The Successor-Prince frowned at his rigid posture, made a waving gesture with the back of his hand. “Uwal mebal! Uwal!” he urged, throwing himself back and wriggling into the soft cushions.

“Lean back,” Obotegwa translated.

“Aaaaaaaah!” the Prince gasped in mock joy.

Smiling, Sorweel did as he was told, felt the cool fabric yield about his shoulders and neck.

“Aaaaaaaah!” Zsoronga repeated, his bright eyes laughing.

“Aaaaaaaah!” Sorweel gasped in turn, surprised at the relief that soaked through his body simply for saying it.

“Aaaaaaaah!”

“Aaaaaaaah!”

Wriggling, they both roared with laughter.

After serving them wine, Obotegwa hovered with the thoughtless discretion of a grandparent, effortlessly interpreting back and forth. Zsoronga wore a silk banyan, simple in cut yet lavish with black stencilled motifs: silhouetted birds whose plumage became branches for identical birds. He also wore a gold-fretted wig that made him positively leonine with silk-black hair—as Sorweel would discover, the kinds of wigs Zeümi caste-nobles wore in leisure were strictly governed by rules of rank and accomplishment, to the point of almost forming a language.

Even though their shared laughter had set Sorweel at his ease, they knew so little about each other—and Sorweel knew so little, period—that they quickly ran short of idle pleasantries. The Successor-Prince spoke briefly about their horses, which he thought brutish to the extreme. He tried to gossip about some of their fellow Scions, but gossip required common acquaintances, and whenever he mentioned anyone, Sorweel could only shrug. So they came quickly to the one thing they did share in common: the reason two young men from such disparate worlds could share bowls of wine in the first place—the Aspect-Emperor.

“I was there,” Zsoronga said, “when his first emissaries arrived in my father’s court.” He had the habit of making faces while he spoke, as though telling stories to a child. “I was only eight or nine at the time, I think, and I’m sure my eyes were as wide as oysters!” His eyes bulged as he said this, as if to demonstrate. “For years rumours had circulated … Rumours of him.”

“It was much the same in our court,” Sorweel replied.

“So you know, then.” Pulling his knees up, the Prince nestled back into his cushions, balanced his wine between long fingers. “I grew up hearing tales of the First Holy War. For the longest time I thought the Unification Wars simply were the Three Seas! Then Invishi fell to the Zaudunyani and with it all Nilnamesh. That caused everyone to cluck and scratch like chickens, believe you me. Nilnamesh had always been our window on the Three Seas. And then, when news arrived that Auvangshei was being rebuilt—”