Kux shook her head in disbelief. ‘Listen to you,’ she choked. ‘You talk as if we can win. We’re in a fucking hole in the ground, Lilla. We’re prisoners fighting over food and standing in our own shit with only the rain to clean us. And the rains are ending! There is no rebellion. There is no winning. There’s only this.’ Her flailing arms encompassed them all and attracted more attention as her voice rose. ‘We’re slaves now. We’re nothing, less than nothing. The only hope we have is doing what we’re told and earning our freedom and then having some semblance of a life again. Maybe we’ll even get to go home, to whatever’s left of home. But we only do that if we obey!’

Lilla resisted the urge to hit her. ‘No! We only do that when we win. When we tear this fucking Empire down around their ears and take back our freedom. And we can only do that if we’re able to act, if we know our loved ones are safe because they’re not tainted by association. If you claim your girls, they will die when we rebel. They will die, Kux. If you give them up, you ensure their survival.’

‘If we do as we’re told, we ensure their survival!’ a voice shouted from a corner.

‘Do as we’re told?’ Lilla repeated, injecting as much mockery into his tone as he could. Tayan won’t come if you do this. ‘We are fucking Tokob! We are fucking Yaloh! The orders won’t be coming from a council of elders, from our ancestors or Malel. They’ll be coming from people – arrogant, cruel people, but still just people. That is their great lie – they want us to believe that they’re better than us. They are not, no matter what this fucking song tells us. Would you lie down in your own shit so they can put their feet on your neck or you would stand toe to toe and spit in their faces?’

‘We lie down in our shit every night!’ the same voice shouted.

‘You’re right. But do you want to do it for the rest of your life?’

The pit was quiet but for Lilla’s ragged breathing and the shuffling of warriors packed tightly together, skin rubbing on skin, forced intimacy.

‘I’d lie down in fire for my family. I’d lie down in front of a fucking Drowned,’ someone said and Lilla sucked in a breath to scream at them.

‘Do you actually think we can win?’ came a voice from his left, stealing a portion of his exasperated fury and replacing it with a single ember of hope. Fewer than half of the warriors in this pit had come around to his way of thinking; would this be one more? He turned to face them.