How, indeed? Klia kept stubbornly silent, hating that it was this woman who had confirmed what she’d been keeping in her heart for weeks. She hadn’t told Thero yet because she hadn’t dared believe it, but she’d missed one moon flow and another was late. As for the how, she could only imagine it had to do with the dragon bite he’d suffered in Aurënen. It had been on the scrotum, after all, and the Bash’wai spirit had told him his kind would be made whole. He still bore the lissik-stained imprint of tiny dragon teeth. It was the only explanation she could think of.

“Please, join me for dinner,” Rhazat said. “The child is no use to you before its time, is it?”

The necromancer’s voice was still sweet but something in her bright blue eyes made Klia’s skin prickle and her gut tighten. Grudgingly, she took her place at the table. The forks and spoons were made of polished wood.

“There now, that’s nice, three women together, sharing a meal,” said Rhazat. She picked up a small clay bell beside her plate and rang it.

Klia glared across at Zella. “So all the while, you were a traitor.”

“In fairness, you can’t really blame her,” said Rhazat, as an emaciated, hollow-eyed woman in an ill-fitting gown and apron entered carrying a roast suckling pig on a platter. Rhazat carved it with a long flint knife and placed the first crispy slice on Klia’s plate.

Even as her mouth watered painfully and her stomach betrayed her with a growl, Klia noted that there were no other knives on the table. “How do you mean, Zella can’t help what she did?”

“Do you really want to know, my dear?”

From behind Rhazat’s chair, the servant caught Klia’s eye and gave her a frightened, warning look.

“Yes, I do,” said Klia.

“Very well.” Rhazat drew a complex sign on the air with her finger. It winked out of existence as quickly as it had appeared, and Zella began to retch out black mist that looked like what Klia had seen escaping from Moonshine’s nostrils when he died. It swirled into a column beside Zella’s chair, then materialized into the tall, oddly proportioned figure of what she could only guess was a dra’gorgos. It was just as Karis had described: a hideous figure shrouded in black, with deeper blackness inside its hood.

The servant fell to her knees with a moan of fear as Zella—pale as chalk now—fell from her chair and scrambled backward, trying to get away from the horrid specter. She looked at Rhazat as if she’d never seen her before, then back at Klia. “Highness, what’s happening?”

Klia gripped the edge of the table, resisting the urge to recoil from the dra’gorgos. “How long has Zella been like this?” she demanded.