“As do you,” I said. “You are a loyal friend, Alejandro.”

“No more loyal than others who love you,” he said softly, and his eyes strayed across the room to where Dannii waited.

She had been talking with Laken and Lesharo, now an ambassador from Siranjaro; but it was late and the other two had retired. Dannii sat on a velvet cushion beside a brazier, reading, her knees drawn up and her chin resting on her hand. She was beautiful in her vivid handmaid robes, with silver bracelets up her arm, and scarlet ribbons in her black hair. Alejandro had given her those bracelets and ribbons, hiding them in the caves where she and I stayed on our divining journeys. He was steward now, but never could confine himself to basic supplies. He had left gifts for us both, wrapping them in silk, and hiding them under stones and in nooks carved into walls. But the best gifts had been for Dannii, though for a long time she had not admitted it. She waited now for Alejandro, so they could have a cup of wine together before day’s end.

“Take care,” I said to him. “I have not yet changed the ancient laws, and we are watched every hour.”

He smiled that old bewitching smile. “I am not quite so wild as I once was,” he said.

I bade him and Dannii good night and went to my room. But I could not sleep. I lay in the firelit dark and thought of Teraj.

He had written to me several times, having the letters delivered in secret because of Maelmor’s spies. In his last letter he said he was no longer in his sheltered home, but out travelling through the mines and towns, helping where the fighting was bad and the injured were many. I feared for him in those angry places, though I would have known if harm had come to him. He said he thought of me at the edge of every dawn, and at the edge of every night; and I thought of him too, in those times, and through all the long days in between.

I dared not visit him. I could make new laws to change conditions for the Quelled, but the time was not yet right to alter Chosen laws and attitudes that had prevailed for centuries. The laws forbidding closeness between Chosen and Quelled still stood.

Across the room, Dannii’s bed remained empty, and I worried. An hour passed, and still I could not sleep. I got out of bed, pulled on my boots and an outer garment, and went to the holy place in the pinnacle of the temple. Here the walls were so high that mists formed in the roof, and the stones had ice on them. I crouched against the wall facing the altar fires, my arms crossed against my chest for warmth.