‘Fang Lilla of the Sky City on Malel. Toko.’

‘You’re a slave now, without any fancy titles. Family?’

Tayan’s face flashed before his eyes, and Xessa’s. His sisters and mother. ‘No family.’ The scribe looked up, lips pursed. ‘I have no one.’

He walked away from the scribe and stood, fists clenching and unclenching as he swallowed tears. Slowly, as the day passed, he heard others give the same answer. Not many – not nearly enough – but some. It was another sort of hurt, hearing them disavow children and parents, lovers and marriages, but a clean one. A pure hurt, a good hurt, and at its heart burnt the hot, endless flame of vengeance.

It made it easier to pretend he’d made the right choice.

XESSA

Northern slope of Malel, Tokoban

18th day of the grand absence of the Great Star

The marriage ritual had been both more and less than she’d expected. No Lilla, of course, and no Kime, which had cut her open all over again. But Toxte’s family had come, making the trip up from their town at Malel’s base, and they’d stood with Otek, Tiamoko, Lutek, and the rest of their friends to bear witness in the flesh world of the promises they made that bound their lives and spirits together for as long as they wished.

Seeing Tayan in his finery, his paint carefully applied in their honour, had reduced her to tears even before she made her promises before the gods and ancestors and spirits. The friend of her heart had teased her gently, and Toxte had pressed kisses to her hair and temples until he’d smudged the ochre painted on her brow onto his lips and she’d been sufficiently distracted by her need to kiss it from his mouth that her tears had dried.

And then Tayan had blessed their marriage cords – bare of knots for now, because those were promises made in private – and called on Malel and Snake-sister to witness and bless their love, and Xessa and Toxte had licked their thumbs and pressed them to each other’s temples – family – and then to the hollow of each other’s throats – married.

Tayan and the guests drummed and played bone flutes and rattles and the couple danced the marriage completion and shared a cup of honeypot. And then it was done. No grand affair, no gathering of the whole neighbourhood to drink and dance until deep into the night. Toxte promised she’d have all that and more when the war was over, but she didn’t mind. They were married, and that was all that mattered.