I was not surprised that Thesenet was waiting for us at the perimeter of the city. Jushet had been in contact with the minister in response to my request to move to het Narel, and no doubt the arrangements had required a great deal of coordination. I hadn't been watching for a courier but I was certain one had been dispatched the day we'd set out to carry news of my impending arrival. If nothing else, the empire was efficient.

"Is that a welcome?" Abadil asked, squinting at the figure sitting on a rikka in the middle of the road, bracketed by two emodo in uniform.

I laughed. "Didn't you know, dear clay-keeper? We are infamous among Jokka."

"As if I needed more to be infamous about," Abadil said with a truly dramatic sigh.

"I've run out of words that rhyme with the sound in 'about'," Darsi said, exasperated. "Be sorry for yourself with words that rhyme with something else."

"Pity?" Hesa suggested.

"Hyperbole," I offered.

"I feel quite put upon!" Abadil complained.

"'Put upon'," Darsi said. "That I can do. Wait, let me think...."

I reined up before Thesenet with my people laughing behind me, and that was how it should be. And for a moment in the stranger's eyes, I saw surprise... surprise, and hope?

"Ke Pathen?" he said. "Do I have the honor...?"

"Minister Thesenet," I said, and that wasn't a guess; he was wearing the robes of state issued only to the Jokka of the Stone Moon authorities and I recognized the city's mark on his breast. "It's you who do us honor by opening het Narel to us."

"Who would not wish to host a hero of the empire?" he said, studying me now with open curiosity. He was a decade my senior perhaps, with thoughtful eyes the color of stone. "Would you like a tour or are you tired from your ride?"

I looked over my shoulder, reading the expressions of my party. "I believe some of us may wish to ride ahead to the residence, if that's well with you? The principals of my House and I would be delighted to accept your invitation, though."

"That sounds perfect," Thesenet said, glancing at the three alongside me. "I'll be glad to meet them."

Laisira's weavers and their eperu escorts rode on past us with congenial farewells, leaving the four of us behind. To Thesenet, I said, "If I may present my people? My clay-keeper Abadil—"

"Abadil!" Thesenet exclaimed. "Not our Abadil, surely? The lost historian? Ke Eduñil told me a great deal about him, he was desperate at the loss."

And affable Abadil, who'd seemed so irrepressible in humor, became still and his smile was full of old pain. "Ah, gods. Poor Eduñil. He's well, I hope? I'd like to find him and tell him what became of me. I owe him that."

"He's a man of substance still," Thesenet said with a smile. "I'll tell him you're looking for him."

"Please," Abadil said.

Thesenet drew in a breath and shook his head. "Well, ke Pathen. What other surprises do you have for me?"

"None so great as a lost Jokkad returned, I fear," I said, chuckling. "My pefna-eperu, Hesa."

"Ke emodo," Hesa said with that reserve I found so alien.

"And this is my prize," I said, offering Darsi my most innocent look. "My lover Darsi, who puts up with me I know not why."

Darsi said to Thesenet, "It's because he makes me laugh."

That surprised a laugh out of me because it was true, and Darsi grinned at me with thinned eyes as if to say 'you see, I can do this.'

I cleared my throat, amused, and said to Thesenet, "My best and trusted, ke emodo."

"And a good beginning it looks to me," Thesenet said, impressed. "Very solid, ke Pathen. Have you chosen your House name yet?"

"I have," I said, and felt the attention of all my companions. "Asara, if you please."

"A good name," Thesenet said without any hesitation, which told me I'd done a good job disguising the source of my choice. I could feel Hesa's quivering answer as if it was standing beside me, though. It had taken some delicacy to uncover the name of the eperu who'd died on the pedestal, but I'd had a good excuse to be going through Molan's records in het Kabbanil thanks to the fiction that had brought me my people. That unfortunate had actually been named Saraa but I had given it the rhythm of the word "Laisira" to obfuscate my intent.

"I like it," Abadil said.

"Because he needed your approval, is that it?" Darsi asked.

"Of course!" Abadil said. "I'm a historian! If you make decisions without consulting a historian you will indubitably regret them. We know everything, you see."

Thesenet grinned and said to me, "You are certain you can drive this team, ke Pathen?"

"Ke Thesenet, I must," I said dryly, "or they will surely drive me."

He laughed. "Well said! Come along then and let me give you a tour of the next capital of the Stone Moon. If you'll pardon the ambition..."

"Pardon it?" I said, amused. "I hardly am one to take issue with ambition, Minister. By all means. Let us have a look at your project."

"This way, then," Thesenet said.

The tour held very little by way of surprises. Het Kabbanil had been the first city claimed by the empire and the second had been het Serean further to the south, the settlement established by the first Jokka to give up their nomadic ways... but het Narel had been the third, and it had a sizeable population, more than enough people to put to work implementing the empire's many initiatives. The Stone Moon's amenities had long since been established here, and the fields were lush with crops nearing their harvest, bronzed by the cold snaps that were becoming more frequent as autumn advanced. The expected irrigation systems had been built out into the farmlands, fed by wells and cisterns; I saw the cones of the sunken granaries in the distance. The horizon was new, at least; het Kabbanil had been built on a flat stretch but was clasped by hills, and the nearby mountains dominated the views. Het Narel was bordered by grasslands and near-deserts and only in the north were there gentle furrows that would become the hills that rumpled the land around het Kabbanil. Everywhere I looked I could see all the way to the horizon, and the long distances distracted my eye.

The town itself was a little over half the size of het Kabbanil; being smaller it was easier to navigate, and it hadn't had the chance to sprawl the way the empire's capital had. And it looked more contemporary, probably because it lacked Kabbanil's ubiquitous ruins. I found that lack somehow freeing. No matter what the past had given us, our only way now was forward. We would have to make our own answers.

Thesenet was a charming host. Not effusive, which I would have distrusted, but Abadil was right: he cared about het Narel and the people he'd been tasked with administrating. I wondered if he would have allowed a public torture to stretch on for two months in his town square and couldn't imagine it; it would have been too disruptive for someone with Thesenet's sensibilities.

The ride lasted two hours and surprised me by not seeming interminable. Nevertheless it was late afternoon by the time Thesenet was done and I was ready to be off the back of a rikka and out of my travel-stained clothes.

