He shut the gate behind him. One of the dajians saddled his dog, silent and obedient as the mount. As the dajian handed over the reins, Anavha saw her brand in the light of the kennel lanterns. A raised scar of tawny flesh, Zezili’s initials branded onto the back of her hand.

He remembered his own mark, Zezili cutting her initials into him. You are mine. I own you.

He got up onto the dog and whistled him forward.

Zezili arrived at her estate four days later, well after dark. She let Dakar’s reins fall. The dajians weren’t expecting her. She pounded on the gate and called for Daolyn.

The door opened. Pale light spilled onto the walk. Daolyn held a lantern. She had a yellowish bruise along one side of her face.

Zezili pulled off her helm and pushed past her. “What’s happened?” she said.

“Your near-cousin ordered entrance,” Daolyn said. She called for dajians to tend to Dakar and shut the gate after them. “Half a dozen women arrived with her. They asked to see you. When I said you were not home, they turned on Anavha.”

“Where is he?”

“I do not know,” Daolyn said, and Zezili saw her flinch. “The women assaulted me. When I woke, your husband and the women had gone. Tanasai was dead in your husband’s room.”

“Did the other women take him? I will have them hunted down for thieves! If they’ve so much as touched–”

“No, I spoke with the dajians. They said your husband went alone.”

“Alone?”

“Took one of the dogs.”

Zezili let out her breath in one long puff. “Did you alert the priests, the enforcers, any of the others?”

Daolyn shook her head.

“Good girl. And the body?”

“Outside, in the barn,” Daolyn said.

“I must think,” Zezili said. She walked to her room, unshuttered the lanterns. She paced. Daolyn hovered in the doorway.

“He read your last letter,” Daolyn said. “He may have gone to Lake Morta to find you.”

“Why’d you let him read that?”

“I read him your letters,” Daolyn said. “You did not say to keep correspondence from him.”

Zezili swore. The journey had been wearying, and what she found here at the end of it only deepened her exhaustion. Her near-cousin had come here with the intent to use or perhaps harm one of Zezili’s possessions. If it had been Dakar, and Dakar bit Tanasai, killed her even, could the dog be faulted? No, that argument would not hold, not if the priests were called into the matter. No priest would speak of mercy for an act of violence, committed by a dumb beast or no. Would he be foolish enough to travel all the way to Lake Morta?

“Did he take money?” Zezili asked.

“A bit from the petty jar,” Daolyn said. “Not enough for a sea passage.”

“The roads are not safe for an unescorted man. He will not have gotten far.”