But then Mam and Leesha Paper got into that fool argument over what Da would have wanted, if he was still around. Mam got her back up, and we didn’t come back to Hollow for five years. I thought maybe things might go back to normal, and for a little while they did, but then Olive was taken, and now I don’t think normal’s ever coming back.

  And if normal ent normal anymore, I need to find something to fill the hole. Can’t do this with just Arick and Selen. Selen’s strong, and brave, but she ent bringin’ any magic to the table, and we’re gonna need it if we want to sneak past Alagai Ka. Arick’s got magic in his kamanj, but he’s still apt to go for his spear in a fight, and he’s got his own problems to figure out.

  Without realizing it, I’ve started drifting toward the Damajah’s wing of the palace. I tried to sneak in here once before and it din’t go well, but I’ve learned her guards’ tricks now. The Sharum’ting rely on magic as much as skill for their unnatural stealth, and my night eyes can see magic like other folk see color. Like listenin’ for wards of silence, there are trails in the air where they have used magic to cloak themselves in shadow, and residual prints on walls they used magic to climb or cling to.

  Now that I know where they are, it’s easier to slip by Inevera’s guards. Their hora jewelry is a crude imitation of powers that come to me as naturally as breathing. A slippery finger is enough to unlatch a window, and I slip into the Damajah’s bubble of silence.

  The effect startles me. Not the pop of blending sounds when the bubble is pierced, this is the sudden cessation of all the sounds I’d been surrounded by, replaced instantly with an entirely new set. It’s so disorienting I feel like I might sick up.

  I find a hiding place and close my eyes for a bit, breathing deep and slow as I get used to the new sounds and give my stomach time to settle. After a few minutes, I am reoriented and start moving again. The protections tighten the closer I get to the Damajah’s private quarters, but the residential floors where I’m headed are well away from there.

  The Damajah’s portion of the palace encompasses the harem, as well. Not so strict as the Majah, whose harems were effectively a prison for women, here they are free to come and go. The Damajah’s harem is a retreat from men in the palace, where women can meet in private and even the most conservative women can walk about unveiled.

  It is also a place where most of the unmarried palace women above a certain age reside. Dama’ting and young princesses not yet wed, for the most part.

  Rojvah sang with me for weeks out in the desert, and it’s easy to pick her voice out of the general din and head directly toward the sound. She ent alone, but I din’t come all this way to leave without seeing her.

  The sun has set and the palace chandeliers are lit, casting harsh shadows. I climb to the ceiling and slip into a dark patch close to Rojvah’s door, focusing.

  I didn’t escape raised voices for long. Rojvah is arguing with her mother, and it sounds a lot like Selen and Olive.

  “Arick is a man,” Amanvah says, “and expected to throw his life away for honor. But you have sacred duties and cannot just—”

  “Just stand by,” Rojvah cuts in, “while my brother and cousins ‘throw their lives away’ in Sharak Ka?”

  “Who will lead the women of Kaji if you die?” Amanvah asks.

  “Someone else!” Rojvah shrieks. “I never asked to be dama’ting. Have another daughter to be your heir, if that’s so important.”

  “And what will you be,” Amanvah demands, “if I break my vow to honor your father by never bearing any child save his?”

  “I will be honoring him, too!” Rojvah’s voice has turned pleading. “I want to be like him—more than Arick ever did. I want to be a Jongleur and wear bright colors. I want to sing, and to dance.”

  “Your voice is a sacred gift,” Amanvah says, “not a tool to entertain Northern princelings and crowds of commoners.”

  “Why not?” Rojvah demands. “Was that not exactly what Father did?”

  “Your father brought glory to Everam.” Amanvah’s voice is low. Dangerous.

  “As will I!” Rojvah swears. “I will be a diva, who ensorcels crowds with songs of glory to Everam by day, and enchants hordes of alagai by night.”

  “You will not,” Amanvah says. “If your blessed father was here—”

  “I wish he was!” Rojvah shrieks. “I wish he’d been here my whole life, so Arick and I could have one parent who was not ashamed of us both!”

