“I am never wrong. It’s just that I am not always totally correct. But I can read you well enough, for my purpose.” He smiled suddenly, and stood up straight. “I am sorry I did not trust you, handmaid. You know how fine is the line you walk in this Chosen world. You are either worthy and accepted, or you are rejected and despised. Remember that it is a wrong for you to touch a Chosen. But for you to receive covering from a Chosen man is a felony they would kill you for, and him.”

He came over to me and touched his palm to my cheek, tenderly, and smoothed back my hair from my face. His hand trembled, and his eyes, though they glowed, were very tired. To my amazement he bent and kissed my forehead, on the upper edge of my brand. “Be careful, child,” he murmured. “All my hope is in you, my highest dream.”

Then he left.

I sank to the floor by the fire, shattered, quaking in every part. Stupidly, I started crying, and couldn’t stop. What a day, I thought, sobbing. Conquered by divining power, desertion, fury, kisses, and chaos – and I’d had the gall to say I was untouched.

Liar, Elsha lionheart.

The next three days were busy for the Firelord. He drew up the plans for the new mine, marked the depths and directions of the new firestone seams, and supervised the beginning of the first tunnel.

When I was not with him at the new mine, I was with Alejandro, out hunting with Kallai. We always made a pleasure of the hunts, taking food and wine and scrolled books, so Alejandro could read to me. I cannot say how much I loved his company. With him I laughed, and knew I had not laughed enough before. He was like a medicine for me, a healing, a balm for the world’s bitterness.

On my last day in Qustra I went out hunting with Kallai, and Alejandro came with us. After we had hunted, we lay in thick tussock grass on a blanket Alejandro had brought, and he read to me from Chosen myths. I lay crosswise to him, on my back, my head on his chest for a pillow. He had one arm across me, lightly, and with his other hand he held up the scrolled book. Kallai was on a rock nearby, uncomfortable without a proper perch.

Alejandro stopped reading after a while, and dropped the book on the blanket beside us He was laughing in that silent way of his, and I felt his body shake. I laughed, too, at the conceit in the myth he’d read.

“I wish you weren’t leaving, Elsha,” he said, suddenly grave. “Who will I talk to, when my other self is gone? Who will listen to my inspired madness, and sympathise with my misdirected soul?”