“Problems,” said Meoraq.

“I was going to say ‘things’.” She looked at him and just as swiftly looked away. “Are we all that way to you? Just problems you need to solve?”

“In the wildlands,” said Meoraq bluntly. “Yes.”

“Even me?”

“You?” He snorted again and rubbed at his brow-ridges. “No. There is no solving you, Soft-Skin. You are my problem forever.” And before she could turn away, he said, “I am yours. And you will never solve me either, but at least you are trying. I will take the baby to Chalh.”

She scrubbed her arm across her face, erasing the last trace of her tears. “Tonight?”

The wind gusted. He looked up to watch the high branches come together and sway apart. “Yes. Come with me,” he said hopelessly.

“I can’t leave my sister,” she said. He could have said it with her if only his mouth could make the words. “And I can’t leave those idiots to fend for themselves. They’ve been prisoners so long…If anything happened, they’d be helpless.”

If anything happened…

She saw his face, read his eyes. “Yeah, I know. But I can take care of my people. And you can take care of yours.” She seemed to grope for something more comforting to tell him, but in the end, all she had was, “We’ll be waiting right here.”

“In easy distance of Praxas. And there are uncounted raiders left in the wildlands! How shall I stand before Sheul and tell Him I left you unguarded when He has only just given you back?”

“You can tell him I begged you. I’m begging you, Meoraq.”

He looked away.

“I’ll be all right,” said Amber.

“You cannot know that.”

“Some things you have to just take on faith.” She hesitated, then said, “Do you have to pray about it?”

He glanced up at the grey heavens where Sheul watched him, then bent his neck. “No. So be it. Don’t,” he said as she reached for him. “I can let you go, Soft-Skin, but only if I do not hold you first. Go. Please.”

She took one step away and there watched him while he took six breaths and six more. Then, finally, she left him.

Meoraq fought through three more slow-counts, keeping the Prophet’s name and Sheul’s holy Word close against his heart until the fires subsided. The rotten-tooth ache remained; he just knew he was bruising something down there. Cooled, if not at peace, he returned to his camp. He took Onahi, visibly braced for death, out of his tent and bound him to Xzem with a few terse words. He left the two of them staring at each other and went swiftly through the rest of them, matching man to wife without really looking at either of them and especially without looking at Amber. Then, before he could change his mind, he struck two of the tents, packed a portion of the kipwe, and loaded one of the litters. As the humans were beginning their first alarmed outcries, he gave the order that moved them on to Chalh.

Amber followed him as far as the walls, but no further. He left her there without a word (his throat was tight as Gann’s fist), but managed only six steps before he halted.

He turned around.

He walked back to her, seized her by the chin, pressed his unfeeling mouth to hers and then scraped the end of his snout hard along her throat, filling his aching head with her scent, her taste, her soul.

She unclipped the kzung from his belt and held it in her hand, searching his eyes. She didn’t speak either.

He stepped back, turned away. He took a breath (one for the Prophet) and walked on.

3

Unencumbered by humans, the journey to Chalh lasted only six days, the latter half on a good road. They were first hailed easily five spans from the city and escorted the rest of the way by three sentries in gilded uniforms. If that were not warning enough of Chalh’s nature, the walls of the city were trimmed in gold, or at least, gold paint, and a statue of the Prophet had been positioned over the gate, hands outstretched in benediction. The sleeves, Meoraq noted, were hollowed out, so as to pour hot oils or acids should any raider be fool enough to assault the first founding city of the Prophet.

“Where are the other five?” Meoraq asked, making half a joke in an attempt to appear patient while the gatekeeper meticulously checked his book of Houses.

The gatekeeper, having no sense of humor, replied, “Each has their own gate, sir. If you wish to be admitted through Gate Uyane, I can make those arrangements.”

Meoraq rolled his eyes discreetly. “That won’t be necessary.”

The gatekeeper continued his inspection with the same excruciating attention to detail, came to the conclusion that Meoraq was in truth who he claimed to be, and snapped his book shut. “It is Uyane before me,” he announced. “If it is your intention to seize the city of Chalh, you will have to wait in the arena hold for the Sheulek in residence to meet with you.”

“I am here to see my kin. My conquest shall be limited to that House.”

“Do you wish me to send for one of Uyane’s carriages?”

“Just a public carriage will do.” Meoraq tapped pointedly at the gate.

“Do you prefer to go under your House’s standard?”

“I would prefer to be behind walls before the damned year is out!”

The gatekeeper bowed and unlocked the gate. “If I can be of service—”

“Carriages for myself and my party, and an usher to take us immediately to House Uyane,” interrupted Meoraq, waving his people inside.

“It may take some time to locate a veiled carriage suitable to transport your, ah, women. Perhaps you would like to take the rooftop while you wait? The barracks of Lashraq’s Gate has an excellent meditation garden.”

“I must seem tense,” Meoraq remarked, but Amber wasn’t there to tell him he was, in fact, acting like a scaly son of a bitch and no one else was about to argue or, worse, agree. “Any carriage will do,” he said, looking back out into the open wilds, thinking of Amber. “Just fetch a few blankets and we’ll cover the windows.”

“My apologies, honored one, we have no blankets in Uyane’s colors.”

“Cover them in grain-sacks then! I don’t care! Great Sheul, O my Father, give me patience! And you, just give me a damned carriage!”

The gatekeeper bowed and locked the door before wandering unhurriedly away. And really, what could Meoraq do about it? It wasn’t as if he could just march all these unveiled women across the city on foot.

So he waited. The carriages eventually came, along with drivers and ushers and window covers emblazoned with the standard of the city. Meoraq put the women in one, the soldiers in the other, and himself alone in the last. The boy who held the carriage door passed him a bottle of cool tea before closing it. The driver leaned in through the window as Meoraq plucked idly at the cap and passed him a flask of hot nai.

“Keep it,” the driver grunted as Meoraq took his first swallow. “I see you’ve not got one, and it’s a hard lack on a long journey.”

Meoraq lowered the flask, staring.

The driver shut the window and snapped the tethers. Bulls bellowed. The carriage rolled on.

He knew what the days of hard travel had done to his appearance, let alone the battle at the raider’s nest, the mountain crossing, and all the days that had gone before. Meoraq had been fully prepared to recite his lineage, show his signet, and perhaps even battle their champion to prove his kinship, but he did not expect the gates of Uyane to open on the steward himself.

Meoraq knew at first sighting this was no toy-lord, no high-born diplomat with a stable of Sheulteb to do his fighting for him, but a Sheulek in his retirement. He dressed not in lordly robes, but in plain leather breeches with a warrior’s harness snug over his open tunic, displaying his scarred chest and hard belly with careless indifference. The bone hilt that cased the ancient blade hanging around his neck stood out like lightning over his scales, polished by use and yellowed with age.