"And here is your home, ke emodo," he said. "House Asara. I hope it pleases. We've been preparing it for you for several days now."

Houses among the Jokka could be small enough for a handful of people and their employees... or as large as the Great Houses of het Kabbanil with upward of a thousand people. In practice only the capital could support Houses of that size, but het Narel came very close. Because of the size of our draft, I'd been expecting something smaller than the estate Thesenet had brought me to, but an estate it was, a luxurious property with a metal gate and even an expensive fountain in its courtyard. I could have administrated five hundred people from a House of its size—it would easily fit the two hundred we'd planned.

It was situated not far from the north-south trade road and opened out onto a set of fields so expansive I judged the House had once been employed in agriculture. In keeping with Stone Moon protocol, those fields had been cultivated and were near ready for harvest; the ministry would have put work details on food production even with the House unclaimed, particularly given the size of the House's plot. The ornamental plants, which used to be a sign of wealth before the Stone Moon made water plentiful, were old enough to have been trained all the way up the three-story facade in green arabesques, so the estate certainly dated back to before the Stone Moon's arrival... which meant Thesenet had awarded me an important deed.

I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a sense of satisfaction at the sight. I hadn't earned this place yet, but I was going to.

"It's a fine House," I said. "Very fine."

"I'll leave you to it, then," Thesenet said, pleased. "Will you have time for a meeting this week, ke Pathen?"

"If you have time tomorrow, I'd like to tell you my plans," I said. "I can stop by in the morning after I finish the formalities at Transactions."

"I look forward to it," Thesenet said. "Welcome to het Narel, ke emodo."

"Thank you," I said, and then he was off.

"Good start," Abadil observed when he was out of earshot. "He likes you."

"Let's hope that continues," I said. As we rode into the courtyard with its splashing fountain, I said, "So... these fields are where you are planning to... raise grass?"

"Eventually," Abadil said. "For now we're going to have to ride out to gather it from the plains. I've got the weavers building frames... to make the paper, you know. You need molds and frames to dry it on and—"

I held up a hand. "I'll leave it in your capable hands. For now I want to be off a rikka. Preferably for at least a day."

We were greeted by familiar faces, Jokka from House Laisira whom I recognized from my time investigating the House. Some number of them led the rikka away and the others showed us inside, and the inside of the estate was as fine as the outside, with finished walls hung with tapestries or tiled with mosaics in abstract designs that reminded me of the spirals of the vines climbing the facade. As with most Houses, all three sexes had separate quarters; as Head of Household, however, I had my own chambers on the second floor. There was a receiving room; from it, doors opened on an office, a bedroom and a renovated bathing chamber. They'd been furnished enough to be useful, but not decorated... and for that I was grateful. There was such a thing as too much efficiency. A person wants to have a hand in at least some decisions involving where he puts his head down to sleep.

Thinking that made me realize... I wanted to make my room my own. I hadn't had such desires since the empire consumed het Kabbanil, and took the world I'd been born into with it. So I was sitting on the bed, moving through that realization, when Hesa found me. It leaned on the door frame, arms crossed over its vest.

"You've moved up in the world, ke emodo," it teased, though the tone was gentle.

"I had no idea the Heads of Households lived so extravagantly," I said. "If I had, I would have become one sooner."

Hesa laughed. "This sort of arrangement is only typical of Great Houses. In the smaller ones the Head of Household has an office to himself and maybe a private room in the emodo's quarters, but nothing like this. This place is so big even I have a room to myself, which is... truly opulent."

"My room has a bed," I said. "After riding all day, that's all I need. But do you know what I observe, pefna-eperu?"

"What is that, Head of Household?" Hesa asked.

"That there are two doors between this room and anyone blundering into it."

Hesa looked over its shoulder and said, "Why, you're right."

I held out a hand and it stepped to me, just far enough to rest its palm on mine. By that clasp I pulled it gently down until we could kiss, and that we did, and gods what a relief that was after days of being close enough to touch it, but unable to.

"Nevertheless," Hesa said after I bent away. "We should be discreet. If people find me in here with you with the door closed too often, they'll talk."

"The pefna-eperu and the Head of Household often have business," I said.

"Which they discuss in brief meetings during the day in the Head of Household's office," Hesa said, mouth quirking. "Not all night in the Head of Household's bedroom."

"What if you're a terrible pefna-eperu?" I asked. "One so delinquent I have to dress it down frequently?"

"In your bedroom!" Hesa said, laughing finally. "Now that gossip I truly wouldn't want to be part of."

I drew it into my arms, and it glanced at the door before permitting itself the indulgence. I didn't blame the eperu for its resistance to the intimacy... if we were caught, it would suffer far worse than I would. But I was glad it chose to step into the embrace anyway, and we rested against one another, grateful to have reached a place of relative safety at last. Against its stained hair I said, "We can't live without this."

"No," Hesa agreed after a long moment. It sighed. "No." I heard the smile in its voice. "Let me... let me think about how to do it safely. Give me some time."

"Not too long," I said.

"No," it agreed. "Kiss me and let's go down to eat."

This time I threaded my fingers through the hair at its cheek and held it in place for my mouth, and whether that was more torment for it or for me I couldn't say. But when I let it free, Hesa sighed out a warm breath and said ruefully, "We definitely can't live without this."

I laughed against its hair and let it go before me, down to the communal meal.

I slept alone that night and didn't particularly enjoy it, but I'd slept alone most of my life and thought a few more months of it wouldn't hurt me. Certainly it was preferable to sleeping alongside Darsi. That thought was enough to give me a carefree night and I woke refreshed and ready for the work. After washing I went down the ramp to the first floor's common room, and there found Darsi and Hesa already awake and finishing their meals.

"Good morning," Darsi said. "Do you need me today, Pathen? There's so much to be done here..."

"No," I said, checking the hearth to see what was available. "I'd like to talk to Thesenet privately before we settle into town. What will the two of you be doing?"

"What won't we be doing," Darsi said with a sigh.

"The empire is working our fields," Hesa said. "We're in the middle of negotiating their handing that task to us for management. We don't have enough eperu to work the entire grant so we'll have to borrow some of their labor, but at very least I want our people supervising the work. The fewer Claws we have on our property the easier we'll sleep."

"And there are schedules to assign," Darsi said. "Hesa's in charge of the eperu, of course, but I was the one who scheduled the emodo when we were in het Kabbanil. That's not even touching all the things that still need to be bought for this house, food, furniture, basic supplies..."

