Roh stood. He expected Almeysia to admonish him. But when she saw him, she came up short. The expression that crossed her face was one he had never seen on an Ora – guilt mixed with a terrible fear. Yisaoh tipped her head downward, drowning her face in shadows.

Almeysia wet her lips and said, “Rohinmey. You should not be here.” They were three steps below him.

“Yisaoh,” Roh said, “I didn’t know you were in the temple.”

Yisaoh raised her head. She was a tall, handsome woman with knotted curls of dark hair tied back from her face, and a broad, slightly crooked nose, the result of a break many years before, the last time Para was ascendant. Roh remembered that because if it had been any other time, some tirajista or sinajista could have mended the bone before it healed wrong. But her face looked more hollowed, thinner than he remembered, and this close now, he saw the bulk of her figure was made up of her thick coat.

“Oh, child,” Almeysia said. “You always could see too much.”

Yisaoh moved up one step into the cramped space. Roh turned, to give her room to pass. She grabbed his arm.

He was so startled he froze. The Saiduan were dangerous people, but not Dhai. Not his own clan mate. Why would she touch him without consent?

Pain burned through his belly. It came so quickly and unexpectedly that he gasped. His legs gave out. Yisaoh cradled him. He saw her pull a blade from his stomach. Saw wet blood.

His blood.

Roh grabbed at her hand, smearing blood on his fingers. The blade came down again. He saw the stain of blood bloom across his tunic and apron. He made a half-hearted attempt to clutch at his wound, to stop the bleeding. Yisaoh’s hand came down again. Pain blotted out sense.

Almeysia knelt over him. She closed his eyes with her leathery hand.

“You didn’t tell me there were novices here who could see through hazing wards,” Yisaoh muttered.

“I didn’t realize,” Almeysia said. “Oma’s breath, I didn’t know.”

Roh saw himself standing in an apple orchard, holding the hand of a small child.

“They’ve arrived,” the child said.

Chapter 5

5