Each battle that ended that much closer to the city walls as warriors died and were replaced, first with ejab, and then with anyone who could – and would – wield a weapon. There were children on the walls now, throwing stones from slings and struggling with bows. Children.

And the womb had been breached. Tayan was taken. ‘Then he’s one step closer to rescuing Lilla, isn’t he?’ Toxte had tried, but it had fallen flat, because they’d both – all – known the truth of how that would go from the start. Tayan was no warrior. If he’d made it out of the womb alive – if he reached the Empire of Songs alive – he wouldn’t be sold to the Melody. If Malel watched over him, he’d become a scribe or record-keeper, perhaps even a healing shaman – as long as he could chant the right prayers over his patients. What he wouldn’t do was find his way back to Lilla. Supposing Lilla is even still alive.

Ten days of battle, ten nights of mourning and raging and the desperate shouts from shamans for bandages, medicine, someone to please help me hold him, and through it all the final, terminal disintegration of the alliance between Tokob and Yaloh. For the last two days, the tribes had split completely, Tokob fighting on the western side of the city, Yaloh on the east.

They sent the barely trained civilians against the slave warriors, the ejab and farmers against the dog warriors, and the Paws against the eagles. Still it wasn’t enough. They knew it; Xessa knew it. She was going to fight anyway, because there was no other choice.

Gourds, jugs, bowls, and shallow platters were left on every roof and below every eave. They littered every open space, every plaza – a desperate attempt to gather enough water to live another day.

So much water that people slept in the plazas next to the platters and bowls to guard it from theft. So much that if the Drowned smelt it, they might climb the heavy mahogany gates and enter the city. Tayan would have been able to tell them otherwise from his time in Pechacan, but most people believed the Pechaqueh were somehow immune, and that the Drowned would come for the city, not the Melody. People were was so panicked by the rumour, on top of everything else, that a dozen old ejab, the spirit-magic having broken them years before, patrolled the streets. Ravaged by the magic they’d never thought to need again, slowed by it instead of strengthened, their limbs shaking as they held net and spear, still they did what they could, when they could. Otek was among them: Xessa’s surviving father, shambling through the northern quarter, plagued by spirits and perhaps soon by enemy warriors. Two had already died, their hearts unable to take the strain.