She felt the breath catch in her throat almost like a laugh, and gritted her teeth even harder because it wasn’t fucking funny, no matter how he said it.

“And I say, tell me what you want me to do about the weather. And you don’t say anything at first, but you get that look. And so I say, tell me plainly what the matter is. And you say something inexpressibly foolish, such as how this is all your fault. And so I tell you how foolish it is to say that, which is a reasonable thing to say, and you become impossible to deal with. So.” He nuzzled at the side of her neck. “I will say none of these things. It is absolutely no use trying to talk with women.”

“Sexist son of a bitch.”

“Ha.” He snuggled closer under the blankets. “I win. So just say it, Soft-Skin, before you choke on it.”

“We were supposed to be out of the mountains today.”

“Shit happens.” His language, her phrase. They were both doing a lot of that.

“And it is my fault. You can make all the smart-ass comments you want to.”

“Lo,” Meoraq intoned, “even his ass be wise.”

“Jerk.”

“Mm.”

Wind blew, cracking the ice forming on the side of the tent.

“When I was a boy,” Meoraq murmured, “and my training masters wished to give me the most severe punishments, they would set me to copying books. And the book that every boy most dreaded to see was Master Darr’s book of maps, because every line had to be perfect, you see. Every hill, named. Every bend of every river, just so. I must have copied that book ten times, end to end.”

Amber waited, gritting her teeth, but curiosity won out in the end. Meoraq could make the most random crap imaginable sound profound when he said it in that slow, meditative way. “And?” she said finally, surrendering.

“And when I first left Xeqor,” he went on, “I thought I knew the land, because I knew those maps so well. I had no hesitation when I set off, for I knew where I would find the range of Aqcha and I knew where to find the city of Fol Ganis on the other side. It came as a hell of a shock when I climbed that first peak and saw more mountains.”

“And the moral of this story is?” asked Amber, and immediately regretted it because it didn’t sound tough and bored at all, just snotty.

“That everything looks small on paper,” Meoraq replied. “But in Gann’s world, shit happens.”

The wind died down, making the relative quiet seem much louder and heavier than it should. Meoraq’s body beside hers remained perfectly relaxed.

“I’m sorry for being such a bitch,” Amber muttered finally.

He patted her breast companionably. “Forgiven.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

She didn’t feel much better. How the hell could he lie there so still? “Are you really this sleepy?”

“Yes. Wait.” He raised his head. “Why?”

“Well, it’s only the middle of the day.”

“There’s nothing else to do.” He flicked his spines at her. “Is there?”

“Jesus Christ, really? How did you ever survive living with me as long as you did without having sex every other hour?”

“With God’s aid alone,” he said seriously. “It was a terrible time.”

“Just talk to me, okay?”

“It is absolutely no use,” he reminded her, but rolled onto his back and pulled her halfway onto his chest. “It hasn’t been so bad, has it?”

She thought it was a joke and started to laugh at it, albeit in a bitchy way, but then got a better look at him and realized he was serious. “For you, maybe. I am a walking bruise, lizardman.”

“You bruise too easily. But do you hurt?”

Of course she hurt! She opened her mouth…and thought about it, damn him.

“Not like before,” she admitted. After all, she was just lying here, not sprawling in a gasping heap, half-conscious. If the weather wasn’t so piss-awful, she’d still be walking. She ached a little on her hip where she’d done some serious splits on her way down the slope the other day, but unless she actually poked at a bruise, even those didn’t bother her too much.

She didn’t hurt. She wasn’t tired. She wasn’t even all that cold, thanks to Meoraq’s tent, plenty of furs, and the clothes they’d spent all winter making. She hadn’t been hungry in more days than she could count.

“No,” she said, surprised. “I guess it’s not that bad.”

“And when it is over, it will be over forever. You will have a bed all the rest of your life, except on those nights when you have mine. You will have servants. You will sit at a table and eat from a plate.”

“You say the most romantic things. You sure you want to risk letting other guys see me?” Amber asked. “Apparently, I have this overwhelming sensuality.”

“Your servants will be women.”

It took a few seconds for that to register all the way.

“Hang on.” She pushed herself up a little so she could see his face. “I thought you said women didn’t work on this planet.”

“We don’t pay them,” he explained. “And most of them only care for their own households, so no one sees them. It’s only if a man has too many daughters or a barren wife set aside that they end up working in House Uyane.”

“What?”

“It’s a big House. It needs a lot of tending and my father never had daughters. I don’t think he even had sisters. It’s the lord’s responsibility to see that all those within his holdings are cared for, so why not put them to work? Besides, they’re rarely out where we can see them. It’s mostly the extra boys that do the running around and cleaning.”

“Extra?”

He rolled one hand idly through the air. “Orphans and bastards and such. If they weren’t born under the sign of the Blade, they’re the responsibility of the lord-steward.”

“What happens to them?”

“Farmers and cattlemen can always use more workers, but they have to be old enough to be useful. I’ve seen boys as young as six in the fields of other Houses, but my father waited until they were ten or so.”

“Practically grown,” said Amber sarcastically.

He grunted agreement. Several more minutes passed while Amber tried not to fidget as she thought about his place in Xeqor and whether or not she was supposed to help take care of all these extra kids. Meoraq just dozed. Suddenly, he tensed and roused himself, saying, “You will do no more work when we are home, woman. Swear your obedience!”

“Okay.”

He eyed her mistrustfully and settled back down.

“So what kind of work are we talking about, since the kids do all the cleaning?”

“Eh.” He yawned, rubbing at his eyes. “They cook and do the washing. In a House Uyane’s size, that’s a lot of work. I suppose they must do the heavy things a boy can’t, like haul water. I don’t know, really. Mostly, they stay below, out of sight.”

“Why?”

“It’s where the work is. Besides, if they come up, someone other than my father might see them.”

“And?”

He raised his head up to look at her, as if he thought she might be joking. When he saw she wasn’t, he laughed a little anyway, his spines flexed forward. “If a man saw them, he might want to have sex with them. Unless he were born under the Blade, that would be a crime. And even if he were, it’s still trouble.”

“But if your father saw them…?”

Meoraq shrugged and lay back down. “He was lord-steward.”

Something dark and cold and incredibly heavy shifted in her stomach, not quite waking up all the way. “How is that fair?”

“Eh?”

“When women sleep around, they’re possessed by the devil, but it’s okay for men to get with the help? What kind of half-assed laws are these?”

“Not men,” said Meoraq, in warning tones. “The lord-stewards, who are masters over all their households. And Uyane is not merely a House under the sign of the Blade, it is the Blade. Its stewards are highest in God’s eyes. He wants them to breed.”

‘Even you?’ She couldn’t say it, since the answer was so stupidly obvious. Why wouldn’t he sleep around with all the pretty little lizardladies that were sure to be cluttering up the house once they got back and she wasn’t the only woman on the planet anymore? But she had to say something, because the two words she couldn’t say were choking her, so instead, trying to pretend it was all still hypothetical, she said, “What about what the woman wants?”