He paused and looked down from the height. The moon bathed his face in a pleasing light. He stood as if the altar’s empty plinth had been built for him, from which to descend to the earth out of the High Heavens, but that was a blasphemous thought. Only the emperor and his clan could claim kinship to the High Heavens. The rest of those who lived upon the land were but commonplace souls, tarnished shards instead of gleaming jewels.

In a low and curiously intense tone he said, “I would know your name as a courtesy, if it was your pleasure to share it with me, Deputy Courier. As for me, my true name cannot be voiced by human tongue. If we are ever again alone, you may call me Gesavura’alalin. An intertwining of names, if you will, as a courtesy to the prince. It’s the best I can do, and I offer it with respect and … with hope.”

On the shoreline between uncorrupted earth and the ever-seething Pall, there was always a hazy line between safety and risk. Here she stood, and in her head she told herself not to answer, but in her heart she was already speaking.

“Folk here call me Elen.” She bit her lower lip, knowing she ought to stop. Yet the impulse squeezed out of her, to have someone know, now that Aoving was gone, her last link to the nameless land they had both come from. “But really, it’s just El. Just that. From my earliest childhood.”

He pressed a hand to his heart and inclined his head. Then he grabbed the top of the wall and gracefully pulled himself up and over. A thump marked his drop to the ground on the other side.

She stood for a long while, breathing under the moonlight as the fountain resumed its sweet refrain. Her soul felt scoured as by a merciless storm, and yet she couldn’t stop smiling.

30 THAT UNEASY TIME

Elen reliably woke before dawn, in that unsettled time that was neither night nor day. It was the time she felt the most herself, she who was by all appearances human, flesh and blood and bone, but maybe no longer quite fully human, because she carried a viper in her heart. This early the light barely caught color, and the world was still mostly shades of gray. Those who labored at the humblest work had to be up, hauling out refuse and night soil, carrying water, rekindling banked cook fires. She’d never known a time she wasn’t awake at this hour. In a way, even with the extra work, it was the most serene time of day, before the masters woke with their expectations and demands.

She dressed by feel and crept out to find Custodian Ralt seated on the bench where she had had her conversation with the haunt.