Tomoka drops to his knees, hands on the floor as wide as his manacles will allow as he presses his forehead between them. The other two mirror him, all three making obeisance to me.

  “Prince Olive, Highness. I beg your forgiveness. We came to your home thinking you a helpless princess. Instead, we found a worthy warrior, but still, we did not truly understand. Everything about what happened was unworthy of us.”

  “That was you?!” Gared roars, and without turning, I hold up a closed fist, telling him to wait. A soldier to his core, he responds on instinct, but I feel his tension at my back.

  “If your general cannot be silent when his betters are speaking,” Belina sniffs, “perhaps he should wait—”

  I reach into my hora pouch, squeezing the miniature armlet, and Belina’s words are cut off with a howl. She drops to the floor, clutching her arm as the blood-locked armlet constricts until it must feel it will take off her arm. I know the pain well, and have half a mind to do just that, but my point is made.

  I let go, and Belina lies there gasping, desperately trying to regain her vaunted dama’ting calm. “If you cannot be silent when your betters are talking, Belina, perhaps you should be the one to wait outside.”

  Belina’s eyes bore into me with hatred and impotent rage, and I meet them hard.

  “Breathe, sister.” Inevera’s voice is calm, unperturbed by the display. “Pain is only wind. Return to your seat and be silent.”

  I grasp my hanzhar by the sheath, pointedly removing it from my belt and setting it on the table before me in easy reach. “You are right, Damajah. There is Sharum in me. I am not the helpless Princess Olive those men assaulted, and I am not my mother, with her Gatherer’s Oath. Do not mistake that.”

  Inevera nods. “We understand each other, Princes.”

  Slowly, so as not to provoke the armed and armored Sharum’ting bodyguard at her back, I take the knife by the sheath and roll back onto my ankles, getting to my feet. Kneeling with those men in the room was intolerable, and they will not catch me unarmed again.

  No one will.

  I stand over Tomoka as a man should over a vanquished enemy who might yet have teeth. “Why should I accept the apology of an honorless dog? Should it matter if you thought me man or woman? Perhaps such distinctions mean something to a backward savage, but they are spit and wind to me. You came into my home in the night, when all humanity should be united, and attacked unarmed women. Is that Nanji honor?”

  Tomoka raises his head slightly, if only to pointedly put it down on the floor once more. “You are correct, my prince. I have no excuse, save following orders.”

  My grip tightens on the silver sheath of my hanzhar, and I feel the soft metal shape itself to my hand. “A man of honor does not follow orders to commit a crime against Evejan law.”

  Inevera sniffs at that, drawing my eyes back to her. Belina has recovered her seat and is massaging her arm. There are tears in her eyes, and I am ashamed that I enjoy the sight of them.

  Inevera looks at Faseek. “You. Sharum. If your kai commanded you to steal a well in the night, would you ask who it belonged to, or why he wanted to steal it?”

  Like Tomoka, Faseek drops to his knees and puts his hands on the floor when the Damajah addresses him. “If Princes Olive commanded me to put out the sun, Damajah, I would trust he had good reason, and do it if I could.”

  “Indeed,” Inevera says.

  The lesson is not lost on me. This is the loyalty of the Maze, the trust of spear brothers. When Faseek saw me break Drillmaster Chikga’s neck, he didn’t ask questions. He helped me hide the body. I do not doubt Uncle Gared would do the same. Or Selen. Or Darin.

  Wouldn’t I?

  “The Watcher tribes have a different code,” Inevera says. “Kaji the First Deliverer created the Krevakh and Nanji three thousand years ago to serve his eldest sons Kaji and Majah. The Watchers were secret warriors, skilled in stealth, infiltration, and the gathering of information. Their very purpose was to handle tasks that were beneath—or that would sully the honor of—the eldest sons of Kaji. It is the honor of Watchers to have no honor, save in service to their masters.”

  The Damajah gets to her feet, moving to stand before me. I can see flashes of rippling muscle in the flow of her loose silk robes. There is a hanzhar at her belt, inches from her hand. “I myself sent a pair of Krevakh Watchers to kidnap your mother in the night, when I first learned she had lain with my husband.”