  “I am not ashamed of you!” Amanvah barks. “You shame yourself!”

  Neither speaks for a long time after that, but I can hear their heavy breathing, their pounding hearts. Fights like this need a break now and then.

  Amanvah is the first to speak again, her voice softer. “But you are right. Your father had a soft heart, and it was easy to soften in his presence. Even Sikvah and I wore colored robes when we performed with him.”

  “Truly?” There is disbelief in Rojvah’s tone, but I seen paintings of Halfgrip and his wives in Hollow, and know Amanvah’s giving honest word.

  “But it was his soft heart that led to your father’s death,” Amanvah goes on. “He could not bring himself to be ruthless with his enemies, and they turned that weakness against him.”

  I hear Amanvah sob, and again I feel slimy for listenin’ in on folk. “And if I had been more ruthless,” she continues, “if I had not let my heart grow soft, I would have dealt with his enemies as a wife should, and he would be alive today.”

  Rojvah is crying now, too, and I hear the press of cloth and flesh as they embrace. They hold each other through it, hearts and sobs finding a harmony of sorts, until both ease, and a delicate peace forms in the room.

  “Soon after, I was called home to lead the women of Kaji,” Amanvah tells her daughter. “I returned with a hardened heart, and those liberties I took at my husband’s side had to be sacrificed to the black veil.”

  “Perhaps,” Rojvah says. “But even if you do not wish another child, you are young, Mother. Barely halfway through your fourth decade when most dama’ting live to see their ninth. Why can’t I have a chance, as you did, to live and grow and see the lands beyond Everam’s Bounty?”

  “You have seen enough, sneaking off to Desert Spear,” Amanvah says. “And it was different for me. I was a woman wed, traveling with my husband at the Deliverer and Damajah’s command.”

  Rojvah is silent at first, but I can tell from her pulse she’s got something to say. “What if I were intended to the son of Arlen?”

  Amanvah doesn’t reply right away. Night, it takes me a moment to realize I’m who she’s talking about. Rojvah wants to marry…me? I nearly lose my grip on the ceiling.

  “I do not think he would have you,” Amanvah says at last. “The dice say he is not ready for a wife, or indeed if ever he will be, though the Shar’Dama Ka long desired to find a match for the son of Arlen among his heirs.”

  “But what if he did?” Rojvah presses. “What if he says the words of intention to me? Then it would be my duty to go with him, and Arick. Would the Damajah allow it then? Would you?”

  Amanvah keeps her breathing steady, but her pulse is quickened. “The Damajah would allow it. Everam’s beard, Mother would seize on it, if only to ease pressure from Father. And if Father has taken the lonely path, then it is another tie with the greenlanders we desperately need.”

  I hear her take Rojvah’s hands. “But do you truly want to marry him? Or is this simply a ploy to escape your duty? His parents ate the flesh of alagai, it is said.”

  She leaves out the nickname, but I hear it in my head anyway. Alagai blood. He will be born in darkness, and will carry it inside him, the Damajah’s dice said. Are they right? Am I unclean, somehow?

  The words cut me because I know Amanvah’s speakin’ honest word. How could someone like Rojvah, brilliant and graceful and pretty as a sunset, with a voice like a seraph, and all that culture and royal blood, ever be interested in me?

  “I do not want to marry anyone,” Rojvah admits. It stings a little, but I ent surprised.

  “But the son of Arlen is wise,” Rojvah says, “and he is brave. I have never known a truer heart, and he is fair to look upon. He is unassuming, but that is just as well. I enjoy attention, and can shield him from it. And he is in desperate need of a woman’s care.”

  I feel my face heat. Don’t think I’ve ever been wise, or brave, but the rest…

  Always thought I’d marry Selen Cutter one day, if I married at all. Sometimes I heard Brook girls gossip they shined on me, but it was only because I never let anyone get to know the real me. Selen and Olive were the only ones who really did, and liked me in spite of it. I shined on Selen all my life, and when we had ten summers and played that game of kissy…ent imagined myself with anyone else since.

