Radiantly fair, slim and lissome, a girl came through the arched doorway of the terracotta house. Its lines were delicate and round, three domes connecting the disparate wings. Five builders spent months etching the clay, layering and shaping with fresh earth before baking the masterwork to glossy completion. As the lady crossed the yard in the fierce morning sun, her hair blazed, the polished gold of her father’s goblets.

“Have you finished the lot by yourself?”

“No sense in another servant ruining her hands as well, Lavedi Immelia.” Without apparent bitterness, Muir held them out for inspection.

“I knew that last batch of soap was too harsh. Come, I’ll get you some of the crown oil cream that works so well.”

“Yes, lavedi.” Her face turned slightly toward the soil in the semblance of servitude, all she’d known, and despite her best efforts at repression, a rumbling sound came from the region of Muir’s stomach.

“You haven’t eaten today?”

“No, lavedi.”

The lavedi made a noise with her tongue and teeth. “Come inside.”

From the laundry line, they passed a copse of scrubby trees and the small garden that Muir tended because she liked to grub in the dirt. Inside the house, it was immeasurably cooler. Both women paused by the door to slide out of their shoes, and then continued into the living area. Textured, whitewashed walls and colorful pillows were the mainstay of the room, punctuated by low tables draped with sumptuous fabrics.

Ever impatient, Immelia tugged at Muir’s damp sleeve. “The cream is in my room. And while we are there,” she added in a near whisper, “we shall speak of the messenger. You must tell me everything you know.”

Of course, Muir thought with a wry smile. Any kindness that the lavedi performed would not come without a price. Wordlessly, she followed her lady into a large room, large for the size of the house. It was dim and quiet—no windows allowed the heat of the day inside. Here Jinjiwa’s winter airs were strongest; a definite chill could be felt.

The bed, no more than six inches off the floor as custom dictated, was draped with soft, sleek fabrics, diaphanous and cool, in rippling, bejeweled hues. The floor was baked sand; magic had honed it smooth long ago. Rugs woven from the beautiful lykos coat and also, it was whispered, the raven black hair of a princess who had once been Immelia’s rival. Most naturally, Muir did not mention the latter.

Instead, she studied her favorite tapestry, hung on the north wall. In panels, it depicted how Minau the Healer found the lord of death gathering souls in the great waste—a lover’s tale, shared on starless nights. The tapestry was very old, beautiful, and in the way of ancient things, had its own magic. Sometimes, late at night, when she sat her vigil beside the lavedi’s bed, Muir even thought she saw Kaveh weep, but the admission would never pass her lips.

“The messenger,” Immelia said, holding the ointment just out of reach.

Muir squared her shoulders. If she were caught lying, the lavedi would cut out her tongue. She weighed her options, fear of the lavedi against her terror of the Izzat. “Your father has been secretive lately. I fear something is brewing again in middle Raton.”

“That is foolishness,” Immelia said sharply. “Father quashed their little revolution. Nothing more can possibly come from a pack of goat-herding scum.”

Muir regretted her words. Though she was hopelessly ignorant in most political matters, she knew enough to understand what the trouble was; that those subsistence farmers had been supplied with good weapons and incited to riot by the sha’al-izzat of Inay. But with Lavedi Immelia, talk of war was difficult since her only brother Drens had given his life back to the earth only last summer in the quashing of the revolt. Immelia had loved him with a dark and unparalleled passion, and had often stayed with him until the early hours of the morning, creeping back into her own room like a thief. On this affair Muir had no opinion; she merely grieved that her mistress suffered.

“You’re right,” she murmured, submission coating her voice like thickest honey.

Sighing, Immelia made rare amends for her snapping words. “Now that Drens is gone, Father will have to remarry, or we will have no Izzat.”

Muir nodded gravely, for the succession was no laughing matter. Without a leader of direct descent, the country would break into a civil war unmatched in recent memory. “You must think about a husband, lavedi. It will be hard for you to give your keys into the keeping of Izzat-second wife.”

