‘I heard people in the lower market before we headed out,’ Tiamoko was saying. He was young, barely an adult, but big and strong and keen. Perhaps too keen; Lilla needed to watch him. ‘They were saying that if we send the Yaloh back into their own land, Malel would accept that sacrifice and she would ensure the Pechaqueh left us in peace.’

‘And would you live in peace, big man?’ asked Lutek, one of Lilla’s best warriors. She was sitting cross-legged, knapping a new blade for her knife, and although her tone was mild, Tiamoko flushed like the boy he mostly still was. ‘Knowing you’d left your neighbours – our friends – to become the slaves of those bastards? That’d sit easy with you, would it?’

‘Wasn’t me saying it, Lutek. I just heard it.’

‘I heard what Malel wants is a proper sacrifice,’ someone else said and they all went quiet at that. Many faces turned towards Lilla and he sighed. Being married to a shaman had its downsides.

‘Before Tayan left, the subject had been raised in conclave, but the shamans want to see what happens with the peace-weaving first. If Malel demands blood, she will get it. Until then, the councils will continue to debate our next steps and await the outcome of the peace-weaving.’

He was stern enough that the conversation died away and Tiamoko checked the meat on the smoke racks, eager to be of use. Not that Lilla blamed him for his words; he’d heard the same rumours. They all had. That’s what happened when fear gripped a city by its throat and began to squeeze. Next would come the voices urging surrender, that living under the song wouldn’t be so bad. When those arguments began, the Sky City would fall into chaos.

And although he should focus on that, Tayan’s name had fallen from his lips easily, conjuring images and memories of his husband, of their life together that seemed so distant sometimes, almost unreal. Would they have that again, those days spent hunting for game and foraging for medicine, content in each other’s silences and laughter, present and close and warm as sunlight? Or would the shadow of war forever stretch dark and cold around them?

Tayan had already been gone almost a moon and Lilla missed him, the pain a thorn pressed high up behind his lungs when he thought of him walking through conquered land and giving himself into the power of their enemies.