“Admitted? No! No, most honored one, no. They weren’t raiders as the word be reckoned. Exiles, I must acknowledge, but does not the Word say, eh…as every man has a need for air…no, wait…does not every man that breathes claim the right to air?”

“Book of Admonitions, verse thirty-five,” Meoraq hissed. “Lo, a man’s need for air is not a promise of breath, for every life may be cut that goes against the law of God.”

Myselo struggled to take that in, then gave up. “It is not in me to see a man suffer!” he declared. “They come to trade, sir. Not phesok, I say, but only good game and hides, which this poor city has sore need of. Rsstha and his slit-licking merchants—”

“Then you admit you grow the phesok yourself?”

“I don’t know what grows in the governor’s fields, sir,” said the warden after a moment’s hard thought. “Nor what comes through the other gates when I’m away. I am just one man.”

“A man who trades with raiders. If you deny that’s what they are just once more, I’ll split your lying mouth,” he said as the warden began to speak. “They came to my camp last night. They took…everything…and I have spent this entire day chasing their trail in the wrong fucking direction. Now I will have lost it. So let me make this easy for you.” Meoraq stepped forward and seized the warden by the folds of his throat, thrusting the point of his sword under Myselo’s chin. “Tell me where they went.”

“Sir, I don’t know—”

“Do you wish to pray?” Meoraq interrupted. “If I can’t have them, I’ll have you, mark me. Tell me where they are or make your last prayer.”

“I don’t know!” the warden bayed. “They come and go! I don’t know them! I don’t—”

Meoraq gave the throat in his grip a calculated cut. It was hardly a mortal wound, but it bled. He was forced to deliver two restrained blows with the hilt of his sword to stop the warden’s struggles, and then had to wait while his senses came back into order. At some point during this process, he was annoyed to discover that the watchman had fled. Onahi remained, and as the warden recovered himself, Meoraq spared the gatekeeper an assessing stare.

Onahi raised his fist, neither hurriedly nor fearfully. “I would tell you if I knew,” he said without waiting for the question. “But I am certain someone here does know. Three days before the barracks ‘changed out their mats,’ trials were held for certain officers with accusations to make against their daughters. They have been awaiting exile in a holding cell beside this gate, but now they are gone.”

Meoraq grunted and pulled the stirring warden in his grip onto his feet. “How do you contact them?”

There were no more denials, no excuses. Clutching his neck as if he were all that held it together, Warden Myselo whispered. “We send…the boy.”

“Who?”

“Just some barracks-bastard. They took him…years ago. They take all the sprats they can find…when they raid…but this one, they brought back.”

“I know him,” said Onahi, already moving.

“He’s the only one who knows…” The warden’s rolling eye caught sight of his blood on the floor and his words broke. “Don’t…Don’t kill me, sir. I am…weak. Allow me the mercy to earn Sheul’s forgiveness, for I sense I can be forgiven, sir, I do.”

Meoraq spat and shoved him away. The warden fell into the wall and let it take him to the floor, babbling thanks and praise.

Ignoring him, Meoraq paced. It could not have been long before Onahi’s return, although it felt endless enough with Warden Myselo moaning in his ears.

The boy that eventually came with Onahi into the light was older than he’d anticipated. He had a man’s height, but was scrawny as a woman—as a girl—with a hunched, loping way of moving. He bowed when he saw Meoraq, raising not one but both fists in salute and peering through them at Myselo on the floor with a curious sort of frown.

“Do you know what I want of you?” Meoraq asked gruffly.

“To find Zhuqa’s camp,” said the boy.

“Zhuqa?”

“Their leader. He lets me pass to carry their messages. Before me, it was another boy.” He looked up at Meoraq. “Are you going to kill me?”

Spoken without fear, only a very mild interest. It was not courage, not even of that foolhardy kind that came so naturally to boys his age.

“Not without cause,” said Meoraq.

“Isn’t it cause enough to have dealings with exiles?” asked the boy reasonably. “Sometimes they give me a few points for the message. Isn’t that trade?”

“Words are not considered commerce by law and I would not judge it unforgivable to accept a gift of coin, no matter the source.” Meoraq gestured impatiently at the gate.

“I’ve taken their drink sometimes too,” said the boy. “When they offer a swallow. That’s against the Word, isn’t it? Strong drink?”

“I don’t care!” Meoraq exploded. “I want what they took from me, Gann damn you! I forgive you all your past! All of it! I don’t care if you rubbed your cock on the Prophet’s burnt bones, take me to their fucking nest!”

“Now?”

“Now!”

“I’ll ready supplies,” said Onahi and left them.

Meoraq opened his mouth to shout after him, but forced himself to close it again. He needed supplies. He needed water, if nothing else. He could not save Amber if he collapsed in the wildlands and ended there.

“It’s only an hour until dark,” said the boy, watching as he began to pace again.

“We’ll run through the night.”

“Do I look like I can run through the night?” the boy asked, amused. “I couldn’t run all the way down that tunnel. Hit me all you like,” he added as Meoraq swung back his arm to do just that. “I’m not a runner and you can’t make me one by beating on me. It’s three days to travel. Four with weather.”

Meoraq lowered his arm. It hurt. He turned his back on the boy with effort and began again to pace. Six breaths, he told himself. Six breaths, deep and slow. Six breaths, and think of Amber.

Amber.

* * *

She dreamed of Meoraq and the mountains, so that when she woke, the arm around her waist and the breath on the back of her neck felt safe and right and welcome. She had to wake up a little more before the bed she lay on had any meaning for her. It wasn’t until then that it all came back.

She must have tensed. Perhaps she made some sound. She did something, anyway, because Zhuqa’s sleep broke at once. He lifted his head, listening as she lay motionless, then grunted and pushed the cupboard door open.

“Hold still,” he said, climbing out into the room. In another moment, he had a light struck and two lamps burning. He glanced her way, saw her staring back at him, and smiled. “Have you a kind word for your man this morning?”

Amber opened her mouth, closed it, took a few breaths (six breaths just like meoraq always says six breaths and calm down), then said simply, “Hi.”

“No. Say, ‘I see my man, my Zhuqa, first. I pray, let him see me.’”

“All that, huh?”

“Say it, Eshiqi. Use my words. Say it as best you can.” Now he looked at her, just the shine from one eye. “To please me.”

She tried. He did not correct her, although she knew she couldn’t have possibly hit all the right tones and that every pause as she fought to fit her mouth around his stupid words changed its whole nuance. He let her wrestle it all out, and only after she was done did he look at her again.

He smiled. “I see you.”

“I’m thrilled.”

“Now come,” he said, beckoning. “Do you remember how to show your man a proper respect?”

Amber got out of the cupboard. She went to him, fighting to keep her face a safe blank and hold all the hate on the inside where it couldn’t kill her, but still, when the time came to kneel in front of him, she slapped the back of her open hand on the ground next to his bare foot and let that flat, brittle sound be her ‘good morning.’