Kadaan held out his free hand to Roh. “Up,” he said.

Roh couldn’t move.

Kadaan gripped his hand, pulled him up. Roh found his footing. He was too shocked even to protest Kadaan’s grip.

“That was the last,” Kadaan said as Roh looked back to either end of the table. Fewer sanisi moved among the dead, perhaps only a half dozen standing. How many had been seated at the table?

“My friends,” Roh said, “where are my friends?”

“The dancers are out.”

“No,” Roh said, “the Dhai.”

Maralah stepped up behind Kadaan. She wiped the blood from her weapon onto her trousers. “That could have gone worse.”

Kadaan spit on the floor. The spit was bloody. “Anyone tell you you can see through hazing wards,” Kadaan asked Roh, “or were your Dhais not interested in telling us that?”

“What do you mean?”

Kadaan sheathed his weapon. “More than wards,” Kadaan said, looking back at Maralah. “He saw them clearly. I had to look twice. I felt them before I saw them.”

“No simple ward could get them this far into the hold,” Maralah said. “The boy can see through complex wards, too. That’s a pretty skill.”

“Where are the physicians?” Roh knelt next to Abas.

Kadaan crouched beside him. He gripped Roh’s elbow, not unkindly. “What does a Dhai boy know about fighting? Those were some interesting tricks for a coward.”

“Dhai aren’t cowards,” Roh said. “I’m going to be a sanisi.”

“Are you?”

Kadaan’s face was a hand’s breadth from Roh’s. Roh knew the sanisi wasn’t even ten years older than him, but so close, Roh saw something dark and vast in his gaze – a knowledge of things Roh had yet to grasp, let alone understand. He felt suddenly very small.

Kadaan barked at one of the sanisi to get a physician.

“The Patron’s son,” Roh said, glancing under the table.

Maralah nudged Chaigaan’s hand with her boot. “Gone,” she said.

The sanisi still lingered about the table, inspecting the bodies of the dead men, when Chali came up. He asked, and then hugged Roh tightly. He helped Roh wrap Abas’s head. Chali assured him Abas would be fine. Then he went back down to help the others, the sanisi and petty soldiers alike, until the Saiduan surgeons arrived.

Roh sat on the steps leading up to the dais, waiting for Dasai to send someone to fetch him. The sanisi would not permit him to leave the hall alone, and Chali was helping the physicians.

Kadaan passed near Roh. Roh watched him.

“You do not look much like a boy,” Kadaan said.

Roh wrinkled his brow.

Kadaan stepped over to him. He picked up a chalice from the table. He wet his finger in his wine, reached out. The sanisi’s wet finger touched Roh’s lower lip.