Immelia’s exquisite features hardened, becoming pale and dangerous, akin to the deathmasks their ancestors had worn long ago, when the gods were still free. “I will never wed,” she spat, slapping Muir with one slim hand. “A curse on you for suggesting such a thing. I will never suffer a man to own me and make me his creature, a she-beast to brood up his young.”

Muir did not rub her cheek. It would only earn her another slap and would not assuage the red, stinging pain in her face. Tomorrow she would bear a mark, for the lady’s hands were deceptively strong, and she had worn those five slender fingers imprinted on her cheeks before—once around her throat.

Her fear of the lavedi overcame caution; it could not be much longer until Izzat Aban revealed his scheme to his daughter, and Immelia would assume, rightfully, that Muir had it known since the messenger’s arrival three days before. Punishment for secrecy was far worse than anything she might endure now.

“The izzat is arranging a marriage for you,” she whispered. “He has selected for himself a second wife, one younger than you, and he wishes you settled before these rites.”

A groan came from within Immelia’s throat, and she hung her head for a moment, her ivory skin almost green with pallor. Shortly, her pain passed into a howl of rage, the like of which Muir had never heard. Out of long habit, Muir folded double on the cool floor, her head tucked beneath her arms. Pottery smashing, fabric tearing, and all the while the lavedi screamed until her lungs sounded near to bursting, her throat raw with betrayal and rage.

And because Muir was not truly a person, only a vessel in their service, she heard the secrets. Secrets she possessed in abundance, for the High House of Izzat Aban was full of them, to the very walls.

“Father, I curse your name for breaking faith with me! To deceive me on the very night your son was burned...! One taste, you said, and I need never leave this house. Your queen, you said, in all but name. I curse every rock and tree, every mote of dust, I curse this place to die—nothing shall ever grow—I will salt your bones, Father.”

Then predictably, blows rained upon Muir’s back, her head, her neck, the curve of her spine, and soon after, kicks came hard and vicious, landing most often in her ribs. But Muir knew the pattern and protected herself as best she could, bearing the attack until it blew itself out. And when she heard the lavedi collapse, sobbing on her many-cushioned bed, she crawled over to her, ignoring the pain in her side.

Muir came beside her and touched her hair and waited.

Immelia curled into her, seeking her arms like a child. “I will leave this house,” she whispered, “and never return. I will go away and become a man’s thing, a vessel for his use, and I will lose myself. I must leave my people, and when I die, I will be burned on alien earth.”

“I am sorry, lavedi,” Muir said quietly. “But in the end, we all walk the same road, away from what we know.”

“Hold me a moment longer and tell no one of this.”

Because her secrets were infinite, and to serve was the sum of her soul, Muir did this as she did everything, calmly and with quiet strength.

“Kiss my mouth,” the lavedi said, and because Muir had not yet unearthed her own will, she did this thing also in the dark stillness of the afternoon.

The Dark Path

Dressed in her fair skin and golden hair, Immelia stretched on her silken bed like a cream-fed cat. “You have pleased me,” she said in a voice thick with lassitude. “When I leave, I shall take you with me, and I will exempt you from my curse on this place. Tend your garden, for it may be the last time. And Muir,” she smiled wickedly, “do not forget the salve.”

Muir said nothing; it was not in her to feel joy at such tidings. Impassiveness was bred into her bones. Anointing her hands with the balm, bought so dearly and at such cost, the soreness faded, though the cracks and blisters would not be mended so quickly. Indeed, they would probably never heal since she did laundry each week, ravaging her skin with harsh soap and scalding water. But even before she reached an age for such grueling tasks, her hands had been brown, thick and rough, without beauty or grace, much like Muir herself.

As she left the room, customary restlessness prodded her. If she spoke of it, Lavedi Immelia would tease about the whisperings of earth spirits. But it was an intensely private thing, insofar as she had secrets of her own, and she gave these feelings no voice. The earth spirits had all been silenced long ago and were worshipped no longer. That she heard them—the quiet, dying voices—fated her, and only the gods could know if such a marking would be for good or ill. But they had all been trapped long ago and so knew nothing.

