“You have destroyed everything!” he shouted, and for a moment I thought he would strike me. “You have destroyed my standing with the high lord – my honour, his trust in me. You have made a mockery of me, my service, our Chosen laws, our religion. You have mocked the high lord. Mocked everything – everything Chosen! You are a fool, harsha! You had everything within your grasp – the highest hope of every highborn woman – and you destroyed it.”

He turned away, breathing heavily, and tried to calm himself. I sat crushed against the wall, weeping.

“I thought,” he said, in a low, passionate voice, “I believed I knew why he had chosen you. I believed there was a strength in you, a flame, that set you apart from every other woman, Quelled or Chosen. I thought I understood that strength, and why the Firelord wanted you. I was wrong. He was wrong. You are wrong. We all are wrong. You’re a fool. I don’t know if you can even go back to your mine. Sedition is dangerous. People with words like yours have their tongues torn out, or are killed. I couldn’t endure—”

He went over to the window and leaned on the ledge, looking down. His breathing was uneven, and several times he passed his hand over his face.

A servant came in, bowed low to Amasai, and said: “The high lord would speak to you, master, about the fate of the harsha you brought.”

Amasai nodded without looking around, and the servant went out. For a long time Amasai stood there in the window’s sombre light, looking down. Then he sighed and, without glancing at me or speaking again, went out.

It seemed an age I crouched there, tortured with grief and remorse. My head ached intolerably, and I wanted to vomit. With everything in me I hated my madness, my blind stupidity, my own accursed tongue that had destroyed my dreams. I wept and wrung my hands, anguished. That I could have seen him – could have looked into his face and heard his voice, and not recognised him – that was the cruellest irony of all. I crushed my fists into my eyes and pretended this was all a nightmare, and that I was still in the mine at Siranjaro, my dreams intact, unspoiled.

The door opened and closed behind me, and I pressed harder against the wall, shaking and sobbing.

Someone knelt behind me, and I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Elsha,” said Amasai softly.

I shrugged his hand off, and hid my face. He was gentle now, come to tell me that I was to die.

“Elsha, I was wrong. You are still to be his handmaid, and there will be no punishment. You are to have a bath and put on clean garments and eat and drink, and after that the high lord will speak with you.” His hand was on my shoulder again, and I felt his smooth cold fingers brush my cheek. “Elsha, do not weep anymore. All is well.”