“I’ll find my mother in Dorinah, then.”

“Have you heard anything I’ve said?” Gian tapped the butt of her weapon. “I’m a parajista with a sword, Lilia, and I’m telling you now – we’re not going to Dorinah so you can track down some shadow working for the Empress.”

Outside the temple, it was people with weapons and strength who pushed others around. If Gian was a stone defender on a screes board, Lilia would employ a flanking defense to sweep her off it. But Lilia had no pieces. And no sword.

Lilia pressed her hands to her face. Her mother had been a little pale like her, she knew. But she had never seen a Dorinah outside a history book. No one told her she had the face of those people, so maybe she did. Maybe they were all too polite to say anything. She didn’t know who she was anymore – a ghost from some other world.

“I made a promise,” Lilia said. Her voice cracked.

“You made a promise to a dead woman.”

As Gian hacked through the undergrowth the next day, Lilia hung back, watching her swing her sword. The heat was intense. Gian had stripped to the waist. Lilia watched her, fascinated by the banded cords of muscle in Gian’s shoulders as she worked beneath the sky. Lilia was strangely mesmerized by her in the warm air and felt foolish because of it. Gian was no more to be trusted than the sanisi, and she was just as ready to use force to get her way. Cicadas buzzed all around them, their song broken only by the screech of some small mammal.

Lilia trudged forward, kicking up the first of the browning leaves. She had not slept.

Gian’s course wavered. She chose to go right instead of left, down a path with less vegetation.

Lilia saw a spidery red tendril curling up from the ground ahead of Gian. She knew it immediately – it was the lure of a bladder trap.

Lilia slowed her pace. Stopped. Gian continued on, oblivious. She was still eight paces from the bladder trap. Plenty of time for Lilia to call out and turn her back.

Gian glanced over her shoulder. “You coming? Our rations won’t last at this pace.”

“Of course, master,” Lilia said. Too haughty, she knew, and immediately regretted it.

Gian stopped. Lowered her sword. “Don’t be like that.” Sweat poured down her face. For a long instant, Lilia wondered, again, who Gian would be, what fate she would have chosen for herself, if she was not bound to Kalinda.

“This was your choice,” Lilia said.

“I like you, Lilia. You’re stubborn and spiteful, just like Kalinda. Don’t make this harder.” She turned back to the brush and started hacking away again.

Lilia shuffled forward to catch up with her. Was she any better than Gian or the sanisi, if she didn’t warn her?

“Gian–”

Gian cursed.