Now she seemed dismayed at his leaving, as if it were some failing of hers that drove him out from the city in the dark hours of night. That if she had been more winsome, or if her worn flesh had just been fresher, he might stay and give her the children Sheul had thus far denied her. That she had displeased him, shamed herself, failed God.

Meoraq understood the situation well, but he knew no better how to extract himself from it than he ever had. He finished securing his travel-pack and slung it onto his back, then turned to face her at last.

She bent her neck at once, hiding her eyes from him as a proper woman learns early to do, but her hands grasped anxiously at one another, never entirely still.

Meoraq started walking, but stopped at the door. He sighed, rubbed once at his brow-ridges, then came back to her. He stood awkwardly before her while she cowered, then reached out and brushed the back of his hand gently across her well-scarred shoulder. Her short spines only flattened further, uncomforted.

“I thought surely it would be you,” she whispered.

“Mine is the same clay as any other’s. Look to no living man for your restoration.”

“He has forsaken me.”

Meoraq gave the door a glance, wishing it would be miraculously filled by a priest who would know better how to handle this. It remained shut. The woman before him continued to stare at the floor between her bare feet, even as silent tears welled in her eyes. He was Sheulek, a true son of Sheul, and he had felt His touch and heard His voice all his life, but for the sake of that same life, he could not think of a thing to say to her.

“We are all tested in our time,” he said at last and immediately regretted it. It was precisely the sort of lame and obvious non-answer that priests liked to give and which Meoraq himself had always found simply infuriating.

But she only brushed at her eyes and made a quiet sound of wordless acceptance. Living here, no doubt she’d heard such answers too many times to be moved by them any longer.

“Forgive me, honored one,” she said, sinking to her knees. “I have delayed you with a foolish woman’s unhappiness. Go your way in the sight of Sheul, I pray, and good journey to you.”

All spoken as heavy as the eternally overcast skies. He found himself wishing she would look at him, as wildly inappropriate as that would be, to show him her naked eyes and let him see some glimmer of a future in them.

But the burning arm beckoned. A Sheulek answered to God above his brothers, his teachers, even his own father. He could not spurn Him to linger with this woman, particularly since he could be of no comfort to her.

He touched her again, actually gripping her shoulder this time in a more direct farewell than he had given anyone else in Xheoth, but she cringed beneath his hand, understandably confused and dismayed by this intimacy. He left her, shutting the door behind him to give the first of her soft, broken tears some privacy.

* * *

His usher was waiting in the hall to lead him to the temple’s gate, trying—and failing—to disguise his curiosity at the sexual mysteries he knew to be unfolding behind the door once the woman entered. He seemed very surprised to see Meoraq so soon emerged and it took him some little time to remember the proper genuflections. Meoraq, brooding, waited out about half of them and then set off without him.

He regretted it within a few moments, knowing it was only the difficult scene with the woman and the prospect of walking in the dark and the rain that fanned the impatience in him, and knowing also that the boy would suffer the kind of poisonous insinuations that only one’s young peers are capable of making for his perceived failure to perform this very simple task. He’d been a boy once. He’d heard those insinuations. Hell, he’d made them.

When he reached the gate and the cluster of priests waiting to see him off with the right chants and prayers, Meoraq made a point of tapping the boy on the shoulder. “I have left my bedroll. You may have it, if you like.” And to the smiling abbot, ignoring the boy’s immediate outcry, “I leave Xi’Xheoth to you.”

“We thank you for your service, honored one, and pray we shall not soon require your return.”

His provisions were presented, exactly as he had demanded: Two waterskins sized for long travel, bread enough to see him to Tothax and cuuvash enough to see him right through and on to Xeqor, a fresh bedroll, and a good thick blanket to hold back the growing chill at night. Of his own will, the provisioner had added a candle-brick and a small pot of honey, doubtless from the temple’s own waxbeetles. Meoraq would not have asked for these things. He was entitled to whatever he was moved to demand, but Xheoth’s usual prosperity had been hard-tested this past year and he was loathe to take away even its most frivolous resources. Besides, he had every intention of making outrageous demands when he reached Tothax and the House of whoever dared to summon him without giving cause. Oh yes. Then, he meant to replace his tent, his travel-packs, his boots, his harnesses—both travel and battle—all his buckles, his various tools for skinning and scaling, and he thought he might even be up to feeling a strong need to acquire a mending kit with metal needles and every grade of stitch from sinew to fine thread. And a tea box. A nice one, not just another clay pot with pouches. He wanted to see some inlay after half a year of summons.

The abbot began to pray as Meoraq made himself ready, and since it was the custom for the prayers to continue for so long as the honored visitor was there to hear them, he did it quickly and moved on before the elderly man’s voice could tire.

Beyond the temple gates, the city moved and breathed. At this hour, on any other night, the inner passageways of the city would have been empty, save for the watchmen on their patrols and the beacons with their lumbering carts, measuring out dippers of oil to keep the lamps lit.

Now the walkways were choked with people and most of the food-stalls in sight were opened as merchants took advantage of the crowds. Looking around at all this activity, anyone would think it was full day outside.

A shifting beside him. The temple had sent for watchmen to escort him out of the city and they waited nervously for his acknowledgement, looking at him with eyes that said they knew as well as he did for whom the message in the sky had been written.

Meoraq beckoned and started walking for Southgate. He was recognized—in his battle harness, with blades hanging off every side of him, he was damned hard to miss—and hailed in many voices all at once. Each had a different turn of phrase, but it all came to the same question: What was the meaning of the fire?

As if any man could know the mind of Sheul. The fire had been for him, and even Meoraq did not know what it meant.

He kept moving. The temple watchmen fell in close beside him, warning back the crowd when they pressed too close, lest some overenthusiastic fool catch at Meoraq’s arm and earn himself a cut across the face from a Sheulek’s samr, or worse, catch at the samr itself and earn himself a cut across the throat. Such things happened far more often than Meoraq ever would have imagined in the days before his ascension. Fools forgot themselves easily. And thus there would always be a need for Sheulek.

It was a long walk to Southgate. Meoraq’s clothes were nearly dry when he arrived, having just reached that damp, clinging stage where they pulled at every scale. The doorkeeper was expecting him and, by the flat-spined sour-faced look of him, sorely offended by this upset to his routine.

“On your way,” he said, indicating the watchmen at Meoraq’s flanks with two fat fingers in a lofty wave. “To your work and leave me mine. Go on, I say! What are you waiting for?”