“Shush now. Am I so terrible a wife?” She took one of his soft, slender hands, pulled it to her chest, inside her coat, and pressed it over her breast. “Tell me you have no desire for me at all,” Zezili said. “Say you would rather fuck nothing than fuck me, and I will have it done.”

“You’re horrible,” Anavha said. “You’re horrible.”

“I’m not horrible,” Zezili said, rising. “I’m your wife.”

As she watched him weep at her feet, she thought of the faces that watched her in the city; the disgust, the outrage, that some mongrel slave could hold such a station, and own such a husband.

She took her husband, then – right there next to the table.

He was the one thing in her life she controlled completely. And she loved him for it.

Despite the Empress’s instructions, Zezili found herself unprepared for the visitors that showed up on her stoop the next day. Two women – one little and slightly dark, with the features of a Dhai, and one taller, plumper, with the broad gray eyes and complexion of a Dorinah – entered the courtyard under Daolyn’s escort.

“I’m Sai Hofsha,” the smaller woman said. Her accent was strange. Not quite Dhai. “Empress Casanlyn sent you word of my arrival?”

“Is that a title or a name?” Zezili asked.

“Call me Hofsha,” the woman said. “Sai is a… title, yes.” Her hair looked like it had been cut with a razor, then crimped and curled into some unrecognizable country style.

“And you are Syre Zezili,” Hofsha continued. Her smile was large and glorious, yet unmistakably disingenuous. “This one is Monshara.” She waved dismissively at the other woman.

Zezili glanced at stone-faced Daolyn; what she thought of their visitors, Zezili could only guess.

“Do you have papers?” Zezili asked Hofsha.

Hofsha laughed. “Papers? Oh, no, I’m not some slave, some dajian. I’m here from the Empress. Surely she told you to expect me?”

Zezili frowned. “You are not… what I expected.”

“I’m never quite what anyone expects,” Hofsha said. “But no worries on your part, my friend. I won’t actually be the one managing this campaign with you. You’ll be partnering with Monshara here.” She jabbed a finger at her plumper companion again. “She’s one of our top generals. You should get along well. She speaks very good Dorinah.” Hofsha seemed to find this funny and smothered a laugh behind her hand.

Zezili sized up Hofsha’s companion. Her expression reminded Zezili of Daolyn’s, as if they both sought to shutter up emotions better left unexpressed. Monshara held herself like one of the Empress’s noble councilors. Her pale, round face and eyes, the black hair, the broad nose and narrow jaw – it was all very Dorinah.

“Where are you from?” Zezili asked her. “Not here, surely? I’d have heard of you.”