There was silence in the house, a still, thick silence that spoke of waiting. Of patient men behind closed doors, the first storm spent. Though it was still morning, she had already completed her day’s work, and the patch garden next to the kitchen called to her. Several weeds had sprung up—she sensed them—and her vegetables pleaded for water. At this point in the season, they could not really spare it—even the izzat must abide by household rationing from the city waterhouse. Muir knew where she might draw some, however; Ar Cahra was inhospitable only to the ignorant.

Within minutes, Muir emerged from her small room swathed in her white djallabah. She carried round throwing stones and a small knife in her pocket while a spiked club hung across one shoulder. As well as two sealed containers, she took some wrinklefruit and a skin of water in case her secret spring was dry. Some two hours from the sanctity of the High House, the well had never let her down, but there was no point in taking chances. Ar Cahra swallowed many travelers, bleaching their bones into beautiful ivory, which was used for jewelry or carvings for the Izzat. If she saw something special, she would bring it home, and she might be rewarded with an extra day in her garden.

Thus encouraged, she drew the hood of her djallabah around her face so that only her brown eyes, the color of marbled agates, were visible, protected against the wicked wind. Just yesterweek, old Fegrub drank too much sweetmash and wandered out to seek ivory wearing only his small clothes; next morning, he was dead, flayed as neatly by the winds as any hunter could wish. Only the very foolish or the very skilled would journey into Ar Cahra in the heat of the day, but Muir counted herself among the latter. She treated the land with respect and received the gift of life in return.

Humming a little as she walked, she scanned the white dunes, unamazed by the sheer bleakness of the landscape. Ignoring the shimmer, she progressed eastward, keeping direction by the horizon and not the land, which often changed overnight. To the left and right, from the corner of her eyes, she saw things that were not and could not be, so she ignored those as well, murmuring a word of thanks for the heat miracles.

The winds kicked up, making progress difficult, and as precious sweat ran down her shoulder blades and back into her djallabah, she thanked the land for the challenge. Wayfarers rarely stumbled across Aqua Erathos Saiwala, the Well of the Red Soul, blundering around the borders and dying before they reached the interior. Ar Cahra was demanding, but Muir reached the spring intact.

The only exception to the consuming sand, a strange green tree flowered nearby, doubtless nurtured by the hidden spring. The oasis was unassuming, a ruby gem that shimmered with a crystalline heart. She heard the reassuring hiss of water lapping against the red stones that formed the lip of the well. Before she filled her waterskin, she thanked Ar Cahra for her safe travel and for the bounty provided her. The waves of the too-lively well smoothed to a quiet ripple, as if someone had skimmed a coin. Taking two sips from her waterskin, she poured the rest into Erathos.

“I do not come empty-handed,” she said aloud. Next, she buried a wrinklefruit in the sand beside the red stones. “I bring food, Erathos. I petition you for your gifts.”

A sound came up from the depths of the well. The silky white sands beyond the crimson stones were eerily still, but Muir sensed that Erathos welcomed her presence.

“Thank you. I will return your gift to the earth, and your generosity will not be wasted.”

Muir filled her containers, and then her waterskin, confident the courtesies had been observed. She scooped some water into her hands, trickling it over her face and down her chest. How did Erathos keep the water so cold? The city waterhouse could do no more than make it tepid, even after Jinjiwa chanted her winter airs. Pausing in the shade of the tree with the curious, heart-shaped leaves, she popped a wrinkle fruit into her mouth and took a small sip of water, liking the way the pulp swelled in her mouth, becoming plump and sweet.

With two full containers, her return trip would be burdensome and tiring, but she grinned in anticipation, strong, white teeth flashing against sun-kissed skin. Her garden would sing as she poured the liquid over it and it worked its way into the thirsty roots. Before she left the sanctity of the well, she skimmed the environment with a keen eye, looking for predators who would steal her water. At the thought, Muir fingered the club that lay heavy across her back, the spikes just sharp enough to prick through the fabric of her clothes.

No marauders—the winds were calm, and Erathos said nothing.

But further east, opposite the path home, she saw a prone, humanoid form through the silvery heat.

“Must I?” Muir asked, looking at the angle of the sun and her full buckets. She received no answer—only the sense that her action was expected. Grumbling silently, she requested that Erathos guard her belongings, and she received a watery assent.

