During the ninety days of its absence, there should be rituals and prayers and festivals. There should be feasts and spirit-journeys and great day-long dances to lend the Watcher their strength. Instead, there would be blood. Oceans of it. The Great Star would return to the sky and the world beneath him would be soaked red. Choked with corpses and salted with tears.

The Sky City had begun the day with a muted celebration. Smiles were strained and prayers were whispered with a desperate, clench-faced fervour. At the very moment they most needed the Great Star’s guiding presence, he had left them to fight a battle of his own.

‘He has not left us!’ High Elder Apok had shouted out over the ceremonial plaza at dawn. ‘He shows us the way. He shows us that strength and battle are our only hope now. He walks the trail that we too must walk, and where he battles the very lords of the Underworld to save those ancestors who are lost, we merely battle people. Let the Watcher’s victories be ours, and ours his. We strengthen each other, for in this, too, there is balance. As he fights below, so we fight above.’

Now, Xessa sat on the steps of a small plaza in the circle of Toxte’s arms, the weight of his chin on her shoulder, watching the shaman fight.

Xessa was surprised at how quickly Tayan had learnt, though she knew why, of course. Not even a captive Drowned could distract the friend of her heart from the loss of his husband, and he’d been more serious than she’d realised about learning to fight.

Lutek swung again, the head of her hatchet black against the grey sky, and Tayan leapt sideways and stumbled, his ankle rolling beneath him, but somehow he got his own axe between hers and his flesh and Xessa let out the breath she’d been holding. He was still wearing the paint from this morning’s rituals and it was smeared into his hair with sweat. He looked wild.

Tayan’s small wooden shield cracked under the next blow and Lutek punched him in the face when he hesitated to look at it. He sat down hard, blood already oozing from his nose, and she pressed her foot onto his wrist, pinning his axe, her own raised.

Better but not good. Not yet. Xessa wondered if he’d have long enough to become good, or whether the Empire would have killed them all by then. It soured the morning and she clutched Toxte’s arms tighter around her waist and leant back into him, turning her head so they could kiss.