‘Yes! And I don’t think it, I believe it; I know it. If we rebel the day we get out of this pit, we can be back in Yalotlan a month later, helping the warriors still there to defend our homes. Come at them from behind; beat them.’

‘If we were able to beat the Empire, we wouldn’t be here now,’ Kux yelled, as angry as Lilla. ‘We are fucking losing back home, and you’re whipping us up to lose here too?’

‘How do you know we’re losing?’ Lilla demanded. ‘Because those shits up there like to tell us so when they condescend to throw us some bread? Of course they’re going to say that. Of course they are! But we don’t know. None of us know. And that’s why we have to fight, because it’s the only way to be sure.’

He was sweating with passion and with hope, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. He shifted his feet and the stench of shit and piss wafted up, almost enough to make him gag. ‘Look where we are,’ he began again. ‘Smell where we are. We need to—’

‘We can’t win.’ Kux’s voice cut over his, slicing through the rising babble again. ‘We can’t, Lilla, and while I love your fire and your belief and your hope, I won’t sacrifice the hope of my children on that belief. I’ll swear to serve the Empire, and I’ll claim them as my own. And I’ll do whatever it takes to free them and see them again. To live with them, even if it is under this cursed song. You don’t have children, so maybe this choice is easier for you. Maybe your Tayan will forgive you—’

Tayan will come for me and learn I’ve abandoned him. Tayan will never forgive me.

‘—but I won’t risk the lives and hearts of my girls on the promise of a rebellion that we cannot organise and cannot win. One hundred of us? One thousand could not escape this fortress without being slaughtered. No, Lilla. You make your choice and I’ll make mine. And so will everyone else in here.’

Lilla looked around in the half-light, desperate. He didn’t have the words, it seemed. He wasn’t a talker like Tayan or the elders. He couldn’t persuade.

Slowly, hating himself, he untied the faded yellow cord. Twelve knots, it had. Twelve promises he and Tayan had made each other about their lives together, their future, when they’d adopt children, how many. The whole of his life written in knotted string. Four of the knots had charms attached – things they’d achieved, promises kept. Eight more remained empty and might now remain that way forever.