"Caravans, rikka, materials for the emodo to use to make something we can actually sell," Hesa continued.

"That seems like a lot," I said. "You're sure you don't need help?"

"We do, yes," Hesa said. "We need you to finish the legal work that establishes the House and to convince Thesenet that we are good citizens of the Stone Moon empire so we can work in peace."

"That's right," Darsi said. "We'll do the parts that will result in soiling we can actually wash off in a bath. You can do the parts that no bath will make you feel clean after doing."

I flicked my ears back at him and said, "Such kindness, Darsi. I almost have the sense that you don't like me."

"Don't be ridiculous, Head of Household," Darsi said, ducking his head until he had to look up through his forelock to simper at me. "You're the star in my night sky."

I snorted. "Don't overdo it."

"Anything you say, beautiful hunter," Darsi said, and refilled his cup of tea from the pot by the hearth before walking out. Hesa watched him go, ears flat against its faked mane. In the silence that followed I ladled my breakfast into a bowl and filled a cup with the tea, sat down.

"Pathen, he—"

"Don't finish that sentence," I said. And then laughed. "Let him cavil, Hesa. Neither of us likes the situation. The least I can do is ignore his complaints."

"Easily said for you," Hesa said. "I'm the one who's going to have to work with him all day...!"

I grinned and it rose, and though it didn't kiss me I felt its hand trail over the back of my shoulder as it passed me on the way out.

I spent a profitable morning in Transactions seeing to the House's administrative needs. Most of the documents had been prepared in advance of my arrival but all of them needed my mark, and that included all hundred-odd contracts for the Jokka I'd employed. Their records had been sent ahead but the agreements were not legal in het Narel until they'd been witnessed and filed in the local branch of Transactions. As I made my way through each contract I thought of Abadil, for the documents I was signing now were expensive wooden rounds and had no doubt been copied from wax tablets sent from het Kabbanil's Transactions office. These wooden rounds were painfully expensive, and had only begun to see wider use after the Stone Moon made better record-keeping a necessity. Up until very recently the contracts kept in a Transactions office were on either wax tablets or stone, depending on the length of the contract, with some older records copied onto rare bits of vellum or fabric. Paper would revolutionize this process in a way I could barely imagine, but I wagered that Abadil could imagine it and already had.

My errand in Transactions took several hours, but when I'd finished it the emodo assigned to House Asara's filing handed me a stone to paint. This custom was as old as the first settlement when the nomad who'd decided to found het Serean set down the first rock in the foundation of the clan's dwelling. Ever since we have announced our intention to settle with a rock, and eventually those stones came to be displayed in the town Transactions office so that visitors could see at a glance how many Houses called that town home. Het Narel had several hundred, if I was any judge: the Great Houses were represented by rocks the size of my joined fists and there were perhaps twenty-five or thirty of them, and the remaining Houses ranged from the size of pebbles to stones the size of my palm.

The stone the emodo handed me was the size of a Great House's, which told me a great deal about Thesenet. More, in fact, than the large estate. A rich House might decide to buy a large estate even if it had few people to fill it, after all. But for Thesenet to have told Transactions to set aside a stone this size for me when I'd only brought a tenth of the people needed to qualify for one....

I countered with my own bit of arrogance, and drew for Asara's symbol a circle above three vertical lines on a horizontal: a sun and three Jokka, male, female, neuter. We would be the day that washed the Stone Moon out against the brightness of the sky.

I had just finished this when a messenger appeared, seeking me.

"Ke emodo," he said. "The minister's compliments, and would you join him at the cheldzan shervel in the Green for lunch."

"Tell him I'll be along shortly," I said. "I'm just about done here."

"Very well, ke emodo."

I finished the administrative work and received for my trouble a silk strip with the House's sigil on it and the Stone Moon's permit information for display at the door, along with promises of official House tokens. I thanked the employees for their time and attention and went to meet the minister.

I'd been shown the Green during our tour; unlike het Kabbanil, het Narel had only one district for the wealthy and powerful and their storefronts were all concentrated there, along the edges of a roughly octagonal courtyard and park. The latter had given the area its name and must have represented a great show of luxury when water had been harder to come by; a garden without utilitarian purpose would have been unsupportable anywhere else. The Green was even separated from the rest of town by a delicate metal gate: another ostentatious display given the dearth of metal. I let myself in and passed the Jokka idling on benches or strolling past in search of this expensive perfume or that bit of jewelry and presented myself to the cheldzan shervel. Like the rest of the Green, this particular meeting-place was exclusive and rich; in this case, it had furnished its interior in more wood than I'd seen since policing the Great Houses of het Kabbanil. The people inside were lavishly dressed in finery even Laisira's emodo would have been hard-pressed to find fault with... but Thesenet was not among them. I found out why when one of the employees conducted me up a narrow circular ramp: he was on the roof.

And such a roof! It had been converted into a garden with herbs, fruits and vegetables in decorative clay pots along the edges; when the breeze whispered through those fronds, they brought the scent of spices and a piquant, fresh, green smell that made breathing seem easier.

There were three tables and only one of them was occupied. I joined Thesenet and admired the view; we were three stories up and from our vantage we could see the entire park, the octagonal path circumscribing it, and a good number of the roads leading to the grand Houses. The glow conferred by the pale, clear autumn sunlight made the scene look bejeweled.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Thesenet said. "We encouraged everyone to convert their roofs into garden spaces where they could. That was when I first arrived and we were fighting a potential famine. Every bit counted."

"Beautiful and useful," I said, and poured myself a cup of tea from the pot between us. "One of the most salutary combinations."

"I'm gratified that so many have kept on with the habit, even now that the danger's past," Thesenet said. "It means I've finally broken the people here of their assumption that water is precious and rare."

I glanced at him, but he was looking out over the Green. The satisfaction on his face, though... that was unmistakable, and leading.

"The climate here would seem better suited to growing, so long as the wells work," I said.

"Oh yes," Thesenet said. "And we're experimenting now with keñalad."

"Say again?" I said.

He grinned then. "Don't recognize it, do you."

I frowned and scoured my memory. Then said, "A group of bearing trees? A field of them."

"Yes!" he said. "We've had some seeds from Neked Pamari, of trees with edible nuts and fruits, and we're going to try cultivating them the way they did in the Mystery Age."

