Lilla had insisted on coming along as well, and belatedly Xessa realised that she had interrupted them when they only had today together before Tayan left for Pechacan. Her narrow escape at the river had upset her more than she’d realised, especially being her first duty since her injury, and she was ruining the day for everyone else as a result.

Xessa told them she’d handle it herself, but by then Tayan was angry on her behalf. He and Lilla were closer friends with the Xenti than she was, who had to rely on others to translate for her, but that meant nothing to him in the light of Ilandeh’s incomprehensible actions at the river. Now the three of them stood ranged against Ilandeh, with Dakto just behind looking wary and defensive. Ilandeh was stroking her left thumb over the inside of her right wrist and the small tattoo of a chulul it bore. It was a nervous habit and the eja was disproportionately pleased to see it. Dakto had the same tattoo, on the inside of his bicep, though his didn’t seem to have the same power to soothe.

‘Eja Xessa would like to be very clear that you understand what you have been told.’

Xessa switched her gaze from Tayan’s face to Ilandeh’s. The woman pressed a fingertip to the swollen, bloody mess of her broken nose. A shaman had reset it, but it was swelling up nicely and blackening both her eyes, too. Xessa felt a twinge of savage pleasure. Ilandeh’s nod was a jerk and a stuttering inhalation. She cupped her nose again and said something Xessa missed.

‘She said she is very sorry and it won’t happen again,’ Tayan translated for her. ‘She didn’t mean to put you or herself in danger.’

‘And tell her to stop covering her mouth when she talks,’ Xessa signed. ‘Has she learnt nothing since coming here? Is she deliberately insulting me?’

Xessa clenched her fists as the shaman translated. She was too inexperienced to have been loaned out to the Yaloh during a drought but the thought of that now, of living with people who couldn’t understand her, made her guts watery and her chest tight. She realised suddenly that she might never be sent into Yalotlan – supposing the war ever ended – for that very reason and the tightness grew thorns and pricked at her heart. This was her home and the duty was her life, yet she felt … outcast, even unwelcome.

All Tokob signed, because without it, those ejab who used the spirit-magic would be unable to communicate while it rode their senses and so their sacrifice would also be a punishment, an exclusion from the very life and society they fought to protect.