It took mere moments to reach the still figure. Stooping to see what assistance she might offer, Muir froze. This man was definitely an outlander, the like of whom she had never seen: alabaster skin, silver-blue hair, pointed features, elongated eyes. No Cahran, this. Even Lavedi Immelia, who took care to stay out of the sun, could not boast such white skin. Muir knew a noble when she saw one, assessing his elegant hands and expensive raiment. Was he a madman then, braving Ar Cahra so ill prepared?

She found his skin inhumanly hot, but no sweat broke the poreless surface. No hair grew anywhere but on his head; even his chin was smooth. The man’s ears were narrow, not quite pointed, cheekbones sharp with hollows beneath, lips long and sculpted. His strangeness disturbed her, and somehow she knew Ar Cahra could not claim him, though it could hurt him badly.

Taller than she had first thought, much taller than the average Cahran male, it was a struggle to heft him over her shoulder. As she staggered back toward the well, she began an old chant, old nearly as time itself. “With the sun as my spine, I will not fall. With the earth as my arms, I will not fall.”

After a few repetitions, she felt the strength pour through her, and she was able to cover the distance without faltering. Erathos did not often require service; in fact, Muir could not recall a living memory of the red soul doing so.

As gently as possible, she laid him beside the well, loosening his black clothes, finely made of some supple material for which she had no name. “Erathos, I have brought him to you, but I’m afraid what I know of healing may hurt him.”

She felt as if the ground trembled beneath her, and the well roiled, wetting the crimson stones. “Erathos seems to feel I will not harm you,” Muir told the stranger, more to bolster her own confidence than from the belief he would reply. “I trust it is so.”

First, she must soothe his dry, fiery skin, but it might be dangerous to expose him to the sun. Inspired, she asked respectfully, “Erathos, may I use your waters? The sun is high overhead, and I must cool him.”

This time the answer was much stronger—a sibilant yes—and before her eyes, the water swelled nearly to the top, leaving enough room for a man’s body. Despite the smothering heat, a chill ran up her back, and she wondered if her protracted presence, the repeated use of red soul’s name, had somehow empowered it.

She found it effortless to lower the man into the water. Her belly resting on the stone rim, she gripped his shoulders, bathing him. She held him there until some of the heat spilled from his skin into the living water. When she saw that her goal was accomplished, Muir drew him up. The well surrendered him, the water withdrawing to a comfortable level.

Uncertain of the courtesies, she thanked both Erathos and Ar Cahra. She knew if anyone overheard, they would think her mad, honoring the old ways. No one else heard the whispers.

Returning her attention to her patient, she noted his skin was still much warmer than her own, but perhaps it was a vagary of his race. She could not find pulse or breath, yet surely the red soul would not allow her to foul it with carrion.

Water, then. She set her waterskin against his mouth, stroking his throat as she might a weak and injured hound. He swallowed, once, twice, and she knew her instincts were good. More might make him sick, so she took the container away. Now food. Soaking a wrinklefruit until it was near bursting with juice, Muir broke a piece and rubbed it against his lips. The sweetness interested him, and he opened for it. Popping the flesh into his mouth, she rubbed her finger along his cheek, prompting another reflex—chew and swallow.

This continued until the entire fruit was gone, and Muir gazed despairingly at the waning sun. Forced to spend the night in Ar Cahra with only this sick outlander for company; if the predators did not get them, she would be beaten when she returned and perhaps turned away as untrustworthy. Yet Erathos asked it.

As the sun plunged in the west, chill mistral sprang up, and she cursed. She had neither blanket nor tent to ward the wind. Already, the man shivered in his clammy clothes. Soon he would shiver more; legends said the sands at night frosted with ice that glittered like diamonds, though no sane person ventured out to discover the truth of it.

Knowing there was nothing else for it, she draped the length of her djallabah over them, made voluminous for just such a purpose, and took him against her, trying to warm his larger mass. He resisted her closeness, his body unyielding. Watchful, she lay beside him, listening to the winds and watching the thick, star spattered sky above her. Erathos might have no concept what it was asking, she reflected. I should leave him and go home, provided I survive that long.