  She holds my gaze, daring me to act, and it is not the bravado of a drunk Sharum in the harem. It is cold. An invitation, and a warning.

  When I do not respond, she nods and returns to her tea, like Mother when I have passed one of her hidden tests. I look down, seeing I have crushed the delicately warded silver of my hanzhar’s sheath. I hook it back onto my belt and let out a deep breath, looking down at Kai Tomoka and wondering how I can save face.

  “I have not forgiven the debt you and your spear brothers owe to me, Kai,” I say at last. “But I apologize for insulting your honor.”

  Again the men lift their heads just enough to put them back down, acknowledging acceptance of the apology. I go back to the table and kneel with the other women.

  “Linavah,” Inevera says. “Princes Olive’s tea has gone cold.” Linavah pours me a fresh cup, and the Damajah waits patiently for me to lift it and take a sip.

  “Let us begin again,” Inevera says. “You are here with Belina and these men because their fates are bound to each other, and to you. My sister-wife and I have found a solution to our Majah problem.”

  I was slow, but I’ve guessed it by now. “You will send them the Nanji.”

  “Like Belina’s black scarf, it appears Nanji loyalty is not a thing that can simply be taken away by a Damaji’s edict,” Inevera says. “The Majah will not accept other warriors, but they will accept the Nanji. So we will allow them to rejoin their Majah masters and defend the Holy City from the alagai.”

  A hint of smile behind her translucent veil. “But years of peace and prosperity in Everam’s Bounty have strengthened the Nanji. They have grown numerous, even as Majah numbers have dwindled, and they are wealthy, with extensive ties in the green lands. They fought with great honor in Sharak Ka, and have the respect of other tribes that the Majah lack. For fifteen years, they have been their own masters, and Aleveran will find he has no choice but to share power. Perhaps they can pull their wayward cousins back into the modern world.”

  “Or the Majah will make fanatics of the Nanji, as well,” Linavah says.

  “If that is Everam’s will.” The Damajah’s voice is patient, though Linavah was not invited to speak.

  “I will require Belina as an ambassador to facilitate this.” Inevera nods to her sister-wife.

  At last, Belina has learned to drop her eyes when she speaks to me. “The house of Jardir has followers among the Majah even now. Relations Iraven and I kept alive all these years, waiting to rejoin New Krasia. But my connection to those supporters was broken by Iraven’s death. Only a new blood tie can reestablish it.”

  I feel my teeth grinding, and unclench my jaw. The last time the Majah needed a blood tie, they kidnapped me with the intention of forcing me to marry Aleveran’s grandson.

  “The dice say it is favorable for Linavah to marry Aleveran’s son Dama Maroch,” Inevera says, “and provide a son to replace Prince Chadan.”

  My jaw clenches again. “No one can replace Chadan.”

  Inevera offers me a bow of sympathy. “Indeed. I meant no offense. But the fact remains, Maroch is without an heir, and his Jiwah Ka too old to attempt another. Linavah can once again bind your father’s blood to Majah.”

  I turn to regard Linavah. “No matter what her wishes?”

  Linavah meets my eyes, bolder than her mother. “Do not mistake me, sister. If by living among savages I can bring unity to Krasia once more, then I do it without reservation.”

  Again, I am humbled. I thought I understood Krasian ways after months of immersion in Desert Spear, but it appears there is still much to learn. “Apologies, sister.”

  “You told me you wanted the Majah protected from the alagai,” Inevera says. “And that you did not wish to carry a blood debt.”

  “I do not know that I have a choice,” I say. “A blood debt is not a balance in a ledger, to erase with a handful of draki.”

  “Only Everam’s forgiveness is infinite,” Inevera says. “I ask only that you relinquish your claim on their lives, so they may serve a greater purpose.”

  She’s right. Is forgiveness too high a price to protect the Holy City and broker peace in a conflict that has gone on since before I was born?

  Mother would not have thought so. Whenever forgiveness can be the answer, she would say, forgiveness should be the answer.

