“You best consult with my husband before making that judgment.”

“I could consult or know for myself.”

Zezili snorted. “I don’t rent him out.”

“Not him.”

“I’m still not interested.”

“A shame.” Monshara put her helm back on, so when Zezili finally looked at her, she could not see her expression clearly. She half thought the woman was joking.

“It’s a week’s travel to the next camp,” Zezili said. “If you’re itching, Cholina has a good mardana.”

“It’s not that kind of itch,” Monshara said, and left the tent.

Zezili frowned. She heard something drip onto the page, and saw a spot of blood. She looked up. Someone had tossed a bloody severed arm onto the top of the tent. Blood had soaked through the thin hide.

She grimaced and moved to the other side of the table.

Saolyndara’s done, she wrote. Eight hundred and forty-seven dajians dispatched at the main camp, at your order. We begin our march to our next camp tomorrow. I will update you at its end. I do hope you will give me a more challenging campaign. My women make better fighters than butchers.

She sealed the letter.

Outside, she heard someone keening.

The cry was cut short.

She scratched out “forty-seven” and wrote “forty-eight.”

Monshara ducked back into the tent. “Are you coming?”

“For what?” Zezili asked.

“We’re opening a gate,” Monshara said. “My sovereign wants to meet you, and I don’t want all this fine Dhai blood to go to waste.”

Chapter 15

15

Two weeks after his sister’s death, Ahkio took the title of Kai. He stood at the center of the great Sanctuary in the heart of Oma’s temple, bathed in the crimson light of the double suns streaming through the red face of Oma represented in the domed glass above him. The elder Oras were all in attendance, as well as the temple’s novices, full Oras, and their assistants, but as Elder Ora Gaiso bathed his hair in his sister’s blood, he saw that just half the country’s clan leaders sat in attendance. Nasaka had told him that before the ceremony, but hearing a thing and seeing it were different experiences. Fear and horror gripped him suddenly, powerfully, and he could not shake it. Nasaka had offered him a way out of taking up this burden, and he’d refused it. Now he was alone amid a sea of faces who saw an ungifted boy given a sacred title that few, if any, believed him capable of holding for any length of time.

He glanced over at Nasaka. Her face was, as ever, unreadable. She sat at a table with Elaiko and the clan leader of Sorai – Hona Fasa Sorai, her assistant, and another young woman, very fair, in her mid-twenties, who Ahkio took to be Hona’s daughter.