So who was a reeve to talk of justice? Who was anyone to do so? Anyone could be lying. Anyone could be speaking words out of the right side of her mouth and acting opposite them with her left hand.

Aui! His Air-touched mind could not quiet. He must turn and turn things, flit from one thought or memory to the next. He must wonder what was happening in Olossi. He must wonder what would happen to Nasia, who had been his fellow slave and lover for four years even though he had abandoned her the day he’d returned. He must wonder what would happen to the treasure he had obtained far to the south through simple good luck. He had handed off the ghost girl without a second’s regret, trading her freedom and her life in exchange for Zubaidit’s freedom.

He must wonder about the envoy of Ilu he had met on his last journey over the Kandaran Pass. That amiable man had conversed cheerfully with him, had laughed kindly at him: “Goats are inconstant and unstable, prone to change their thinking, especially if they’re Air-touched and liable to think too much. Still, they can survive anything!”

Kesh suspected now that the envoy had been looking for the ghost girl with the demon-blue eyes. It should no longer matter. The envoy was dead, murdered in the bandit attack, yet his face and voice haunted Keshad. How was it that you might meet a person and spend only a day with them, and yet have them imprinted so deeply on your heart and your mind that they could never be forgotten?

The rain eased. The wind stilled. He slipped into a state drifting between a waking dream and a restless doze.

He woke abruptly, but he wasn’t sure what had broken his sleep. Listening, he heard nothing except the whisper of wind through the stones and the irregular drip of water onto stone. Some night animal had been out on the prowl and wandered away, that was all. Yet the night’s unease had returned, and along with it the memory of that last trip over the mountains out of the south. The envoy of Ilu was dead. He hadn’t even known the man’s name, but he could still remember vividly the look of his face and sound of his voice and the effortless way the man had negotiated the twisting paths of life.

AFTER THE TWILIGHT rains washed through, the waters of the wide Olo’o Sea calmed to become a mirror in whose depths burned those few stars visible between tattered clouds. The moisture soaking into the earth woke a sweet scent that permeated the air. Long ago, an unknown hand had planted a stand of thorn trees in a crude semicircle, with the open side facing the inland sea. A traveler’s shelter, four poles and a low thatch roof, was tucked away within that protecting fence. A man uncovered the fire pit and blew on its coals until flame rose along fresh wood. By its light, he sat back on his heels and busied himself with raking stray embers into the center, where he’d built a frame of kindling. Light flared as the embers caught in the wood.