And that's how old the concept was; no one had collected enough seeds to make an orchard since then, and who would have the water to feed that many trees outside Neked Pamari's confluence of rivers anyway? And even that great forest's rivers were drying.

"You really are ambitious," I said.

"You have no idea, ke Pathen," Thesenet said. "And I have a hope that you might play a part in my plans."

I lifted my brows. "Go on."

Thesenet paused for a Jokkad to bring us our first course, a plate of steamed dumplings, and once he had gone said, "How much do you know about the Stone Moon's entrance into het Narel?"

Thinking of Abadil's cageyness, I said, "Very little."

"My predecessor mishandled it," Thesenet said, refreshing his cup of tea and sticking one of the dumplings with a skewer. "So badly the emperor had him executed on the orders of his advisor. When I arrived, the town was still smarting from the outrages dealt it by Nelet. The provisional minister appointed to hold the town until my arrival did his best to smooth over those outrages, but the truth is... the people of het Narel were justified in their angers, ke emodo. Nelet made a mess of things. He made the Stone Moon the enemy, not just in seeming, but in reality." Thesenet looked out over the town again, his eyes narrowed and a breeze tugging a strand of light hair around his throat. "His work here was complicated by the role of the Void's avatar, but even so there was no excuse for his ineptitude."

I heard in Thesenet a twin to the anger I'd held for Darsi when he'd inherited the management of House Laisira and felt an uncomfortable empathy for the minister... uncomfortable because I knew the reason I'd been so angry was because I didn't want to have to punish Laisira for Darsi's failure. I didn't want to think that Thesenet, too, wanted to protect het Narel from the harshness of the punishments exacted on the Jokka by the empire. Hoping that would blind me to the much greater possibility that Thesenet was more likely my enemy than my ally.

"Het Narel has so much potential," Thesenet said. "We are situated in the middle of the empire. We have good access to water now that the wells are down. Our climate is good for growing. We sit on a major crossroads to the rest of Ke Bakil's existing hets. And we aren't bound by hills or mountains or forests we can't cut down. We can grow in a way het Kabbanil and het Serean can't, not easily. We should be the trading nexus of the Stone Moon. And all that was set back years by Nelet's mismanagement. If he hadn't died, I'd have killed him myself for how hard he's made my job."

"You seem to have it in hand now," I said, watching him.

"Yes," Thesenet said. "But it's taken me years, and we're not where I'd hoped we'd be by now. Which is where you enter in, ke Pathen. Have you decided what you'd like to do with your House yet?"

"We have a... research project," I said at last. "My people believe it will work, but they're only now trying it."

Thesenet glanced at me, head canted.

"Paper," I said. "They want to make cheap, long-lasting paper from grass. They believe they know what to add to the fibers to make it work."

Thesenet's ears splayed. "You're serious?"

"They certainly are," I said, amused. "So I must be too."

"If they can manage that..." Thesenet said, and I could see him working through the possibilities, the little twitches of ear and eye as if hunting prey in a forest dense with it. Shaking himself, he said, "That's a worthy goal. Do you have anything in mind for what to do in case it takes longer to develop than planned?"

"No," I said. "I assume you have a proposition."

"I do," Thesenet said, and leaned toward me. "Warehouses."

"Warehouses," I repeated, but now I suspected I was wearing a duplicate of his expression at my mention of paper. Most Great Houses kept their own goods in storerooms on their grounds and shipped them to other parts of the empire on their own caravans, or made temporary deals with other Houses to put their wares on those wagons. It was one of the major differentiators between Great Houses and small: smaller Houses could only afford to sell their wares in town now that the eperu-led caravans of earlier days had been driven out of business by the Stone Moon's licensing fees.

"Warehouses," Thesenet said, satisfied. "Het Narel is the perfect place to pioneer a system of subsidized caravans. Houses would sell the empire their goods and we would send them on our wagons to the rest of the empire on caravans staffed by our own hires. We would keep those goods in our warehouse. And since we'll have paid for them ourselves, if there came a time when we needed those things—say, foodstuffs to stave off another famine—we would already have purchased them. We have the space for warehouses. We have access to roads and we're in the middle of the empire. Small Houses could grow rich if they could afford to send their wares to the rest of the empire. We could make that happen."

"You want small Houses to become rich?" I asked, curious.

"Of course!" Thesenet said. "The more wealth we produce, the safer we'll be. More wealth means more money we can set aside to grow food, to research innovations that will help preserve it. More money means we can afford to look for more sources of water. More wealth means we can support more people—"

"Who will have to be born," I pointed out.

"But we can have more children if we can afford it," Thesenet said.

I leaned back in my chair, frowning.

"If the smaller Houses grow richer," Thesenet said. "They can employ more people. They can feed more people. So long as we have the food and water and sanitation to support them. And we're working on that."

"So these warehouses," I said. "Where does House Asara come in?"

"Thanks to Nelet's mismanagement," Thesenet said, "there are precedents in het Narel for the empire contracting tasks to the Great Houses. I would award House Asara the contract to manage the warehouse initiative. That would entail overseeing the building of the first few, and then staffing them and the first caravans." He sipped from his cup. "You could give yourself a discounted rate for shipping your paper."

...and that would relieve us of the burden of having to build, staff and run our own caravans. It would also relieve the House of possible suspicion, as the wagons wouldn't be ours but the empire's, and Asara’s goods just another part of the whole being transported. And if we staffed the entire operation with the Jokka waiting in the wilds to finish their induction into House Asara....

"I'll have to discuss it with my advisors," I said. "But I can confidently say you have intrigued me, Thesenet."

"Then I can hold off on discussing the idea with anyone else?" Thesenet said, satisfied.

"I think so," I said. "I'll have an answer for you in a week. We're still evaluating the work we've taken on with the crops behind the estate, plus we've been discussing hiring a few more people to fill out our rosters."

"A week is fine," Thesenet said. "I hope between now and then you'll be willing to stop by House Rabeil's evening party? It would be a delight to introduce you and your lover to the other Great Houses of het Narel."

"Count on us," I said. "I would like nothing better."