  Inevera knows she has me. “With their families and thralls, the Nanji will restore Desert Spear, and—”

  “No,” I cut in.

  “Eh?” I can tell Inevera isn’t used to interruption, and I do not want to lock stares with her again, but some things are worth a fight. Belina looks at me as if I am mad. Indeed, is this not everything I want? The innocent protected, and my enemies’ power weakened?

  “No thralls,” I clarify. “The Nanji will take no greenlanders with them on their return to the desert. And the carts that bring them will return with any Majah ‘thralls’ who wish to return to the green lands. Those will be given lands and restitution to start anew in Everam’s Bounty.”

  Inevera raises an eyebrow, but she sits back on her heels, a hint of smile beneath her veil now that the haggling has begun. “Why should I pay restitution for Majah thralls? I did not take them into the desert.”

  “Because you stole their land in the first place,” I retort. It’s the kind of impolitc language Mother taught me never to use, but I will not equivocate here. “And the Majah took them from Everam’s Bounty while you sat the throne and did nothing. Even now, you speak of doing it again, letting the Nanji take the conquered Rizonans in their lands away with them like cattle. No.”

  “Fifteen years is a long time,” Inevera notes. “A lifetime for some. Many will not want to return, and many of the greenlanders who bonded to the Nanji will wish to go with their tribe to Desert Spear.”

  “Allowances can be made,” I say. “But Aleveran must agree to the exchange in good faith before any aid is given.”

  Inevera laughs. “He will agree to much more than that, before the negotiations are through.”

  “When I return to Hollow, I will send ambassadors to see that it is done,” I say.

  “You do not trust Belina to keep her word?” Inevera asks, nodding to her sister-wife.

  She meets my eyes again, and then we both laugh.

  Belina keeps her outer serenity, but I know she must be steaming right now. It’s better than she deserves, but I appreciate the cut. I get the sense Inevera has no more forgiven her than me.

  The Damajah claps. “Leave us.”

  Immediately, Ashia and her warriors retreat with the Nanji Watchers, and Belina rises, ushering out my bodyguard and closing the doors behind them. Linavah stays to clear the table, then she, too, is gone.

  As soon as the doors close, Inevera produces her dice of clay, now cemented to a board, which she lays on the table beside her casting cloth. There are slight adjustments to my recollection of Belina’s casting—no doubt the result of Inevera consulting her sister-wife—but I surprise myself with how accurate my reproduction was.

  The Damajah shakes her true dice from their velvet hora pouch and draws her hanzhar. “Hold out your arm.”

  I cross them instead. “You first.”

  Inevera’s eyes narrow, but she does not argue, holding out an arm. Her robes are attached at the shoulder and wrist, but slits along the length allow the robes to breathe, and grant access to her flesh.

  Mother always took blood for the dice with a surgical lance to the fingertip, a precise ritual I witnessed countless times. But I am not my mother, and take Inevera’s in the traditional dama’ting fashion, using my hanzhar to make a shallow cut to her forearm.

  The Damajah does not flinch, holding steady as seven drops fall into my vial. When it is done, I move to put pressure on the wound, but it is not necessary. Already the bleeding has stopped, and even as I watch, the wound knits itself closed.

  “I trust you are not so naïve as to leave that someplace unsecure,” the Damajah says.

  I slip the vial into my robes, in a pocket close to my heart. “Anyone who wants it will need to kill me first.”

  “If they learn you have a vial of the Damajah’s blood, many will try,” Inevera warns. “Now you.”

  This time I wordlessly comply, giving seven drops in exchange, one splashing on each of the Damajah’s dice. She whispers a prayer as she shakes, a dialect of Krasian I do not recognize. There is a flash of light as she throws, and the spinning dice jerk to a sudden halt, forming a pattern, but without knowing the question, I can’t even begin to decipher it.

  “What did you ask?”

  “Tsst,” Inevera says. “I did not promise to share that with you, little Princes, any more than you promised to share your intent for the vial of my blood hidden at your breast.”

