“Shimer’s soul is all untouched, Elsha, like a child’s,” he said. “He has never forgotten the God he came from, and he walks every day in paradise. He has the best philosophy of anyone I know, the most wisdom, and the most love. Sometimes he says profound and prophetic things, and they always come to pass.”

“I know someone else whose soul is pure,” I said.

Teraj smiled, and went on slicing the vegetables. We often prepared them for Shimer, else we would not have eaten our evening meal until midnight, he was so slow. “It is good that you love our Firelord well,” Teraj said. “Some of his handmaids used him to further their own ends, and did not love him except for the wealth and position he gave. You stand high above them, Elsha.”

“I didn’t mean the Firelord’s soul,” I murmured. “I meant yours.”

He looked surprised, then laughed. “You know my soul, Elsha?” he asked, smiling sideways down on me. He was head and shoulders taller than me.

“You wear your soul like a light,” I said. “It fills all this place.”

“Then tread softly,” he said, “you may walk on it.”

We laughed together, and I threw a piece of parsnip at him. There was a joy in Teraj, a spirit of celebration, that made just being with him a pleasure. We laughed at the simplest things: at faces Shimer pulled; at the absurd, wise talk of children, when they didn’t know we listened; at the sight of each other covered in black mud when we’d worked together in a wet shaft in the mine; and we laughed sometimes at nothing at all, just because we loved each other’s company.

We were not often alone. If a woman came to be with the Firelord for a while, and we went for a walk to fly Kallai, or to the mine, or to lie by the waterfall and talk, Shimer always came with us. He adored Teraj. They were always together. Even when we went for walks and Teraj walked close and took my hand, Shimer was always on his other side, talking and laughing to himself in that low, gruff voice. And yet I did not mind his being there; he gave only brightness.

But in the evenings when Shimer was in his narrow bed by the window, and the Firelord snored, Teraj and I sat together by the fire and drank herb tea. He read me the poems he wrote, and sometimes made me laugh, and sometimes cry.

I took the scroll from his hands one night, and looked at it, marvelling at the mysterious patterns of ink on paper. “It is a wonder,” I said, “to wrap up joy and grief in signs, for someone else to understand.” I traced the forms of the words, and lifted the thick paper and sniffed it.