Vash had no idea what he meant. “But…but what of Prusus, Golden One?”

“He is going with me. Surely our beloved scotarch deserves to see a little of the world, old friend?”

“Of course, Golden One. It is just that he has never traveled before…”

“Then enough talk. I will need my most trusted minister, too. Are you ready?”

“Of course, Master of the Great Tent. Packed and ready to travel, ready to do your bidding, as always.”

“Good. We shall have a most interesting adventure.”

The autarch stepped back into his litter—now that he was dressed in the royal armor, he could not set foot outside the throne room in the normal way, and in fact could not touch ground in Xis until he reached his ship. His brawny slaves lifted him and carried him out of the room, leaving Vash to wonder why it seemed to him as though the world had suddenly spun a little way out of its accustomed orbit.

27

The Players

Fearing for the safety of his new bride Suya, Nushash took her to Moontusk, the house of his brother Xosh, a great fortress built from the ivory of the moon (which becomes a tusk each month and then falls from the sky.) But hear me! Argal, Xergal, and Efiyal learned from Shoshem the Trickster where she was, and raised a great army to come against it.

—from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One

ALONE AGAIN. Lost again. Cursed and lost and alone…

Briony wiped hard at her cheeks with the back of her hand, scrubbing away the tears. No. Get up, you stupid girl! What was she doing, weeping like a child? How long had she been sitting here alone at the edge of the forest as the sun began to set? What kind of fool would sit blubbering while the moon rose and the wolves came out?

She staggered to her feet, weak-kneed and exhausted although she hadn’t moved for a long, long time. Had it all been a dream, then—the demigoddess Lisiya, the food, the stories of the gods and their battles? Only the dream of someone lost and wandering?

But wait—Lisiya had given her something, some amulet to carry. Where was it? Briony patted at the pockets in the sleeves of her ragged clothing, the long blouse of the boy she had killed, spattered with the dried brown of his blood…

Defending myself, she thought, feeling a warming glow of anger. Defending myself from kidnap and rape!

She could find no trace of any goddess-given trinket. Her heart seemed heavy and cold as a stone at the bottom of a well. She must have imagined it all.

She still had something left in her of the Briony Eddon who been a queen in all but name, however, the young woman who had woken up every morning for months with the weight of her people’s well-being pressing down on her, the Briony who had learned to trust herself in the midst of flattering counselors and scheming enemies. That Briony possessed more than a little of her family’s famously stubborn strength and was not going to give in so easily, even now. She began to retrace her own steps—although noting with another pang that hers seemed to be the only footprints—searching along the forest fringe for any trace of her hours with Lisiya, for any real evidence of what had happened.