Even as she thought it, she knew she wouldn’t. Erathos would use its magic to protect them, and from what she had seen, the red soul’s power was formidable. But more than that, she felt a bond with the outlander. The savior became responsible for the one rescued until he returned the courtesy, and his soul passed back into his own keeping. So must it be, for her urge to protect him was strong. Curiously, she touched his hair. It clung to her fingers, silkier than any fabric Lavedi Immelia had ever purchased.

The howl of a lone lykos arched into the bowl of the sky, soon answered by the bay of its brethren. They know we are here, she thought. Only time will tell if they can breach the sanctity of the well.

Sleep whispered in her ears and scrabbled at her eyes, but she did not submit to it. If death approached with sharp teeth and yellow eyes, she wanted to face it, and more, to fight it. Tentatively, she put an arm behind her, ensuring that her club was within easy reach. Neither she nor the stranger would make an easy meal; Muir vowed as much.

The man beside her stirred, his head restless against the sand she’d banked for a pillow. For some moments, he moved searchingly, and then he seemed to notice her. She watched his silvery lashes flicker against moon-pale cheeks. His eyes opened. Such eyes she had never seen: silver, blue, green, luminous, and snapping with the slitted pupils of a snake.

He looked at her with such an expression, cold and puzzled. That must be what she saw in the sharp lines of his exotic face.

“Cahrani?” he said, his voice like nothing she had heard, liquid, rippling, sending a pleasurable chill through her. Surely he was a prince of some distant land. “Q’tak serrat, falrii q’tet sulin et, s’srua?”

“I am sorry,” she murmured. “I do not speak your tongue.”

Propping himself on one elbow, he looked around, his strange, glittering gaze taking in the expanse of sand and sky. Then his eyes returned to her. “Cahrani?” he repeated, more insistently this time.

Through the peculiar inflection, she picked out the word, and though she was not sure if he meant her or the desert, she nodded once. One of his elegant hands brushed her temple. A shiver ran up her spine, signaling a surge of elemental power, like the earth she loved, the sun she respected.

Then, in that same purling, silken voice, he said, “You need not fear me.”

The tender, mortal phrase the Daiesthai had used since the sun was young, the phrase that paralyzed their victims, should they have knowledge of such ancient lore.

Muir did not. She smiled at him with strong white teeth, touching his cheek with one rough hand, surprised to the point of awe that he had taken her language from her mind. His magic was beyond the bounds of any she had seen or heard or even dreamed. With slight effort, he made Jinjiwa’s screaming, sweaty rituals look like a foolish game to while away a child’s daylight hours.

Because her awe was so great, she fell immediately into the role to which she had been born. It probably saved her life. “Are you hungry? Do you thirst? Only tell me what you wish, and I will provide it.”

His face registered confusion, if his features reflected emotion as she knew it. “Strange child,” he murmured. “Who are you?”

“I am called Muir.”

“‘From the wasteland’. You are aptly named.”

Startled, she gazed at him with eyes that would have been bovine brown, had they not been so intense. The art of naming was sacred, and outlanders rarely knew the rites.

“Your wisdom is honored,” she said cautiously.

He paused, tilting his head as if listening to unheard voices. “The name is the only wisdom, and I do but repeat it. I am called Rodhlann.”

Tasting the name, she wrapped her mouth around it, and the meaning came, sharp and biting. “‘Famous.’ Not yet,” she said, “but you will be. You also are aptly named.”

From there, they repeated the ritual, and the introduction was complete. Muir felt a tug, as if his easy passage through her had left echoes of him. He seemed to sense it as well.

“You have sought to bind me?” His narrow features drew in. He didn’t look angry; rather, he looked sad, somehow tragic, the weight of a thousand ancient betrayals on his beautiful, alien face.

She shook her head. “I do not know the art,” she said, serene in the truth of her reply. At that time, it was truth, after a fashion.

“You sing the green shoots and they grow. You enter into compact with the red soul. You walk Ar Cahra in the heat of the day, and I am to believe you are without magic?” He pinned her with shifting, iridescent eyes.

The absolute sincerity of her confusion framed her reply, defending her better than any words, and she put a hand against his forehead, finding the skin far too warm.

