“Not all the way into the cave. If you will, Marshal, come and see. It’s a puzzle. I thought you might have an answer.”

She carried the lamp and he the bowl, warm against his hands. The path led through a tangle of growth unexpected after the dry tableland of the Barrens: candle-flowers, plum, falls of sweet-scented heaven-kiss, moist ripe sunfruit, lush stands of uncultivated jabi. This burgeoning orchard of wild fruit was tended solely by the gods’ blessing. He bumped his head on a ripe sunfruit dangling over the path.

Miyara balanced the lamp in one hand and plucked it with the other. “This way.”

No insects chattered, nor did night-waking animals rustle within the growth. The lack of animal noises was unnerving, but at least a stream babbled in the distance and wind caught among the surrounding crags. They reached the pool, deep and round, rimmed by the remains of an ancient building. A waterfall thundered into the pool from the height. They walked alongside walls no more than knee height, worn down by time and wind and rain. Who had built here? Lived here in such isolation? How had they found their way in, when truly it must be impossible to reach the valley by climbing?

Halfway around, as they neared the curtain of water, Miyara halted. The pool rippled with a constant churning. The waterfall glinted with filaments of light, and at first he thought the lamplight was reflecting within the falls and then he realized she had snuffed the wick. A glow emanated from tendrils of writhing light spilling out of the falling water and drifting, as if pushed by the action of wind and water, into a cave carved out of the rock that extended behind the falls.

In that protected cave, the reeves from Naya Hall had kitted out a shelter with a chest, flown in, in which they stored a lamp, oil, bedding, bowls and utensils, and a pot for cooking.

In that cave, Mai labored, and he was cursed sure that if anything bad happened to her, he’d be called—quite rightly—to account for their coming here instead of crossing the Olo’o Sea to deposit her into the capable hands of the Ri Amarah women.

“Were those—things—there before?” he asked nervously, as the glittering strands swirled in an eddy of wind and mist.

“I’m not sure. They’d be easy to miss in daylight. They’re like finest quality silk thread, neh?”

“Miya! Are you there?” Priya called from behind the curtain of water, and because of the noise he could not tell if she was frantic or just searching with her voice.

The reeve set down the lamp and took the bowl of tea out of Joss’s hands. “Keep the water hot.”

“There’s nothing else I can do?”

She shrugged. “This isn’t men’s business, eh?”

Walking on a narrow rim that hugged the rock wall, she vanished behind the spray.

A splash disturbed the pool. A dark shape shouldered out of the roil and so quickly slipped beneath that it might have been only a trick of the light, or a reminder from the gods that he was intruding. He started back around the pool, but before he reached the path he heard his name called and turned back.