Roh helped move the bodies out of the main rooms. They were to leave the bodies haphazardly: no stacking, no burning, nothing that so obviously left a trace of their passage. They raided the keep for food, and Kadaan allowed them to light up the braziers but no regular fires. Fires made too much smoke. They covered up the windows of the rooms they used so no light could be seen from the harbor. They posted sanisi at the gate to the keep but left the main gate into the city untouched.

There were only a handful of bears left in the kennels not yet starved or frozen – most of the others had been taken.

That night, Roh sat awake at the foot of Kadaan’s bed for many hours, though Kadaan did not come to bed. Luna always slept with the Talamynii book, and he thought about sitting up with him for a while and going over more characters. But he was restless.

Roh moved through the corridors in search of a friendly face. He found Kadaan in one of the ransacked libraries. Kadaan sat near the soft glow of a brazier. The room was bitterly cold. Roh could see his breath. The books were covered in frost.

Kadaan did not look at him, though Roh knew his presence was noted.

“How did they get in?” Roh asked softly, from the doorway.

“If I knew that, we would not see this. There is a good deal we do not know. More come every month. Like roaches. We cut them down, and still they come. Sanisi cannot train their children so quickly.” He gestured to the ransacked room around him. “They are coming here for knowledge no one has been able to give them. Maybe we should give up on this book business and take what remains of our people south. There is another continent there. Perhaps we will be welcome.”

“You think we’re going to die like they did?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes,” Roh said. “I’m supposed to die an old man in an orchard. If I don’t, it means the seer was wrong.”

“A farmer. Yes.” Kadaan laughed. It sounded very strange in the cold, ruined room. “That explains much about your decisions.”

“I suppose I should have asked what kind of orchard,” Roh said. “A Dhai one? A Saiduan one? Or an orchard on some other continent…”

Kadaan gave a thin smile. “Or an orchard on this world at all,” he said.

“Who are the invaders, Kadaan?”

“I think you know.”

“They’re Dhai.”

“Yes. Dhai who live on some other world, where the Saiduan didn’t kill them.”

Roh let out a breath. “Gods. Why are they killing you? Us? All of us, I guess.”