We spent the remainder of our lunch discussing the minutia of interest to administrators... which were also of interest to me, given what we were planning for het Narel and the Stone Moon at large. So I listened attentively to discussions of the recent harvests, the management of the town's population growth, the investigation into whether the river could be renewed. As a discreet server took away the remains of our dessert, Thesenet said, "One more thing, ke Pathen. I have a permit here for House Asara directly from the Stone Moon seat, saying that you are to be made eligible for both an annual allotment of children and a permanent set of anadi for your House. In either case, you will need to visit the anadi residence... the once for your emodo to do their duties by the anadi, and again to select your females, if you want them. Perhaps we can schedule those visits soon? The breeding in particular should be done before autumn advances much further, as winter is the most salubrious time for pregnancies. The anadi take fewer mind-wounds in the cooler months."

"Of course," I said. "Give us a few weeks to settle in. If we miss the deadline for the first child allotment, we can apply for our measure next year."

"A considerate approach," Thesenet said, rising. "I thank you for it. Three days, then, ke Pathen. I'll see you at House Rabeil."

"So you shall," I said. "Thank you for lunch."

"The pleasure was mine," Thesenet said, and left me to contemplate the view. Which I did for longer than I planned. The warehouse contract represented an opportunity I wouldn't have dared hope for, so good in fact that I couldn't help a certain wariness: it would be a perfect way to entrap us if we were already suspected of treason.  Even so I greatly anticipated bringing that news home.

Against that pleasure I savored the brief bitterness of the allotment Jushet had arranged. The empire had removed the anadi from the general population to manage the failing birthrate, and as a consequence all of our children were born behind the walls of the anadi residences and then spirited away to facilities where they were raised by the empire's hand-picked guardians. If a House demonstrated its profitability and respectability it was awarded a number of children each year to expand its House... but of course, those children were already several years old before release and had been indoctrinated thoroughly into the empire's mores by their keepers. There were no children in the streets of our cities anymore; they were too jealously guarded, first by the empire and then by the Houses that worked so hard to earn them. The average Jokkad in these days would rarely see one unless he belonged to a Great House.

Jushet's gift meant that we would be among those favored few to receive them in return for our "duty," which meant I would have to pick out at least ten emodo to come with me to the residence and beget those children on unwilling anadi. But while I could beg off receiving the honor of a few token anadi to decorate my Household, I could not reject the much greater compliment of receiving an allotment of children, not when Asara would not have been eligible for such an allotment for years.

I watched the Jokka walking through the bright pale autumnal light below until my thoughts settled. And then I rose and left. Before I need borrow that trouble, I had a gift to bring home to my beloved.

Hesa stared at me, pupils dilated in plum-red eyes. "They want us to what?"

Bringing this news to my councilors had thus far been everything I'd hoped. I'd caught Darsi and Hesa both in the common room, sent someone to fetch Abadil and then put forth Thesenet's proposal. The look on Hesa's face... I leaned back, hands folded on my stomach, and tried not to laugh.

"You can't be serious!" Hesa managed, its voice fluttering on the first word.

"Sorry I'm late, what did I mi—what's wrong with Hesa?" Abadil said at the door.

Darsi said wryly, "Pathen's figured out how to give an eperu an orgasm."

I flattened my ears and began to speak but Abadil interrupted me, dropping into a chair across from Darsi and saying, "This sounds promising... go on!"

I gave Darsi my best 'we'll talk later' glare and said to Abadil, "The minister would like us to undertake the creation of an imperial trade system based out of warehouses in het Narel. If we accept his proposal, we'll be tasked with building the first warehouses, buying and staffing caravans, and scheduling and running them to all the towns on Ke Bakil."

"He... w-wants us to... w-what?" Abadil said, his snicker burbling out from around the words until by the end of it he was smacking his palm on the edge of the table, laughing too hard to talk.

I said mildly, "I told him we would seriously consider his offer."

Abadil collapsed into another paroxysm.

"Well," Darsi said with a sigh. "I see I'm the only one left with the faculty of speech. I believe I speak for all of us, ke Pathen, when I say we will need to sit down and work out the dangers, advantages and logistical challenges involved, including the very real possibility this is a trap contrived by our spies—"

"We'll do it!" Hesa exclaimed, finding its tongue. "Gods! Go back and tell him right now we'll sign!"

Darsi's ears slicked back. "Hesa! The size of this undertaking, it can't be underestimated, we've never run anything this complicated, and that's without mentioning that it won't exactly help us stay unnoticed!"

"We'll do it," Hesa said to me directly, ignoring him. "Just give it to me, Pathen, I swear you won't regret it. I can do this."

"I know you can," I said. "I just wanted to give you the chance to tell me no."

It laughed, eyes glittering with that fire I'd fallen so utterly in love with in het Kabbanil. "But you knew I wouldn't."

"I knew you wouldn't," I agreed, satisfied.

"I think it's a splendid idea!" Abadil said. "It'll accomplish everything we'd hoped to, and give us a reason to do it immediately and on a grand scale! Oh, don't fret, Darsi. It's just our same plan to hide in plain sight, only magnified."

"Magnified to the point of us not being able to clamp down on every part of it for secrecy's sake!" Darsi said, irritated. "Am I the only one who thinks we should be more cautious? There are spies in our House and Claws crawling all over our fields!"

Abadil reached over and patted his hand. "I think the only mistake you're making, ke emodo, is thinking you're the only one who sees the dangers. But all of us are quite cognizant of the peril we're in, every day, just being here and holding our opinions. Aren't we?"

Neither Hesa nor I said anything. Did we have to?

Darsi covered his face. "Gods, it's like being bound to a wagon that's being driven at a full run along a cliff by a suicidal driver. You people have no sense of self-preservation!"

"I assure you," I said dryly, "we're quite intent on our survival."

"Fine words from someone in an eperu's bed!" Darsi exclaimed.

Abrupt silence.

And then I grabbed the front of his vest and slammed his back into the wall, and no one stopped me... not even Darsi himself, who seemed to have realized he'd gone too far. His breathing was erratic, too quick; he was looking down and away and his ears were flushed with shame.

"Now who's trying to get someone killed?" I said, lips pulled back from my teeth. When he didn't answer I shook him once by the vest. "Look at me." When he didn't, I snarled, "Look at me!"

"Ke Pathen—"

"Do you know who you are?" I interrupted.

