“She kept bleeding—”

“It’s enough, Nicci,” said Amber. “Come on. Stop.”

Nicci considered, gazing into the fire. “She kept bleeding,” she said at last, decisively. “And she got really sick. And in the morning, Commander Scott and Mr. Lassiter said she was dead and we kept going, but we all knew she wasn’t dead—”

“Nicci.”

“We could all hear her under the wind—”

“Nicci, please.”

“—crying—”

Amber pressed her face to the baby, as if its sleeping purrs could drive every other sound away.

“—begging us to come back.” Nicci thought about it while Amber enveloped herself in the peaceful song of a small life that knew only how deeply it was loved. “And we left her there anyway,” said Nicci. “We all walked away and pretended we didn’t see those big weasel-things at all, didn’t we? We pretended we never heard her screaming.”

“I swear I’m going to hit her if she doesn’t shut up,” said Eric in his soft way.

“I’m not sure she can shut up,” Amber answered wearily. “Let her say it all. Who can it hurt now?”

“When we saw that place, Commander Scott said it was the temple, even though Meoraq told us to look for the ends of the world and we all knew we weren’t there. But we followed him. And the place got bigger and bigger and we knew it was wrong, but we all kept going. They sent someone out to look at us or something, and Commander Scott sent Abdullah to go meet him, only I guess it freaked him out to see Abdullah coming right at him like that because he…” Nicci shrugged again. “Commander Scott knelt down in the snow, so we all knelt down in the snow with him. So they took us away. And they cut us up and they did a lot of things…but they fed us and they kept us warm, so…and this is actually kind of ironic…being captured like that probably saved our lives.”

And that, mercifully, seemed to be the end. Nicci watched the baby doze against Amber’s chest, the scantest hint of emotion wrinkling at her brow, although Amber couldn’t say quite what that emotion was. She only knew that it was better—not much, maybe, but better—than the total lack of life that her sister had exhibited throughout her awful recital.

“So are you happy now?” Scott asked bitterly.

Amber looked at him, helpless to do anything but shake her head.

“You sure? Not even one I-told-you-so? One If-only? One steaming Bierce-knows-best pile of bullshit we can warm ourselves by as we gather around your campfire?”

“Go to sleep, Scott,” said Amber. “It’s over, all right?” She had to chew her next words a long time before she could keep them down, but in the end she was able to say, “You did the best you could,” and mean it.

Scott stared at her for a long time and then dropped his eyes. He looked at the fire and said, in a strained, distant sort of voice, “You know…that first night after we left…that very first night, when we were alone and we all thought, you know, that you were dead…”

The fire snapped. The baby shifted, purred for a few seconds, then slipped easily back into sleep. The lizardmen watched from the far wall, hands on swords, restless.

Scott looked up, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a hideous imitation of the charismatic smile she remembered. “That was the night I fucked your sister,” he said. “She said she didn’t want to, she even pretended to struggle, but she came. And she wasn’t even a virgin, so yeah, Bierce, you really dropped the ball somewhere along the line, but that’s okay. I’m sure you did the best you could. You want to know something? Huh? You ruined everything, Bierce.”

“Yeah, and I broke your flashlight, too.”

“Fuck you!” he spat, and didn’t flinch even when every lizardman in camp whipped out a sword. “You! Ruined! Everything! We’d have been just fine if you’d only died! We’d be home by now if it wasn’t for you! You!”

And then he lay down with his back to her and pretended to be asleep.

Amber closed her eyes and concentrated on the baby’s little purrs, its small hand so warm against her breast, its living, loving reality. Gradually, the hot knot in her stomach loosened, although the bitter taste in her mouth remained. When she finally opened her eyes, Nicci was looking at her with those dead eyes and Bo Peep’s own bitter smile. “Aren’t you glad you found us?” she asked.

* * *

Meoraq found the soldiers sent to assassinate him without difficulty. There were nine in all—two groups of four and a lone man wearing the governor’s colors. He killed them swiftly, tied the corpses to trees with their own belts, and left them to be found. Perhaps they were, for there were no more assassins that night. As his last empty patrol along their back-trail came to an end, Meoraq met with Onahi and his men, and with them took a rogue kipwe they found sleeping in the trees.

It was another hour before they returned to camp, bearing what they could upon two hastily constructed litters. Amber had a grimace of some unhappy sort for him, but did not stir herself from the fireside. The watchmen, however, came at once to make their unsettling report of angry words and blows struck and Meoraq knew even before they pointed him out who had been at the root of it all.

“Honored one, you have said these creatures dwell in the sight of Sheul,” Onahi murmured, frowning now at Scott. “And you have proven that it is His will you have their care, but it would seem a far simpler matter to care for them were they kept bound and hobbled.”

Meoraq flared his spines reprovingly, but spoke no censure. His heart was in the right place. And honestly, Onahi just wanted Scott hobbled. Meoraq wanted him dead. And buried.

He left the preparation of the first skewers to Onahi and made a quick count of his camp. All were present—watchmen, slaves, humans, and his Amber. She had the infant in her arms again, he saw. It slept too deeply to sing, even when she stroked a careful hand across its little back. ‘Someday it will be my child at that breast,’ Meoraq thought, but he did not disturb her or the child to say so.

The meat roasted and the humans clustered close to watch it. Meoraq tried not to resent this. They had endured a terrible captivity and they were doubtless hungry. All the same, his days of tending to them like cattle were done.

And so when Scott deemed the meat done enough for his taste and reached to have the first skewer out, Meoraq caught him unhurriedly by the wrist and pushed him back. “This is my camp,” he said. “And you are not my welcome guest. You have what I give you, human, when I choose to give it, and you will receive it gratefully or it will be the last thing you ever take from my hand.”

Scott’s face puckered and colored in that way Meoraq so well remembered. “We’re starving,” he insisted.

Meoraq flattened his spines in disgust. He let go of Scott’s wrist to seize the edge of his loose tunic and pull it up, revealing the man’s pink body, which was not an abundant one, but certainly was not emaciated. “No, you aren’t,” he said, and covered the man curtly up again. “Sit and wait for your share or go hungry.”

“Does it understand you?” Onahi asked, watching Scott limp sullenly away.

Meoraq grunted a caustic affirmation as he tested the skewers himself and decided one of them at least was indeed ready. He took a token piece for himself and gave the rest to Amber. She offered it at once to Nicci.

“She’ll have her own,” he said testily, very much aware of the men watching him. “That is yours.”

Amber’s little brows twitched together. She put her arm around Nicci’s shoulders and would not look at him. Nicci did, her eyes glinting like light on the edge of a blade as she ate his wife’s first meal in days.

The color throbbed in his throat. He turned his back on her and breathed.