Ella looked down at the pendant in her fingers. "I don't know. I don't even know if I'll ever see him again."

"He stole your Lexicon, and then he had a change of heart. What made him change?"

Ella remembered her and Killian's conversations about the Primate's dream. It all made sense at a basic level, but she felt that equality always needed to be balanced with opportunity. Some people needed a measure of security from poverty, disease, and the threat of violence — a kind of safety net — but people also needed freedom, and the right environment to grow and fulfil their potential. Destroying the system of houses and making everyone equal under one nation, one leader, might be appealing, but life was never that simple.

Most of all, with each generation came new ideas, and changes to a land's culture and the way people's lives were ordered came about gradually and inevitably. Gradual change was rarely detrimental. There was only one way to bring about rapid, wholesale change in the way the Primate intended.

War.

"We talked, I suppose," Ella said.

"Did you ever think it was more than words that changed his heart? That he might have been in love with you?" Shani asked.

"Me?"

"Yes, Ella, you. You're an attractive young woman. Surely you've seen the way men look at you."

Ella blushed. "I don't know."

Three sharp knocks sounded on the door to their shared cabin. "Ella, Shani. Come up to the deck," Jehral's voice called out.

~

THE ship tacked back and forth as the helmsman and captain worked in tight concert with the sailors. This was evidently a delicate manoeuvre: to line them up at the correct place and slip the ship between the two cliffs that guarded passage to the river that would take them into the Hazara Desert.

Ella, Shani and Jehral stood at the rail, holding their breath as the squat ship lumbered from angle to angle, gradually growing closer to the cliffs and the rocky shores that lined their base.

This far south, the sky was clear and devoid of clouds. Ella looked down into the water and was surprised she could see all the way to the bottom. Starfish dotted the seafloor here and there, and huge fish could be seen swimming in lazy circles. Ella looked back at the wake the ship left behind, where dirty bilge water and food scraps trailed the ship night and day. The triangular fins of sharks pierced the waves.

She looked ahead again, and, high above them, the tall cliffs suddenly loomed down on the ship as she passed between them. Ella could almost reach out and touch the face of the cliff, they were so close, and looking quickly to the other side of the vessel she could see that there was little more room on that side.