"I—"

"Let me tell you who you are," I growled. "You're Darsi Asara-emodo, a member of my House. My House, Darsi. And if you ever... ever blurt that out again, I will visit the justice of a Head of Household on a member-turned-criminal. I'm sure you know the penalty for real crime under the Stone Moon. Don't you."

"Pathen, I'm sorry!" he said.

"I don't care if you're sorry," I said. "If you do it again, I'll have your tongue ripped out. And you'll have deserved it."

"I'm sorry," he said again, trembling. "It just slipped out—"

I let him go and stepped away, disgusted. "Get out. I don't want to see you again until you've put aside whatever it is that's driving this quarrel between us. And Darsi—" He paused, already at the door. "Make it quick."

"Yes, ke Pathen," he whispered, and fled.

Hesa's face was the color of chalk though it was otherwise composed, its hand resting lightly on the table. Across from it, Abadil cocked a brow and said, "I hope he takes your warning seriously. I'd hate to lose him."

"What?" I said, drawn from my rage by the unexpected sentiment. "Darsi?"

"Yes," Abadil said. "Until your arrival, he was quite indispensable. No particular talents except for hard work and willingness to do what other people ask him to. For some reason, though, he seems incapable of sense around you."

"He'd better learn quickly," I said. "Or I'll have him sent to Ilushet where he can't endanger the rest of us."

"Yes," Abadil said with a sigh. "That would be a pity." He glanced at Hesa, then smiled at it crookedly. "Oh, don't fret, ke eperu. I'm not about to spill your secret."

"You," I observed, ears flat, "are not acting surprised enough, Abadil."

"No," Abadil said. "I suppose I'm not. But I knew someone who loved an eperu before, though he didn't see the signs in himself until much, much later. Not that the two of you are acting like lovers... quite the opposite, I'd say. But the idea doesn't surprise me, no. Now that I consider it, the two of you are well-matched. I'd harness you in tandem if given the choice."

I stared at him, fighting an unwilling amusement through the haze of my anger at Darsi. "You... just compared us to a team of rikka."

"As a metaphor I admit it was a bit contrived, but it was the first thing that came to mind," Abadil said. He stood and walked to the door. "So... this proposition of Thesenet's. Did he give you any more details?"

"A few," I said, struggling back toward the topic. The sound of the door closing penetrated my anger and I looked up.

"Now," Abadil said. "Touch, you two, before you fly apart. You're not the first to see the answer and you won't be the last."

"The answer?" I said.

"The answer to Ke Bakil's problem," Abadil said. "Which is that we make rules about whether we should care for people and their fates based on their sex and our perception of the viability of their futures." He snorted. "Even with nature giving us proof of the absurdity of that by making us capable of switching sex twice in our lives! We still insist we know better. But the truth is that we're all the same flesh, ke Pathen, male, female and neuter. And we all have the same chance to die before our time, and to lose our faculties from terrible accident, and to love. Until we admit that to each other and to ourselves, we'll keep suffering apart, and our societies will be rife with cruelty and injustice."

Now we were both staring at him.

"As if you're surprised by all this," he said, folding his arms. "You know it in your hearts where it counts. So please a cynic and a drunk and don't hide the truth from me."

Hesa said, slowly, "Ke Abadil... love does not answer all questions, nor solve all problems."

"Of course not," he said, unruffled.

"Love, in fact, makes some things nearly impossible," Hesa said, the words still coming with such difficulty that my own teeth ached. "Love can destroy. Love hurts."

"Yes, yes," he said. "Absolutely."

It narrowed its eyes at him. One could see the red in its lashes in the right light.

"What do you expect of power?" Abadil said as I regarded Hesa in profile. "Fire will kill you too, ke eperu. But would you live without the heat of the sun and the warmth of it in winter?" He leaned forward. "The Stone Moon sees the destructive power of love and outlaws it. But that curtails its generative power also, doesn't it? And what are we failing for lack of? Children? Mercy? Community? What do you think makes those things possible?" He flicked his ears back and said, "No, Hesa. Our choices are love... or fear. The empire's made its choice. And so, you perceive, have the two of you."

I looked at the eperu.

"Come sit," Hesa said to me a heartbeat later.

So I drew out a chair beside it and the eperu took my hand, and that was all. But that was enough for both of us... and for Abadil too, for in his eyes we saw the sort of honest pleasure I think we all hope those around us will feel for us in our happiness. We went back to discussing the logistics of fulfilling Thesenet's request and it was a good meeting. I couldn't help but wonder what Darsi would have brought to it had we not had such strife between us, though.

After Abadil left, Hesa said, "Darsi's right, you know. It might be a trap."

"I know," I said.

"And love doesn't solve all problems," it continued, but more to itself than to me.

I said, "Of course not, pefna. Love is a vision. It needs logistical support."

Startled from its reverie, Hesa laughed. "Ah, what? Well, is my Head of Household commanding it, then?"

"Love as our vision of the future?" I said. I huffed softly. "As long as the society founded on it is brave enough to understand and face the cruelties of nature, I can think of worse things, ke eperu. I just can't see how it could be done."

The eperu glanced up at me, thoughtful. "We'll see, ke emodo. We'll see."

I spent the next days immersing myself in the business of the House. While I didn't think I'd be involved with it directly, I wanted a basic understanding of what everyone would be doing. Abadil was pleased to give me a tour through the part of the House he'd set aside for his paper-making endeavor, which was currently a clutter of half-constructed frames and vats. The emodo he'd drafted into the project seemed excited, though, so I left him to the management of it. Hesa then introduced me to the liaison for the empire's eperu workforce who was teaching our team their duties. When they hadn't been packing goods and loading caravans, Laisira's eperu had tended bees, not crops, and none of them were familiar with the process. They took to it with all the energy and focus we expected of the eperu without question... most of us, anyway. I watched them at their labors and remembered Hesa's revelation about the secret culture of neuters and the attendant beliefs. Did they need that apartness, I wondered? Did they feel called to that sacrifice to give their lives meaning?

I also watched my three imperial spies, but they had their heads down in their work. The two emodo had been dragged into Abadil's venture—perhaps involvement with something so potentially revolutionary would win their loyalty, for it was hard not to fall in love with success. The eperu Jushet had cannily assigned together with the emodo was in the field, one of the few who knew the well and irrigation duties without being taught. Perhaps it noticed the ignorance of its fellows? I didn't know what Molan's eperu had been tasked with, but then, perhaps the spy didn't either.

