“I am sorry that you could not find the answers you seek here,” Agnarr told me as I returned to where he and the other Gorvekai waited with Kalen to see us off.

“So am I, milord.” Likh and Khalad arrived moments later, the couple blushing and taking great pains not to look at me. Kalen raised an eyebrow.

“Your cousin finally got the hint,” I murmured to him.

“Good. I was wondering when he’d work up the guts to make a move.”

“I’m not sure he was the first to do so.”

The azi was quick to answer my call. I saw brief images of forests below and bright sky overhead before the two blurred together as it sped obediently toward me. Seas glittered blue before peaks of white crystals abruptly appeared. I saw an ice fjord, a breathtaking land sculpture of ice and glass, before the azi veered off, making for our small encampment.

Through its eyes, I caught sight of us, small as ants, standing in a cluster at the center of the frozen tundra. The beast landed, crooning and dipping all three heads in a monstrous curtsy.

“Good boys.” I stroked each head in turn as they butted one another for my attention. Behind us, the soldiers’ spears and axes remained raised, unconvinced by the daeva’s show of obedience.

“If I took all the daeva as pets, rather than as beasts to be put into the ground every few years, would I be worthy, regardless of what your mountain tells you?”

Agnarr bowed. “It is hard enough to war with one’s own conscience, but far more difficult to deal with one’s own and another’s at all times. Add six more and insanity is not far off.”

“But if I was successful?”

“I cannot speak for the mountain, but perhaps you can ask it again one day.”

“Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Agnarr. I hope we shall see each other again under more forgiving circumstances.”

“Were you serious about that?” Kalen asked me, as Khalad awkwardly offered a helping hand to the still red-faced Likh, which the asha accepted. My love didn’t look happy—it was the complete opposite of what I’d promised the night before. “Do you intend to control all the other daeva?”

“No,” I admitted. “It took everything I had juggling both the azi and the savul, and I’m not keen on taking on more. But if I keep my hold on the azi, and perhaps Mykkie or another Dark asha she trains take in one or two more, then maybe we could prevent the Faceless from taking their bezoars.”

“That will make you all targets.”

“Dark asha have always been targets. If we divided the tasks, perhaps it would lessen the burden.”

“There usually aren’t more than three or four Dark asha at a time.”