Eleven days since she had suffered the disgrace of being cast out of the council meeting. It was the longest they’d been separated since she’d become his courtesan, let alone Spear or Great Octave. Two missteps in the last few months. Enet rattled the dice again. She could not afford a third. She would not survive a third. And so she would act.

She had been pleased to see the monkey in its cage when she entered, that despite her disgrace he had kept it, a reminder of her and their son both.

Enet’s mouth softened at the thought of him, her beautiful, dutiful, quick-witted Pikte. The best parts of both his parents, and song-born, too. He was special to the Singer, and Enet used that to remind the holy lord that she, too, was important to him. Vital. He needed her if he was to complete the conquest of Ixachipan and wake the world spirit. He just needed reminding of that. Of what she could offer; what only Enet could bring him. And one sure way to do that was with the dice.

Xac’s own divinations were by the stars and the histories and through the holy Setatmeh themselves, and were usually focused on the fate of the Empire of Songs and the path to the waking of the world spirit. Enet’s divinations were smaller but no less crucial to the holy lord’s great destiny, and of all the councillors and shamans who served him, hers were the tellings he trusted the most.

Enet breathed on the dice and cast them and together they watched them bounce and stutter across the mat and then stop. The mat was an exquisite work of art, painted with the four cardinal directions and the centre of the world, the centre of magic and power and life-giving water. The fountain and the firmament laid out in vibrant inks between them.

Across the face of the mat the jade and bone dice skipped and rolled, their images and their positions telling the present and the future. Xac’s future. The Empire’s future. Enet’s future. The black cat, a Setat, a shard of obsidian, a jade amulet, a liana-wrapped tree. And, rolling to a stop off the edge of the mat, the storm.

Enet let the images and their positions float across her consciousness, breathing deep, palms on her thighs. The Singer was silent opposite her. ‘Black cat, water god, obsidian, jade, wrapped tree. Storms from afar.’ She met his eyes. ‘There is untruth in your council.’ She pointed to the die nearest the world centre. ‘You, of course, are the holy Setat, and the black cat crouches behind you, waiting to pounce. You cannot see it, facing forward towards your Empire, but it is there. Biding its time. Patient.’