Sometimes you had to go with the evidence.

She walked back to the rim of the ledge. Remarkably, the rope she’d left here twenty years ago swayed in the morning breeze, still fastened above. She gripped the rope in a hand and tugged as hard as she could, and cursed if it didn’t hold. Amazing how indestructible good hempen rope proved to be.

She curled up the trailing end of the rope and knotted it in a cradle around her hips. Climbing up on the ledge, she leaned backward into the air and, hand over hand, worked her way up the knob, pausing at intervals to rest with the rope looped up tight around her body. Arms and legs aching, she scrambled the last rugged slope up to the summit where a metal post had been hammered deep into the rock. The frayed remains of banners streamed around her: blood-red, black of night, heaven-blue, mist-silver, fiery-gold-sun, earth-brown, seedling-green, twilight-sky, and death-white. The cloaks of the Guardians.

And she laughed, because there it was. The metal post was hollow, like pipewood, and cursed if someone—maybe the handsome man with demon-blue outlander eyes set in a brown face—hadn’t simply slipped a sword in at the top, the hilt peeping up above the blustery rumble of sun-bleached banners.

NEVER IN HER life before had Mai enjoyed isolation, but after the birth she was content simply to rest on a pallet in the cave, seeing no one, food and drink and cleaning arranged by Priya and, later, Sheyshi. The baby was very small, but he seemed healthy, nursing and sleeping and eliminating. He rarely cried, and sometimes she sat outside on a pillow by the pool and cradled him in her arms as spray off the falls cooled her back. Probably she should not expose him to the moist air, but she felt an inexplicable kinship with the falls, as if it had soothed and comforted her during the final stages of labor when those eerie strands of light had filled the cave. The valley, too, was very beautiful, and its high walls cradled her, the crags and mountain peaks looming like stalwart guards. In this place, she was safe.

“Mistress, do you want to go lie down?” asked Sheyshi.

“No, I’m content here in the sun.”

“You should lie down for one month,” said Sheyshi. “Otherwise the evil spirits might eat you.”

“I’m fine, Sheyshi. Maybe you could brew me some more of that nice tea with spices.” Anything to stop her hovering!

Given a task, the slave hurried off to the small encampment newly set up down the path to accommodate the daily comings and goings of reeves out of Naya Hall bringing provisions and news. The baby slept, his tiny round face entirely peaceful, although he slept so much she had scarcely seen his eyes open except for that first startling moment after his birth when he had stared at her as if recognizing her. He weighed nothing, really, light to hold but so vast that her heart had opened to encompass heavens and earth, fire and water, all of creation.