“You are still not well,” she muttered. “Try to sleep. I’ll stay awake until morning, then I’ll guide you to the Izzat. I’m sure he will be able to help you.”

“I doubt that,” he said with unmistakable melancholy. His tone changed, becoming gently skeptical. “You have no questions? No wishes? You will guard me through the night and ask for nothing in return?”

What a strange land he comes from, Muir thought. “Of course,” she said simply. “The red soul requested it of me, and long have I taken from it for my garden. There is much honor in repaying such a debt.”

“Honor,” he repeated, as if he had not heard the word before, nor tasted the inherent concepts.

Nodding, she suppressed a twinge of anxiety. Muir realized his apparent docility indicated lingering weakness. She perceived his distaste in every stiff muscle that curved so reluctantly against her.

He relaxed at once. “My apologies,” he said with a bright, lethal courtesy. “I had not realized it was so obvious.”

On some level, she registered that he heard her silent voice as she heard the quiet cries of her vegetable patch, the sibilant spirit of Ar Cahra, and the low groan of the earth. Muir had no sense of violated privacy, for her sense of self was small, a weak and under-developed thing; she rarely heard it. She knew she was a vessel to be used as the izzat saw fit. It was this conditioning, along with her intuition, that guided her to make the correct answers to the most dangerous questions.

Almost compulsively, she touched his cheek again, finding it much the same. Perhaps that was his body temperature; some of her anxiety drifted away, like sand into the wind.

“Why do you do that?” His face was so white and smooth, wan beneath the patterning silver of the moon. His rippling voice sounded more sweetly melodic than unexpected rain. It was a pleasure merely to let it fall over her ears.

“To see if your skin is less feverish. I thought you might have sun poison…I put you in the well to cool you down.”

But that was only a partial truth; she could neither resist nor control her helpless fascination with his alien beauty—his inhuman appeal, the stark, ringing power of him. Elemental in some senses, yet so refined that he was as akin to her as a diamond to a clod of earth.

His lashes fluttered down, and it was like a blow to lose sight of his eyes. Muir took it as a warning; there was something dangerous in his splendor. To keep herself awake, she smoothed his hair away from his brow, as she would anyone in her care. For dark, secret reasons of his own, he let her.

For some time, she soothed him and watched the desert in silence, but the lykos seemed to have loped off in search of easier prey. Not until the stars had traveled halfway across the sky did she become aware that Erathos whispered insistently beside them, striving to be heard. The red soul in you he needs...red soul.

“The red soul?” she repeated aloud.

Then she saw herself cutting her hand, chopping vegetables for stew. Blood—the red soul. It made an eerie kind of sense, and she wondered precisely how Erathos had earned its name. She took her small knife and sliced the tip of her longest finger, pressing so the blood did not spill.

“Rodhlann,” she whispered, pronouncing his name carefully. “The red soul has prescribed a cure for what ails you.”

His eyes flickered open, giving her the impression that he did not sleep. He only rested. “You wish this?” he asked, a strange inflection in the voice that could make a bard weep. “You give this?”

“The red soul...”

“No.” For the first time, his tone altered, expressing a rough, unpleasant emotion. “You wish this? You give this?”

“Yes,” she said, unhesitating.

If something so simple could heal him, she would be selfish to withhold it. Perhaps the salt was necessary to him or something else she could not identify. She offered her hand.

When he slipped her wounded finger between his lips, it was the most exquisite blend of pleasure-pain she ever experienced. His mouth drew strongly, and the rush of blood sent dizzying sensations through her. She put her free arm around him, wanting something solid to hold onto.

With each surge of his lips, he pulled her closer—not a physical movement—until she saw through her closed eyes, knowing what he knew. So many things she did not understand; a dark place with others like him, most like beautiful statues. Stasis. Pain. Timeless sorrow. She began to cry, blind with yearning and a loss that was not her own. The precious tears slipping from her cheeks onto the sands below. Ar Cahra accepted the gift.

The images whirled too fast for her to comprehend them; she had a vague sense of understanding how he had come to be here—this desolate corner of the world—and then it was gone as well, lost in the swirling tide of memory. Amazing that one man could have so many stored away.

