“But then I’m forgetting, aren’t I?” Zsoronga said. “They say your city has stood unconquered for almost three thousand years. The same is the case with Zeüm. The only real threats we have ever faced hearken back to the days of the Ceniean Aspect-Emperors and the armies they sent against us. The Three Axes we call them, Binyangwa, Amarah, and Hutamassa, the battles we regard as our most glorious moments, whose dead we implore to catch us when we at last fall from this life. So as you can imagine, that name, ‘Aspect-Emperor,’ is engraved in our souls. Engraved!”

The same, of course, had been true in Sakarpus. It seemed beyond belief that one man could incite such fear on opposite ends of the world, that he could pluck distant kings and princes like weeds, then replant them together …

That one man could be so powerful. One man!

And in a rush, Sorweel realized what it was he had to do—at last! He fairly shouted aloud, it struck with such sudden obviousness. He needed to understand the Aspect-Emperor. It wasn’t his father’s weakness or pride or foolishness that had seen the Lonely City fall …

It was his ignorance.

The Successor-Prince’s eyes had drifted inward with his retelling, his face brightening with each turn and digression as though at some minor yet critical discovery. “So, when news arrived that Auvangshei had been rebuilt … Well, you can imagine. Sometimes it seemed the Three Seas and the New Empire was all anyone could speak about. Some were eager, tired of living in the shadow of greater fathers, while others were afraid, thinking that doom comes to all things, so why not High Holy Zeüm? I had always counted my father among the former, among the strong. The Aspect-Emperor’s emissaries would change all that.”

“What happened?” Sorweel asked, feeling an old timbre returning to his voice. Zsoronga was no different than him, he decided. Stronger perhaps, certainly more worldly, but every bit as baffled by the circumstances that had carried him here, to this conversation in this wild and desolate land.

“There were three of them in the embassy, two Ketyai and one sausage like you. One of them looked terrified, and we assumed he had simply been overwhelmed by the dread splendour of our Court. They strode beneath my father, who glared down at them from his throne—he was very good at glaring, my father.

“They said, ‘The Aspect-Emperor bears you greetings, Great Satakhan, and asks that you send three emissaries to the Andiamine Heights to respond in kind.’”

Zsoronga had leaned forward in the course of reciting this, hooked his arms about his knees. “‘In kind?’ my father asked …”