The estate’s tall gates creaked open and they swept out into the flow of traffic. It was over. Tayan was alive – and he was going home.

XESSA

Central plaza, Sky City, Malel, Tokoban

175th day of the Great Star at morning

High Elder Vaqix was dead. High Elder Zasso of the Yaloh was also dead. Both had been murdered.

Tika was missing. Her dog had been stabbed.

The Sky City was in uproar.

They had sacrificed a life to Malel for strength in the coming war and she had answered by striking at the heart of their society. And they didn’t know why. What had they done wrong? Why was the goddess angry with them?

The training of the new Yaloh ejab stuttered to a halt and many seized the opportunity to rescind their promise to walk the snake path completely. The Tokob ejab continued to rotate the spirit-magic and the duty between them, all the while trying to suppress hurt and dread and the sharp teeth of grief at the losses. And the Wet continued, and the Drowned became bolder, and people died.

Toxte and Kime both lived. For that, for them, Xessa was deeply grateful – and guilty for it. But Ilandeh was missing, fled or dead as far as they could tell, and as the days passed and no sign of her was found in the streets or the fields or the jungle closest to the Sky City, worry became suspicion, not just of her but of all those living in the Xentib quarter. Their people had been conquered and stolen by the Empire of Songs; perhaps Ilandeh had been offered a way out, or safety for her family, in return for killing the elders.

Xessa remembered Ilandeh arriving at the Swift Water, remembered assuming that it had been fear that had caused the woman to prevent her from killing the Drowned that attacked them. But it hadn’t been, she was convinced of that now.

She saved its life by risking mine and her own. She arrived at the river when it was not singing. Nothing drew her there; she came to stop me and try and get me killed. She wouldn’t have done that to save the lives of family held hostage to her co-operation. She did that for love.

Love of the Drowned.