It was the monster in her that fascinated and repulsed him. He wanted to know how she could live that long without giving a shit about anything but herself. When was the last time she had a lover? Did she call anyone friend? Or were they just all business partners, the way Eshe seemed to be? That relationship alone was bizarre enough. The way Eshe looked at Nyx reminded him of the way he gazed forlornly at his own mothers, desperate for love, acceptance. But no matter how hard he worked or what he accomplished, they never regarded him with any sense of pride. To them, he was like a beast already scheduled for slaughter. Why get attached to something that served only one purpose?

Nyx led him through a maze of tents and rocky protrusions that had been repurposed into food and drink stalls. She entered a great orange tent. It was held in place along the bottom by toothy worms, their pointy teeth affixed to the end of the tent, the rest of their bodies driven into the ground.

Inside, he expected to find a smattering of purely practical commodities, but the tent was packed from floor to big top with a dizzying array of goods, many of which he had no name or use for. The spills of round, spiky fruits and red, fleshy vegetables were unfamiliar, as were the hooked instruments hanging from a pole at the far side of the tent. There were piles of textiles, all of them smooth, supple, organic swatches fine emough for a First Family to wear. He saw massive beetle heads, as large as his own, and piles of jagged insect legs and incisors stiff enough to serve as weapons.

Nyx passed him a flat bladder, something that must have come from a long, serpentine creature.

“This is what I was talking about,” she said. “See, you carry it like the bandolier and bulbs, but it holds twice as much. Distributes it better, too.”

“Are you heading further north?” a man said in Khairian.

Ahmed had not noticed him amid the stir of goods. He was a slight man, no larger than Kage, with a knot of dark hair wound about his skull like a crown. Ahmed might have guessed he was Ras Tiegan, if not for his brown skin and bold nose.

Ahmed had found a few who spoke words of Nasheenian and Chenjan, but there were far more languages in the air, only a handful of them related to Khairian. It was strange, to find a world on the other side of the one you knew, something you never knew existed.

“We may be,” Ahmed said.

“You have a sponsor then, to get you over the Wall? Well, you must be careful. It’s cicada season.”

“I’m not sure what that means,” Ahmed said.

The trader must have thought he meant the cicadas, not the sponsor, because he rattled on. “Have you seen the cicadas out here?”