  But Selen dun’t want me. Don’t know much about women, but I know that. She’s kissed plenty of boys since our game, and from the sounds of it, they were nothing like me. Big and tall and square-jawed. We were alone together on the road for months, and there wasn’t even a hint of interest, not since that one time she teased me in her father’s manse, half a year ago.

  I realize I’ve stopped paying attention when the door opens, and Amanvah steps through. I have to scramble a bit to slip through before the door closes. Rojvah isn’t looking my way, staring out the window at nothing.

  “You heard everything?” Rojvah asks without turning. I freeze in place, even as she turns to face me.

  “How did you…” I stumble.

  Rojvah reaches into the velvet hora pouch at her waist, producing a set of seven dice, carved of demonbone and glowing bright with magic. “I have dice, too, Darin am’Bales,” Rojvah says. “I finished carving my set in Desert Spear, though I have kept Mother from learning of it thus far. She will demand the test if she finds out, and nothing will keep me from the white, then.”

  “Secret’s safe with me.” I drop silently to the floor, coming closer, but not too close. Dice have caused enough problems in my life. Don’t like the idea of adding another set.

  Rojvah closes the gap from her side, until I’m close enough to feel her breath like a touch on my skin. “Will you do this for me, son of Arlen?”

  Never noticed how big her eyes were, before. Be easy to lose myself in them and say ay to just about anythin’. But this ent a normal favor. “Said you din’t want to marry anyone.”

  “I spoke the truth, because I knew you were listening,” Rojvah says, “and you deserved to hear it. I will not lie and say I love you, but neither do I deny you would be a good husband, and there is more to marriage than love.”

  Again she ent wrong, but it stings to have it laid bare like that.

  “You need not even commit fully,” Rojvah says. “All you need do is indicate you wish to be intended. Mother and Grandmother will leap on it, and I can go north with you. Neither of us has reached our sixteenth year, so they cannot insist we marry before we go. We will go to Safehold, and if we survive and you do not wish to go through with it, make some excuse and you can refuse me, or I, you.”

  Sounds like she’s got it all figured out. Dice probably helped. Bet she’s been planning this a good while. Should’ve known it wasn’t really about me. Just an excuse to clip her mam’s apron strings. How could someone like her ever want me for me? This promise is just a scheme.

  But so what if it is? Selen ent interested, and Amanvah wasn’t wrong that I ent lookin’ for anyone else.

  Arick and I struggle to find harmony when we play together. He’s too rigid about things being played the “right” way, and I’m all over the place. But when I play with Rojvah, she’s not just deft and quick to keep up, she leads me to new places I could never have gone alone.

  Yet somehow, when all three of us played together out on the desert, it worked. Arick was the foundation, and we were the builders. Ale stories said when Master Halfgrip played with his wives Amanvah and Sikvah, their trio could charm a demon into cutting its own throat with just their music. Playing with Arick and Rojvah, I really believed it, and that we could learn to do it, too.

  Odds ent good no matter what we do, but if we’re to have any hope of sneaking into Safehold without Olive, we need Rojvah.

  And she’s family already. Maybe not blood, but as good as. Rojvah went all the way to Desert Spear to help us find Olive. What kind of friend would I be, if I didn’t help her when she needed it?

  “All right,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

  The smile that splits Rojvah’s face shines like a crescent moon. She takes a step closer, and another, until we are practically touching. Don’t like folk getting this close, but I’m caught like a rabbit in a trap.

  “You must demand I remove my veil before you speak the words of intention.” She is so close I can feel the pressure of her full lips as they form the words. The moisture of her mouth. “And then you must kiss me.”

  I just stand there, stiff as a goldwood tree, frozen in place like I was that time with Selen.

  Rojvah laughs. “Perhaps you wish to practice?”

  “Ay, uh,” I stumble, but she takes it for permission, leaning in quick and pressing her soft lips against mine. It’s only the second kiss in my life, and like the last one, I’m the one being kissed, and not the other way around.

  And I melt.

