The passage opened up into a great pool, its water hot and the air thick with steam. There were dozens of girls inside, all of them as bald as Melan. Some were Inevera’s age, but many were older, some grown almost fully to womanhood. All stood washing in the stone bath, or lounged on the slick stone steps at its edges, shaving and paring nails.

Inevera thought of the bucket of warm water she and her mother shared to wash. Their ration let them change it only sparingly. She waded out in wonder, the hot water caressing her thighs, running her fingertips through the surface as if through silk in the market.

Everyone looked up as they entered. The loungers sat up like hissing snakes, every eye in the misty room focused on the two girls. They moved in swiftly, surrounding them.

Inevera turned back, but the way was already closed, the ring of girls tightening, barring any escape and blocking them from outside view.

‘This is her?’ one girl asked.

‘The one the dice called?’ asked another. The questioners were lost in the steam as the girls began to circle, eyeing Inevera from every angle in much the same way Qeva had studied her dice.

Melan nodded, and the ring tightened further. Inevera felt crushed under the weight of their collective stare.

‘Melan, what …?’ Inevera reached out, her heart pounding.

Melan caught her wrist, twisting and pulling hard. Inevera fell towards her, and Melan caught a fistful of her thick hair, using the momentum of her fall to push her head under the water.

There was a burble, then all she could hear was the rushing of water. Inevera reflexively inhaled water and choked, but she could not cough underwater, and her insides spasmed as she resisted the urge to breathe in. The hot water burned her face and she struggled violently, but Melan kept her hold and Inevera was helpless against it. She thrashed as her lungs began to burn, but like Soli in the kiosk, Melan was using sharusahk, her movements swift and precise. Inevera could do nothing to resist.

Melan was shouting something at her, but the sound was muffled by the water, and Inevera couldn’t make out any of it. She realized then that she was going to drown. It seemed so absurd. Inevera had never stood in water past her knees. Water was precious in the Desert Spear, both currency and merchandise in the bazaar. Gold shines, but water is divine, the saying went. Only the wealthiest of Krasia’s citizens could even afford to drown.

She was losing hope when Melan gave a jerk and pulled her upright with a splash. Inevera’s hair was plastered to her face, and she coughed, gasping breaths of thick, steamy air.

‘—just walk in here,’ Melan was shouting, ‘speaking to the Damaji’ting like she was your pillow friend, and learning the bido weave in three tries!’

‘Three tries?’ a girl asked.

‘We should kill her just for that,’ another added.

‘Thinks she’s better than us,’ a third said.

Inevera glanced around desperately through her matted hair, but the other girls watched impassively, their eyes dead. None of them looked like she might lift a finger to help.

‘Melan, please, I—’ Inevera sputtered, but Melan tightened her grip and thrust Inevera back under the water. She managed to hold her breath, but that soon ran out, and she was thrashing wildly again by the time Melan let her up to gasp another breath.

‘Do not speak to me,’ Melan said. ‘I may be bound to you for one year, but we are not friends. You think you can come in and take Kenevah’s place overnight? Over my mother? Over me? I am Kenevah’s blood! You are just a … bad throw.’

She produced a sharp knife from somewhere, and Inevera flinched in terror as Melan slashed it through her hair, cutting off thick locks. ‘You are nothing.’ She flipped the knife in her fingers, catching the blade and handing it hilt-first to the next girl who approached.

‘You are nothing,’ the girl echoed, grabbing another lock of Inevera’s hair and slicing it off.

Each girl came forward and took the knife, cutting at Inevera’s hair until all that remained was a ragged and uneven shadow, patched and bloody. ‘You are nothing,’ they said in turn.

By the time the last of the girls drew back, Inevera was on her knees in the water, limp and weeping. Again and again she broke out coughing, the convulsions tearing hot fire through her throat. It was as if there was some last bit of water in her lungs they were determined to expel.

Kenevah was right. The Dama’ting Palace and the Great Bazaar weren’t so different after all, but here there was no Soli to defend her.

Inevera thought about Manvah, and her final words about Krisha. If she could not match sharusahk with Melan and the other girls, she would deal as her mother had done. She would keep her eyes down and do as she was told. Work hard. Listen. Learn.

And then, when no one was looking, she would find Melan’s storage tent and put vermin in it.

1

Arlen
333 AR Summer30 Dawns Before New Moon

Renna kissed Arlen again. A gentle breeze swept across the thin sheen of sweat on their bodies, cooling them as they panted on the hot night.

‘Been wonderin’ if you were tattooed under that cloth nappy,’ she said, nestling in next to him and putting her head on his bare chest, listening to his heart.

Arlen laughed and put his arm around her. ‘It’s called a bido. And even my obsession has limits.’

Renna lifted her head, putting her lips to his ear. ‘Maybe you just need a Warder you trust. It’s a wife’s duty to take good care of what’s in her husband’s bido. I could paint you with blackstem …’

Arlen swallowed, and she could see his skin flush. ‘The wards would distort even as you drew them.’

Renna laughed, wrapping him in her arms and dropping her head back to his chest.

‘Wonder sometimes if I’m cracked,’ she said.

‘How’s that?’ Arlen asked.

‘Like I’m still sitting in Selia Barren’s spinning room, staring off into space. Everything since has been like a dream. Wonder if my mind just took me to a sunny place and left me there.’

‘You’ve a poor imagination if this is your sunny place,’ Arlen said.

‘Why?’ Renna asked. ‘I’m rid of Harl and that corespawned farm, stronger than I ever imagined, and dancing in the naked night.’ She swept a hand around her. ‘Everything’s awash in colour and glow.’ She looked at him. ‘And I’m with Arlen Bales. How could my sunny place be anywhere else?’

Renna bit her lip as the words rushed to them. Words she had thought to herself many times, but never dared say aloud. Part of her hesitation was fear of Arlen’s reaction, but much of it was her own doubt. All the Tanner sisters had been willing to run to the bed of the first decent man they met, but had any of them ever been in love?

Renna had thought she loved Arlen when they were children, but she only knew him from afar, and understood now that much of what she cherished had been her imagination of what he was like in close, rather than the boy himself.

Renna had convinced herself that she loved Cobie Fisher this past spring, but she saw the lie of that now. Cobie hadn’t been a bad sort, but if any other man had come to Harl’s farm, Renna knew she would likely have seduced him, too. Anything to get away, because anywhere was better than that farm, and any man in creation was better than her da.