The song guides and supports all who hear it. It can never be undone, unsung, unheard. My will cannot be denied. Will not be denied.

The song beats in the blood of a million people, lulling them to sleep and rousing them to the defence of their homes, succouring the fearful and strengthening the weak. When all the world is brought beneath its harmony, there will be peace.

When all the world shows the Singer and the song the reverence we are due, there will be glory.

The song is all. The song is good.

And I am its Singer.

XESSA

The Swift Water, below Sky City, Malel, Tokoban

125th day of the Great Star at morning

She was scared, but she was ready and the other ejab needed her. The city needed her. They’d let her leave the healing caves for home four days after her injury, and she’d walked painfully out into a day grey as an eagle’s back and thick with rain. The Wet had come harder and faster than in previous years. It would put an end to the skirmishing in southern Yalotlan – unless the councils decided to fight on through the season, a path they were still debating – but the rain gave the Drowned an advantage, and so despite the lingering burn in her joints and the pull of stitches in her lower leg, she had a duty to perform, and so she would.

And Tayan leaves tomorrow.

The thought brought an almost physical pain. Her lifelong friend, so bright and curious and interested in everything, a skilled shaman and healer, was not suited to long travel along dangerous trails. His eyes couldn’t see far into the distance and while he could bring down small, nearby game with a sling or blowpipe, he was no warrior. And they were walking, not just out of Tokoban, but into the Empire of Songs, into its very heart. Tayan’s ancestor had told him that it would be a Pecha who ended the Pechaqueh thirst for conquest, and so the shaman and the councils were convinced that this weaving would work. Xessa prayed that he was right, but it didn’t help the cold, hard ball of anxiety that grew in her stomach whenever she thought of her friend walking into that Empire and placing himself in its power.

Focus, Xessa reminded herself. The thoughts were a distraction from the fear tickling the edges of her mind as she stared at the river, but distractions were deadly. She frowned, skin tugging with the familiar and yet strange tightness where the paint had dried in swirls and loops that brought her strength and protection. Eja Elder Tika herself had painted the red and blue symbols on Xessa’s brow at dawn, arriving at her house unannounced to do her this honour, to welcome her back onto the snake path.