There was little I could do about the spies, though, so I let them be. At least they were pulling their weight in the traces with the rest of us. In the meantime, I had a party to concern myself with, one for which I realized I had nothing sufficient in my clothes-chest to wear. I sent for Laisira's former master-weaver and took him with me to the shops of the Green. I daresay he felt some affront at being forced to buy clothes he felt he could have done better making himself, but that was a little of why I'd brought him; once he'd resigned himself to the experience, he was flattered that I'd asked his advice, and he stopped thinking of me as Pathen Ures-emodo, former Claw of the empire and scourge of Laisira's unnatural Head of Household, and began thinking of me as an interesting fashion problem to solve.

We returned with multiple packages, some of which the weaver wouldn't let me touch until he'd put some of his embroiderers and painters on them, and I let him go feeling I'd accomplished something far more important than outfitting myself for my false role as het Narel's hero-Claw Head of Household. It was hard to fear someone you'd been haranguing for having shoulders too broad for their waist.

"I heard you bought clothing?" Hesa asked me later, perplexed. We were in the communal room again; two pots were left on the hearth as a matter of course, one for stew or porridge and another for something steeped. The drink in it today was some kind of delicate floral tea, a scent that evoked the wind on the back of het Narel's grasslands.

"There's a party tomorrow night at House Rabeil," I said. "Thesenet intends to use it as my formal introduction to society."

"Have you told Darsi?" it asked, brows rising.

"I haven't even seen Darsi for almost two days," I said.

It sighed. "You're not making this easier, Pathen."

I laughed. "If it was easy, ke eperu, you'd be bored."

It scowled at me. Or tried. I could see the smile trying to win its mouth.

The following afternoon I retired to my chambers to dress, expecting to do so alone and naturally finding Abadil waiting for me at the door.

"You know that I can dress myself...?" I said.

"How fortunate for you that I'm not here to help you with that, then!" he said. When I paused too long, he added, "Never fear, ke emodo. I have no designs on you. The last male with whom I considered a relationship cured me of the habit of flirting with Jokka of world-affecting significance."

I lifted my brows. "This sounds like quite a story."

"I'm sure it does," Abadil said. "But I'm here to tell you different stories. About the personalities of het Narel's powerful Houses, so that you don't walk into that gathering completely unarmed."

"Ah," I said, and gestured. "By all means, then."

So Abadil sat on my bed and regaled me with names and histories while I set out my clothes and began the process of putting on my newest mask. The uniform of a Claw had been the first... this would be my second. I hoped it would fit more easily.

"This information," I said, pulling on the pants. "How old is it? You haven't been in het Narel for some time, Abadil."

"Fortunately I have a friend who's been here since before the empire," Abadil said. "And I went to see him the day after we arrived. Eduñil Rabeil-emodo, that is. He used to head Transactions then, he'll probably be one of your hosts tonight. He's one of the principals of the House still."

"A good friend?" I said.

"Since childhood," Abadil said. Quieter, he said, "It was good to see him again. We've been through a great deal together."

"Sounds like a much better candidate for a flirtation than some world-affecting emodo you've barely met," I said, pulling my shirt on.

For once, Abadil didn't have an immediate answer. I thought of looking at him but judged doing so would distract him from whatever he was thinking. Still, I smiled as I tucked in the shirt. I had been assured that the current fashion was for longer coats and vests, modeled after the Stone Moon's uniforms. I'd gone for a knee-length black vest over black pants with the purpose of reminding those around me of my former occupation. Laisira's artisans had embroidered the black fabric with black and gray floss so that the fabric looked rich without being gaudy. The shirt was white, the warm white of spilled blood, and loose; custom dictated that I should bind it below the elbow, so I'd chosen broad ribbons the pale yellow of honey, or tears.

My House tokens had arrived in time for use, so I wrapped a long black cord around my waist and hung one beneath the pale sash I'd bought for Hesa in het Kabbanil as symbol that our enterprise had been successfully arranged. I considered taking the sickle-knife I'd stored in the chest on our arrival to het Narel, but decided it would be too blatant a reminder of my former occupation, and closed the lid on it. By then, Abadil had found his tongue again.

"So you've decided to aim for 'intimidating', have you."

"My target was more 'former imperial enforcer turned civilian,'" I said. "But 'intimidating' is close enough."

"It works," Abadil said. "You carry it well." He rose. "I've told you all I know...."

"And I thank you for it," I said. "I'll remember. I'm accustomed to operating in treacherous environments."

"It should serve you well," Abadil said. "We are still in the empire... and if het Narel is smaller, that makes its politics all the more vicious. People remember more when there are fewer faces."

"Yes, I imagine," I said. We left my bedroom together.

And found Darsi waiting in the antechamber.

He really did look like the sort of male one would use to distract the easily distracted, and he'd been dressed in a showy dark green edged in blood-white and amber, with a white shirt bound below the elbow with amber cords. The colors were gem-like and made him seem to glow.

"I went ahead and told ke Darsi all that I've told you," Abadil said, with far too casual an air. "That was earlier today."

"How convenient," I said. "Abadil, why don't you return to my bedroom and fetch me a House token for ke Darsi."

"I'd be delighted," he said, and excused himself.

"I promise I'll be a help to you, ke emodo," Darsi said, voice and ears low.

I studied him and said, "See that you are."

Abadil returned. I handed Darsi his token and we went down the ramp together. Abadil did not follow us and Darsi wisely did not speak, letting me consider in silence the wisdom of bringing him. I had planned to claim he'd taken ill and that plan still had merit, particularly if he was going to be indiscreet in some moment of passion. Again. One wrong comment and we would be exposed and destroyed.

But Darsi had managed to keep me at bay for months while masquerading as the Head of House Laisira. I had to believe he had some aptitude for working in dangerous circumstances. And I owed it to Hesa not to dismiss him, particularly if he still suffered from the guilt of facilitating the loss of over half his Household.

So I said nothing and Darsi and I passed out of the Household, where two eperu were waiting with our rikka in the wells of light formed by the lamps. One was our spy, I saw. The other was Hesa. Its eyes caught on me and then Darsi, but it revealed nothing in either its mannerisms or countenance. If only it had been able to play the part we had been forced to find an emodo for! But we made shift with what we had.

