“No,” she said, keeping her eyes on Adare. “You didn’t kill them, Oshi.”

“Did what to you?” Adare asked.

Nira waved a hand at Oshi. “Made us immortal. Made us kings and queens of half the world. Made us mad.”

Adare shivered at the words even as she tried to make sense of them. She’d read dozens of accounts of the origin of the Atmani, but not one, not even Yenten’s History, claimed any certainty about where the leach-lords had acquired their longevity or power.

“Who . . .” Adare began hesitantly, searching for a way to frame the question. “How . . .”

“Csestriim,” Nira hissed, then spat onto the dirt. “Didn’t realize it then. Didn’t learn till later, when we caught and killed two of them. Two of the three.”

Adare shook her head at the impossibility of the notion. “Why would the Csestriim want to . . . help you?”

“Help?” Nira choked on a laugh, then stabbed a bony finger at Oshi. “Does that look like helping ta you?”

“But they made you immortal,” Adare protested. “They gave you powers.”

“The powers were ours before we ever met them. They just . . . enhanced them. As for immortal . . .” She held out a withered arm. “Looks like they didn’t get that quite right either. This body’s going ta dirt. It’s just takin’ a lot longer than it oughta.” She grimaced. “The Csestriim didn’t give a rotted shit for us, girl—they were trying to make a new breed, or to remake an old one. Thought they’d found a way to bring back their race.”

Adare stared. “But you’re not Csestriim. You have feelings.”

Nira snorted. “You noticed? Like I said, they tried to play at Bedisa’s work and they fucked up.”

“The beginning of your reign was a golden age,” Adare pointed out.

“And then it went straight into the shitter. We weren’t meant to live this long, to have this much power. Something up here,” she rapped at her skull with a knuckle, “can’t take it.”

“But you aren’t . . .”

“That’s because I realized it first. Quit dipping into my well. I tried to get Roshin to stop, too, but he was wrapped up in the dream. The dream first, and then the war.” Her eyes were dark, bleak. “He catches glimpses, sometimes, of what it’s done to him, but if I left him alone for a full day, he’d throw himself right back into it.”

“A thousand years,” Adare breathed, mind reeling at the thought. “For more than a thousand years you’ve done nothing but keep him drugged. Keep him in check.”

“Not nothing, girl,” Nira snapped. “Learned ta knit a few centuries back. Picked up the flute a bit.” She shrugged. “Since forgot it.”

“Why?” Adare asked quietly. “If you resent the immortality so much, couldn’t you . . .” She trailed off.