  I frown, though she’s right. I was naïve not to be clearer in wording our agreement.

  Inevera stares at the throw silently for a long time. At last, she grunts and returns her attention to me. “What do you know of the Spear of Ala?”

  The question catches me off guard. “Just what Darin’s mum told me. That she went there with my father, and it was abandoned, surrounded by demon dogs, and that Father…had power there.”

  Inevera snorts. “Had power. Like the sun has power. In the Spear of Ala, your father was the most powerful man in the world.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Because the csar was built in the shape of a massive greatward,” Inevera says. “And its Sharik Hora was built of the bones of martyrs, just like the Holy City in Desert Spear.”

  That, I understand. Mother used to Draw upon Hollow’s greatward to work her greatest magics, but even that was nothing compared to the power of the Holy City in Desert Spear. Magic is drawn and shaped by emotion, and there is nothing to match the emotional power of a martyr in death. If the Spear of Ala is powered by both…

  “But the power was tied to Father’s crown,” I say. “The Crown of Kaji.”

  “Indeed,” Inevera agrees. “Seven points, each focused by a gemstone cut from a larger whole set in the heart of the Spear. The crown was the key to the city, and its wearer commanded vast, near-infinite powers in the environs of the csar.”

  I nod. “Yet Father is gone, and the crown with him.”

  “Not precisely.” Inevera reaches into the pillows, producing an intricate, beautiful crown, pointed seven times, each set with a different gemstone, though I admit they are smaller than I imagined. Nevertheless, it is a masterpiece of wardwork, and from my time in the Chamber of Shadows, I immediately recognize the metal—electrum, a natural alloy of silver and gold coveted for its ability to conduct magic without loss.

  “How did you get that?” I ask. “Has Father…”

  “Your father remains missing.” Her voice is calm, but I know the admission must pain her. “But I am not a fool.”

  “You copied his keys,” I guess.

  The Damajah smiles beneath her translucent veil. “Something like that. We could not risk losing access to the Spear of Ala once again, so I visited the csar myself and cut the sacred stones to link to a duplicate crown in case something befell the original.”

  That explains why the gems look so small. “So you can control the csar?”

  Inevera shakes her head. “The replica is a key to the csar’s power, not the power itself. I was forced to mimic the enchantment of the original. The crown gives power to any who wears it, but only a true heir of Kaji can unlock its full potential.”

  “Then give it to one of your sons,” I say.

  “Would that I could,” Inevera says. “Do you think I wish to entrust it to you? The child of my hated zahven, and not one of my own? But Sharak Ka comes first. My eldest, Jayan, is dead. Asome is in exile and shamed. Hoshkamin is a competent Sharum Ka, but he will never be a great leader, and cannot be trusted with such power.”

  “Why not Kaji?” I ask. “He is the son of heroes, and you passed over an entire generation to put him on the throne.”

  “Because removing Kaji from Everam’s Bounty threatens everything we have built,” Inevera says. “The last time my husband disappeared, our son Jayan started an unwinnable war, and his brother Asome murdered the entire council of Damaji and his own father-in-law to take the throne. Your father has dozens of sons, and they are always one ill omen away from falling on one another like wolves.”

  She lifts an accusatory finger my way. “And you did not help matters, strutting about challenging them in open court. If you truly want to lead, you need to do it with more wisdom.”

  I put my hands on my hips, like Mother when she’s run out of patience. “You were the one who walked me into that asp nest, Damajah. Would things have gone better if I had bared my neck?”

  A puff of air through her veil. Amusement? “None of the other heirs are strong enough to hold the throne against their brothers. Without Kaji, Asome might return, and that would mean open conflict.”

  “Give the crown to one of Father’s other sons, then,” I say. “He has fifteen wives…”

  “And I have cast dice in the birthing blood of all of their sons,” Inevera says. “None of them have a reading like yours.”

  “Because you think I am Shar’Dama Ka,” I say.

  “Because whether you accept it or not, you have the potential to be,” Inevera replies, “and that is more than the dice have said of any of your father’s other get.”