When he drew his lips away, she cried out, the loss that profound. Hardly knowing what she did, she offered her hand again, and he shook his head almost tenderly. “It would make you ill, though I thank you.”

Radiance cloaked him like a fine mantle; he looked like a god, though they no longer walked the world. If he had appeared so in the sands, she would have feared to touch him. Muir had the vague thought that she ought to roll away. Surely, he would not take kindly to being clutched by a grubby Cahrani maid. He touched her cheek lightly, and ecstasy pierced her like a sword.

“Little Cahrani,” he said softly. “Little Muir, you have the kindest heart I have ever known.”

She lay passive, his memories shifting in her mind. Erathos grant them protection, for she was not certain she could even lift her club.

“What is it that you lack?” she asked, barely conscious that she did so.

He sighed, the wind sifting through a harp. “Many things. Most of which I could not explain to you.” Then curiously, “Why would you ask such a thing, little maid?”

Haltingly, she tried to clarify, but she could not articulate what she had seen and felt. After one quick touch of his elegant hands, he understood without the aid of her faltering explanation. Somehow, she knew he was troubled by it.

Almost to himself, he said, “It is not customary. Q’tak seraf et findo?”

 What have I done? Muir did not know why she understood his words—only that she did.

She had no answer for him, and they lay together quietly until the sun rising in the east cast its light across the sands. As far as she knew, she was the first of her tribe to live through a night in Ar Cahra. Surely they would honor her for that.

Suppressing the fear that she would receive a cold welcome, she unfolded from beneath the djallabah, uncoiling herself from where she had curved around him in the night. Politely, she offered him the waterskin, then the wrinklefruit, before she broke her fast. Just as politely, he declined, watching her with infinite, amused patience.

When she was done, she began to walk, leading him in the direction of her city. She truly had no idea what she did. The silence between them was strange but not uncomfortable, for he had no need of words and she had never learned to speak her thoughts. Mile after mile, they crossed the sands to the place that awaited them, that place of certain death.

When they entered the city, a great cry went up, first from the old woman gathering water at the public well—at first a glad cry—that a missing daughter had returned home. It seemed a miracle of sorts, and one that might be gladly told around the wells in many other towns. Her cry was passed from woman to man to child and on again, following them through the packed mud of the street.

“Muir has returned! Returned! Returned from the waste alive!”

She felt herself being pushed through the crowd, as glad hands patted her back and hugged her close. No more could she see the stranger; she could only glimpse a sea of faces, some smiling, some puzzled, and others blank.

And then it all went dark, for the oldest one came out of his house, rubbing the grit of sleep from his eyes, and sent up a scream of terror that spooked the birds from nesting on the roofs, sent them spiraling in a loud, cacophony of wings, a flapping, wind-swept sound. An echo of the oldest one’s scream.

“Afreet!” he howled from his toothless mouth. “An afreet from the wastes, an afreet to devour us all, as they did before the sun fell down and the earth burned black. We all shall pay its price!”

Rodhlann stopped and stared at the man with apparent curiosity. “Old one,” he said in a tone that was quietly mocking, “you cannot be speaking of me.”

Taate—the oldest one—fell upon his knees and wept, promising his service and his soul, for only the promise of mercy that he might be spared, if the others were not. Shortly, the glad tidings ceased making their way through the city, and soon, the darkness was in them, firing the urge toward human sacrifice that lingers, unacknowledged, unawakened until such a time. Like an arrow, the news went soaring through the town, all the way to the high house, of the afreet in Ballendin. In a matter of moments, the townsfolk surrounded Rodhlann, most on their knees and pleading.

A mob howling near the center of town, and Izzat Aban and his daughter Immelia came with evil in their eyes. The izzat was a short, sturdy man with the bright, dark eyes of a bird, a full beard, and a curved belly. In his loose and brilliant robes, he called to his people, a ringing voice out of keeping with his size. “Be silent. Be not afraid. I know the old ways, I know how our people used to appease the afreet.” He paused, drama in his face, for this was the stage of life—the moment for which he had been born. “Today she burns.”

