Anavha sat on his knees. Began to shake. His ears popped. The black portal winked out. Half of his bed went missing with it, and the red gauze across his vision lifted. The floor was scorched. Something tickled his lip. He wiped his face and saw his nose was bleeding. The terror was so deep, he could not move. Could not think.

Zezili shook him.

His wife was shaking him.

He told her about the door.

She slapped him.

Anavha began to cry in earnest.

“But he’s not a sorcerer,” Zezili said. “He was tested as a child, just like anyone else.”

Anavha had washed and dressed. He stood now outside the sitting room where Zezili met with their local priest and barely gifted tirajista, Karosia Soafin. The foreign guest had been sent to bed in the quarters across the courtyard. Anavha should have been asleep as well, but the fear and terror of what had happened still coursed through him. He spit out the draught Daolyn had given him to soothe his nerves.

“It’s possible to miss one here and there,” Karosia said. “My concern is not that he is gifted. My concern is the manifestation of his gift.”

“I requested a commonplace husband,” Zezili said. “If he’s gifted, I won’t have him in my house. Those boys go to the Seekers, not the mardanas.”

Anavha wanted to claw open the door and beg her to reconsider. Surely it was some kind of fluke. An accident.

“Is it possible it was someone else?” Zezili asked. “Some untrained itinerant passing through who attacked my house?”

“It is… doubtful,” Karosia said.

“It must have been an outsider.”

“Syre Zezili, my deep concern here is that the ability your husband has manifested has all the hallmarks of a skill we haven’t seen in thousands of years. This is a matter for the Seekers. We should call Ryyi Tulana.”

“Rhea’s bloody bit,” Zezili said, “I have no time for this. He was tested. He isn’t gifted. And what kind of gift is that? Opening spaces to nowhere? Disintegrating furniture? Who ever heard of that? All I need to know is if he’ll harm himself or others again.”

“Without assessing his abilities, I cannot say. If you’ll allow me to bring him to the local Seeker escort for an assessment–”

“He’s not gifted.”

“Syre Zezili, I must humbly disagree. He may even have a very special talent. He may be able to draw on the power of all satellites, perhaps even, well, the dark star… It’s uncommon, but the astronomers say-”

“An omajista? No. That’s all myth and nonsense.”

Anavha pressed his palm to his fluttering heart, trying to calm it. Some part of him hoped to be taken away, to ease the monotony. But hearing Zezili insist that he stay comforted him. Somewhere, beneath all the anger and rage, she loved him very much.