Ossa was off to her right, a streak of black fur as he raced parallel to the twisting of the Swift Water, his paws kicking up stones and mud and sprays of water. She whistled and he gave her the head-down-rump-up all-clear. Xessa shook out her shoulders and wiped sweat from her eyes. The river was flowing fast, full of the previous day’s rain, brown with silt from the thin soil on the uplands above the Sky City. The murk made it harder than ever to see the skin or shape of a Drowned, and the wounds in her leg throbbed in urgent reminder of the last time she’d been down here.

She glanced left and right along the length of the river. Three other ejab were approaching the water below their own water temples. Four targets. A one-in-four chance of attack – usually.

The hairs on her arms stood up and Xessa raised her spear, trusting the warning of danger at her back. She leapt sideways, parallel to the water – not getting any closer – and spun to face the Drowned bearing down on her, poised to stab.

It wasn’t a Drowned.

Ossa hadn’t given the danger signal because there was no danger. It was Ilandeh. The Xenti wasn’t blank-faced and answering the call of the Drowned; she was standing there with an anxious smile, halfway through an apology Xessa was far too enraged to read. She wasted a second, just gaping at the other woman, and then seized Ilandeh’s wrist and began dragging her back up towards the fields and orchards and city, her heart thudding in her chest.

They got all of three steps before Ilandeh twisted out of her grip and faced the river. Xessa whirled again, bringing her spear up to her jaw, but again there was no danger, again Ilandeh didn’t run for the water. The Xenti tapped her on the arm. ‘I just want to see,’ she said slowly. ‘I’m perfectly safe with you here – I just want to see one.’

Xessa shook her head so hard the rings and charms in her ears and hair slapped against her cheeks, refusing to rest her spear long enough to sign a response – not that Ilandeh would understand anyway. Instead she pointed it uphill and jerked her chin in the same direction.

Ilandeh’s face fell. ‘But I want—’

Xessa click-whistled the guard command and Ossa leapt at the woman, snapping and snarling. Ilandeh stumbled back, face slack with sudden fear as the dog harried her, driving her up the slope. Eja Toxte was in the water temple: why hadn’t he stopped her? The woman never should have got this close.