The questions were as inevitable as the pain, the questions that had pursued him beyond civilization’s perfumed rim. He could have continued asking them, he could have yielded to madness and made them his life’s refrain. Instead he had packed a new life about them, like clay around a wax figurine, then he had burned them out, growing ever more decrepit, ever more old, about their absence—more mould than man. He had lived like some mad trapper, accumulating skins that were furred in ink instead of hair, the lines of his every snare anchored to this silent hollow within him, to these questions he dared not ask.

And now here she stood … Mimara.

The answer?

“I wondered if you would recognize me,” she said. “I prayed you would, in fact.”

The morning breeze sifted through the dark edges of her hair. After so much time spent in the company of Norsirai women, Achamian found himself struck by memories of his mother and sisters: the warmth of their olive cheeks, the tangle of their luxurious black hair.

He rubbed his eyes, dragged fingers through his unkempt beard. Shaking his head, he said, “You look like your mother … Very much.”

“So I’m told,” she said coolly.

He held out a hand as though to interrupt her, then lowered it just as quickly, suddenly conscious of its knob-knuckled age. “But you never answered me. What are you doing here?”

“Searching for you.”

“That much is obvious. The question is why.”

This time the anger shone through, enough to make her blink. Achamian had never stopped expecting the assassins, whether sent by the Consult or the Aspect-Emperor. But even still, the world beyond the horizon’s rim had grown less and less substantial over the years. More abstract. Trying to forget, trying not to hear when your deepest ears were continually pricked was almost as difficult as trying to hate away love. At first nothing, not even holding his head and screaming could shut out the murderous bacchanal. But somehow, eventually, the roar had faded into a rumble, and the rumble had trailed into a murmur, and the Three Seas had taken on the character of a father’s legendary exploits: near enough to be believed, distant enough to be dismissed.

He had found peace—real peace—waging his strange nocturnal war. Now this woman threatened to overthrow it all.

He fairly shouted when she failed to answer. “Why?”

She flinched, looked down to the childish scribble at her feet: a gaping mouth scrawled in black across mineral white, with eyes, nose, and ears spaced across its lipless perimeter.

“B-because I wanted …” Something caught her throat. Her eyes shot up, as though requiring an antagonist to remain focused. “Because I wanted to know if …” Her tongue traced the seam of her lips.

“If you were my father.”

His laughter felt cruel, but if was such, she showed no sign of injury—no outward sign.