjurers took my memories. It’s supposedly easy when you’re young. Somebody gave me to Yari. I wasn’t sold. Perhaps Yari knows who I am, where I’m from, who my people are, yet even when I beg, vie won’t tell me.”

Awa almost said, that’s awful, but kissed Bal’s cheek instead. “Green Elders are your family and mine too. You can invent a past for yourself if you wish.”

Bal took a breath. “A bold idea.”

“Memory is a story written on your body, who you mean to be, now.”

“What about truth?”

“Truth is what you do with the story.” Awa jumped up and danced around the tupelo trees. Blue berries and purple leaves littered the ground.

“Yari says one of your gifts is weaving strong story cloth from a few threads.” Bal hunched her shoulders. “Griots conjure the unknown from the known. Not me. I’m lost in the void, without a map.”

“I love making maps,” Awa declared. “I could help you craft one.”

Bal jumped up beside her, smiling shyly, an unusual face for a fierce warrior. The wild dog wagged his hind parts, smacking them with a bushy tail. “Go ahead.”