  Literally. Tension I’ve been holding gives way and a deep part of me relaxes. Before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve turned slippery, our lips sliding apart.

  Corespawn me. Din’t mean for that. Din’t want it to stop. She’s still there, lips puckered. It’s been less than a second. It doesn’t have to end. All I need to do is suck back in and return her kiss.

  But I’m scared, and I hesitate, and then the moment is gone. Rojvah steps back, but she is still smiling.

  “Perhaps we should stand before the Damajah in sunlight, to do this.”

  “Ay.” I laugh in spite of myself. “Reckon that’s a good idea.”

  “General,” I say, when the servants grant Gared entrance to my chambers. “How go the preparations?”

  “Core if I know for sure,” Gared admits, “but Abban says Inevera will keep her word and things’ll be ready for us to leave tomorrow.”

  “Excellent, thank you,” I say. “I expect there are a line of men waiting in the garden for you to best them at arm wrestling?”

  “Ay, reckon so.” There’s a twinkle in Gared’s eyes I’ve never seen before. Not only has he shed years and pounds, there’s a confidence and joy about him now that is a pleasure to see.

  The Uncle Gared I remember from Hollow was always sad, or drunk. A warrior in a society that no longer had a place for him. Now he’s the man I need, right when I need him.

  “Then I shan’t keep you longer,” I say. Gared is the only one of us who seems to be enjoying his stay, so why not let him? Soon enough I may command him to follow me into the abyss, and I do not doubt he will do it.

  As the general turns to go, the door cracks just enough to admit a servant, bowing before she’s even in the room, eyes on the floor. “Excuse my interruption, Highness, but you have a message.”

  The servants are loath to enter when I have a guest, which tells me whoever sent the message outranks me. The Damajah perhaps, or one of the tribal Damaji. “Raise your eyes, Oshala vah Finela, and speak your message.”

  The servant starts a little. Krasian servants aren’t used to their masters calling them by name and treating them like equals. Still, I have given a command, and she is quick to obey, straightening and meeting me in the eyes. “The Holy Mother, Kajivah, has summoned you to her palace for an audience.”

  “Summoned.” Gared’s voice is gruff. Protective. But he cannot protect me from this. “You’re the leader of Hollow. Who’s this Holy Mother think she is?”

  I sigh. “My grandmother.”

  “Oh.” Gared deflates. “Reckon the wrestlin’ll have to wait.”

  * * *

  —

  When I was growing up in Hollow, everyone was scared of my grandmum Elona. She could be sweet as honey when she wanted, and claw as unexpectedly as a cat. No one wanted to be on her bad side. Most folk avoided her entirely. But she was the duchess’ mum, a position that came with power, and an army of sycophants looking to curry favor.

  The only people who weren’t scared of her were me and my sister Micha. I was her only grandchild, and Grandmum doted on me like I was the sun and moon.

  Elona tried snapping at Micha once or twice, but my sister only regarded her coolly, seeming to take no offense, but neither giving way. Eventually, Grandmum backed off.

  “Why aren’t you afraid of her like everyone else?” I asked Micha once, while she brushed my hair.

  “You have two grandmothers,” Micha replied. “Elona Paper, and the one we share, Kajivah am’Jardir am’Kaji. Elona is like a tunnel asp, quick, sharp, and deadly. Kajivah is more frightening, by far.”

  The memory roils in my gut now. Rojvah always said the same, in our correspondence. Her letters were full of stories of Kajivah meddling in the lives of every one of her dozens of granddaughters. Rojvah described her as old, controlling, and deeply conservative, a nightmare there is no waking up from.

  I can’t deny I’m anxious about meeting her, but I’m curious, too. Spent two hours deciding what to wear. Should I come as a granddaughter, as a grandson? Or should I find something in between?

  But then I think of Kaji’s warnings, and Inevera’s. Perhaps I didn’t understand the ways of my father’s people as well as I thought, when I made my challenge in the throne room.

  I think of how I went to what I thought would be a peaceful tea, only to be faced with armed Sharum’ting and men who nearly beat me and my sister to death.