Buffeted by the crowd that had torn her from the stranger, Muir cringed when the izzat jabbed his finger in her direction. A rumble went through the crowd, a hiss of disbelief, for it was that great a rarity that a person was burned alive. This was the most grievous of penalties; in Cahra there was very little wood, and the burning was wickedly slow.

At first Muir did not understand, staring into the crazed faces of people she had known all her life. Everywhere she looked, expressions were implacable or even eager. Hungry. Lavedi Immelia did not meet her eyes. After the hot silence that met Aban’s words, the cry of affirmation went up. “A burning! Yes! A burning for the afreet!”

Shortly, they seized her.

Taut with tension that superseded fear, she did not struggle as her marbled agate gaze searched the crowd once more, seeking mercy and finding none. Muir did not look to Rodhlann for aid. She went quietly to the meat curer’s shop, the only place where enough wood was stored. Her dumb terror showed in every movement, even if she would not protest.

“You cannot imagine I will allow this girl to die for her kindness,” Rodhlann murmured, and his voice broke over the city like a clap of thunder, though he had barely whispered the words. “You wicked children, do you want a burning? Then you shall have one.”

Gently, without violence, he spread his arms, and a flash of light rained down, so bright and hot and quick, they hardly felt it as they died. A howling, unnatural wind scattered their ashes to the four corners of the world, unsung and unmourned. The houses stood empty and unharmed, as if waiting for the families to come home again.

But they never would, and Ballendin was no more.

Bewildered, Muir looked around, seeing the sheen of the half-melted sands beyond the city. The power of it was beyond anything she could conceive, and so she trembled. She was unharmed, like the buildings, as if she were of the very clay herself.

She fell to her knees before him.

“Sayyid,” she whispered, only that, and bowed her head.

“Rise,” he said, lifting her with his hands.

Ecstasy pierced her at his touch, laced with fear and devotion, as a dog loves a kind master. She felt no grief; it was too soon. She did not really understand. But her feet were already on the road that everyone travels, away from what they know.

“Why?” she asked. “I am only a maid.”

“You have a gentle soul.” His answer was unsatisfactory, but she was too awed to press him. “And you will be lonely if you stay here.”

With unerring instinct, she said what he most wanted to hear, he who had known neither loyalty nor honor, nor even imagined their existence until a predictable betrayal flung him into the hellish pain of Ar Cahra. “I have served only one master in all my life, and now that he is dead—”

“By my hand,” he interjected smoothly, without inflection. His face was wickedly, inhumanly beautiful, serene and without remorse.

“Who shall I serve but the one who slew him in my name? Who else might protect me from certain, shameful death in exile?” She pledged herself to him, her vow etched in earth and copper.

He nodded, and together they passed through the ghost-filled streets, past the inn and the tavern, past the smithy, its forge silenced for all eternity. Muir dipped her head, hiding her face within the cowl of her djallabah. Her rough brown feet were barely visible beneath its white folds. She felt very small.

She did not weep, not even when she saw her garden, black with the expanse of glassy melted sands beyond. With a distinct chill, she remembered Immelia’s curse. The lavedi should have framed her words more carefully—only Muir had been exempted. Immelia had forgotten to protect herself. She glanced at Rodhlann; had Immelia summoned him? Did rage have that much power?

Her look melted into unconscious entreaty, a child’s simple longing. “May I ask a boon, sayyid?”

“Ask.”

“There is a particular tapestry in the high house. It tells of Kaveh and Minau—”

“I knew him,” he said, his mind so far away that she saw it going.

He knew them. Such a simple statement, and so incomprehensible that she merely stared with wide and puzzled eyes. The legends of her life, and he knew them.

“The tapestry cannot be as old as I thought, then,” she said. “But I would like to bring it with us, if it pleases you, sayyid.”

“It pleases me,” he answered quietly. “Take it, and as we travel I will tell you the truth about Kaveh and Minau. Shall you be the first to learn the secrets of your race? It will mean power, but there is risk.”

“I will be the first,” she told him, smiling with an innocent, incandescent hunger she sensed he could assuage.

And so Muir followed Rodhlann onto the road everyone travels, away from what they know.

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