“Auvangshei?” Sorweel blurted, resisting the urge to look at the old Obligate, whom he had actually interrupted. He had witnessed enough interpreted exchanges in his father’s court to know that the success of informal conversations of this kind required more than a little pretence on the interlocutors’ part. A certain artificiality was inescapable.

“Sau. Rwassa muf molo kumbereti …”

“Yes. A fortress, a legendary fortress that guarded the frontier between Old Zeüm and the Ceniean Empire, centuries and centuries ago …”

All Sorweel knew about the Ceniean Empire was that it ruled all the Three Seas for a thousand years and that the Anasûrimbor’s New Empire had been raised about its skeleton. As little as that was, it seemed knowledge enough. Just as his earlier laughter had been his first in weeks, he now felt the first true gleam of comprehension. The dimensions of what had upended his life had escaped him—he had floundered in his ignorance. The Great Ordeal. The New Empire. The Second Apocalypse. These were little more than empty signs to him, sounds that had somehow wrought the death of his father and the fall of his city. But here at last, in the talk of other places and other times, was a glimmer—as though understanding were naught but the piling on of empty names.

“Aside from skirmishing with Sranc,” the Successor-Prince was saying, “Zeüm has had no external enemies since Near Antiquity … the days of the old Aspect-Emperors. In our land, we worship events more than gods. I know that must sound strange to you, but it’s true. We do not, like you sausages, forget our fathers. At least the Ketyai keep lists! But you Norsirai …”

He shook his head and cast his eyes heavenward, a mock gesture meant to tell Sorweel that he simply teased. Expressions, it seemed, all spoke in the same language.

“In Zeüm,” the Prince continued, “each of us has a book that is about us alone, a book that is never completed so long as our sons are strong, our samwassa, which details the deeds of our ancestors, and what they earned in the afterlife. Mighty events, such as battles, or even campaigns such as this, are what knot the strings of our descent together, what makes us one people. Since everything that is present hangs from these great decisions, we revere them more than you can know …”

There was wonder here, Sorweel realized, and room for strength. Different lands. Different customs. Different skins. And yet it was all somehow the same.

He was not alone. How could he be so foolish as to think he was alone?