They’d chained the four of us up in the corners. Gala had requested that both Iltani and I be tied by our waists so I could treat her, but both Dagan’s and Nasu’s arms were linked to rusted bronze hooks set into the wall. Brown bloodstains dripped down from previous prisoners waiting for their turn in the Pit, and I shuddered, imagining the atrocities that had been committed in this building.

Nasu slept fitfully, his beard grown in sparsely, his hair longer since we’d been away from Manzazu. Dagan sat nearby, blinking into the moonlight that streamed in from the cracks in the rushes of the ceiling.

“Dagan?”

His brow lifted, but he did not answer. I’d given both Nasu and him arnica and hemp for pain, and though they needed salve for the lacerations on their backs, both had told me not to bother as they’d likely have wounds again on the morrow.

“Arammu?” I tried again.

He shook his head, nodding at Iltani sleeping in the corner, curled in a little ball, a piece of jagged pottery she’d found buried in the dirt clutched in her fist. Once in a while she murmured the word “no” in her sleep and jerked as if flinching from a blow.

“I want to talk to you,” I whispered, pushing myself up awkwardly to sit, using my wrists as leverage. “Please. You’re upset and you’re willing to fight Nasu, but what if you lose tomorrow—” My voice cracked as I spoke, but Dagan turned toward me, blinking his bruised eyes, a small smile on his cracked lips.

“Then you will be free from answering my question of marriage, won’t you.”

His reply brought tears to my eyes. “Do you think I wish you to die so we will not be married? You cannot believe that.”

He smiled, but there was no joy in it. Just a deep well of ache, one in which he might drown.

“No.” He shook his head. “Forgive me, Arammu. Of course I do not believe that. It is my weakness talking. Self-pity.”

“No, Dagan. Don’t say that.”

He looked at Nasu bleakly. “The real question is what if I win, Kammani? Could you look at me the same way if I kill our friend? Could you love me as you do now if I send him to the Netherworld?”

He blinked his swollen eyes at me and shifted toward the wall.

My heart throbbed with pain for him. His spirit had been crushed. He’d lost his brother Shep, lost his ummum to Uruku’s lair, was being forced to kill his friend, and doubted the love I felt for him. Part of that was my fault. I hadn’t gone out of my way to show him that I loved him with all that was in me, as he’d done for me, time and again.

Dagan had only ever told me the truth. I was a skilled A-zu, as the loyalty of the Koru could attest, but though my skills were good, I had much to learn about trusting my gut, and Dagan had helped me be the best healer I could be by encouraging me to do that. He knew the dreams I carried with me and helped me shoulder them when they got too heavy.