Naamen was just as adept among the urban bustle of Bocoum as he was running across open expanses. Kelis followed the young man as he slipped through the crowd with the fluidity of an eel through a coral reef. The city, sprawling along the coastline for buttressed miles, was technically the seat of government control of the province of Talay, although with the region’s tribal variation any central control was loose. More fundamentally, it was the agricultural and commercial hub of Talay. It thronged with merchants and traders and craftsmen; with foodstuffs, warehouses, and luxurious estates. None of these things interested Kelis. He did not really feel at home hemmed in by walls and buildings and crowds, and considered the flaunted wealth of the townsfolk to be obscenely extravagant. In the past, he had always breezed through the city, engaged in some errand or another. He did not intend this trip to be any different.

“Here it is,” Naamen said, motioning with his stunted arm.

It took Kelis a moment to sort out what he meant. They had come up one of the high streets of the city center, a busy corridor lined with multistoried buildings. Working their way forward, Kelis picked out the carved image of a lion on a crest above the gatehouse entrance at the end of the lane. It was the Ou lion. It was hardly an original totem animal, but it was distinctive in that the figure stood upright on a body that looked more human than feline. The head, however, was massively maned, the cat’s mouth opened in an everlasting roar. It could have been a secondary entrance to an Acacian palace, such was the grandeur of the carved granite archway. Two guards stood at attention at either side, long pikes set on the ground before them and stretching to spear points well above their heads.

“You would think they were royalty,” Kelis murmured.

Naamen turned and set his mirthful eyes on him. “Oh, yes, and, believe me, the Ous do think themselves royalty. You need not bow before them, though. Not yet, at least.”

The guards held them outside the gate for several minutes, until a secretary met them. He curtly dismissed Naamen, then led Kelis through the elaborate interior gardens, around pools of fish and under palms, between rows of flowering bushes. Inside the main building, the extravagance continued. For Kelis—who had spent most of the last several years in camps, sleeping on mats with bare ground beneath him—the tapestry-hung walls, the incense-heavy air, the rich carpet underfoot, and the dark crimson and gold of so much of the furniture closed in on him like some elaborate trap. He had to breathe deeply to disguise his racing heartbeat and his desire to run away.