"Your rikka, ke emodo," Hesa murmured, eyes cast down.

"Thank you, pefna," I said.

"Enjoy your evening," it said, and how I longed to hear more, to be able to speak more. But the eperu was doing such an admirable job of acting as if it didn't know me well. The other eperu didn't even flick an ear toward us, helping Darsi up into the saddle.

"Thank you," I said again, and as I reined the beast around, showed the eperu the feeling in my eyes. Mostly disgust, I'm afraid. Its gaze glittered with amusement.

"Shall we go, lover mine?" Darsi asked.

"Lead the way, my prize," I said.

Our grand estate being located in the same quarter of town as the Green—and no, I was not immune to the irony of my still separating towns into quadrants of responsibility as if I remained a Claw—we were not far from our destination. Rabeil was truly one of het Narel's Great Houses, though, from the size of its property and the care put into its decor. That there were lamps depending from the eaves of the house—on each story—and at the gates, rather than the more habitual firebowls, that alone was an indicator of what would have been incalculable wealth before the Stone Moon. After the Stone Moon, of course, it was an indicator of either favor or remarkable political canniness. Or both, more likely. I felt my shoulders tighten as we passed through the gates as they were opened for us. Our rikka were led away after we dismounted, and then we were escorted behind the House to another extravagance: an outdoor garden. There, amid the softly glowing lamps and the pungent greenscent of what plants remained blooming in late autumn, there were Jokka mingling.

Here was the power in het Narel. I felt Darsi's presence behind me and was glad of him, for once.

"Ke Pathen!" Thesenet said, espying me from a group clustered at a nearby bench. "How delightful. Please, let me make you known to Rozen Rabeil-emodo, Head of House Rabeil."

So I stepped into the garden and the battle I had chosen and went to meet the Head of House Rabeil, of House Dzeri and House Kerfa and all the others that Abadil had thoughtfully prepared me to recognize. And yet, it was not as large an affair as I'd expected, perhaps over twenty people if I counted correctly in the garden's dim lighting. Even assuming a single guest from each House, rather than pairs or groups, not all of het Narel's Great Houses were in evidence... or had been invited. I said as much to Darsi when we had a moment alone together on a stone bench.

"Rivalries, maybe," he said. "I know Kathara's not here, for instance... Kathara and Rabeil were the breeding Houses of het Narel before the mess Abadil told me about."

"The mess," I repeated, voice low.

He trailed a finger over the edge of my hand, as if we were whispering lovers' nonsense. I would have been more impressed with the performance had I not suspected he'd originally learned it to seduce me. "Kathara had the original contract to manage the anadi residence here but there was some scandal that forced the Stone Moon to retract it. Since then, Rabeil's been in charge of the breeding."

I remembered Thesenet's comment about precedents in het Narel and frowned, then looked up as a change in the lighting alerted me to the arrival of another Jokkad.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," the Head of Rabeil said.

"Not at all," I said. "We were just taking a little time to enjoy the charming environs."

Rozen laughed. "It's hard to resist with a lover at your side, isn't it. Before the Stone Moon we kept these gardens for the anadi. When it was pleasant out they enjoyed it, especially at night. Since then, it's been relegated to this sort of garden party... and of course, the inevitable trysts conducted by the emodo of the House when they think the rest of us aren't looking." He sat on the bench across from us.

"I don't blame them," Darsi offered. "It's beautiful, and I haven't seen some of the plants you have here. Maybe flora that only grows further south?"

"Ah?" Rozen said. "You noticed? Why yes... I happen to think we have lovelier flowers here." He grinned, all coarse fangs and large teeth. He'd never been any other sex, if that mouth was any indication. "It must be quite a change, coming here from het Kabbanil."

"Oh, we like it here," Darsi said, threading his fingers through mine where they rested on my thigh. "We welcomed the chance to come start something new together."

Rozen smiled at us both. "Ah, now that's good to see. It's so refreshing, people who really care about one another. The House's work means I see a lot of... forced... interactions. So your feeling for one another is like waking from a dull dream."

Darsi rested his cheek on my shoulder, the very picture, I imagined, of the devoted prize. So I did my part and brought our joined hands to my mouth, kissing the back of his before putting our hands back on my knee. I used the time to wonder why Rozen was being so appallingly open with us. "You're kind, ke Rozen," I said at last. "And Darsi and I are fortunate—" and then I paused at the sight of a shape, striped in shadows cast by an ornamental plant. "Is that...?"

"Ah, you've seen one of our anadi," Rozen said.

"I had no idea they'd be out," I said. "One of your tokens?"

"Not so much so," Rozen said. "We allow the anadi of the residence a few weeks here before sending them back."

"All of them?" Darsi asked, surprised. But he didn't lift his head from my shoulder, and I congratulated him in silence for maintaining his casual demeanor.

"Yes," Rozen said. "If they're able, if it's safe for them. In that way, all the anadi have a chance to be the token female of a Stone Moon Household. It does no harm that we've seen." He canted his head. "I hear you will be coming to us soon for stud duty, ke Pathen, and to select your own tokens...? Quite an honor in such a new Household. You have high favor in the empire."

"My patrons have been very generous," I said, quite truthfully.

"It's good to have generous patrons," he said. He grinned at Darsi good-naturedly. "Will you be bringing your lover to the duty? I hear it's the fashion now, to go together to serve the anadi and then have one another for comfort afterward."

I said, "I wouldn't want to deprive my beloved of the honor."

"I like the sound of this fashion," Darsi added, and lifted his head enough to brush his cheek against mine. "We'll have to follow suit."

"Excellent," Rozen said. "I'm looking forward to seeing the two of you there." And then, amiably, he wandered off to see to his other guests, leaving me looking after him with ears that trembled with the effort to keep them from flattening.

"She's looking at you," Darsi whispered against my jaw.

"What?" I said, and looked away from Rozen's retreating back... and saw that Darsi was right. In the shadowed arch leading back into the house was a shape limned only by the bronze light of an oblique lamp, hip, point of shoulder, a shimmer in a length of hair... and a gleam in a gaze, meeting mine. I did flatten my ears then, but she didn't look away. What was in her gaze? A certain calm? A resignation. And... a curiosity.

"Just what we need," Darsi muttered. "More trouble."

"You fear too much, Darsi," I answered, low. "You can only die once."

"You're wrong," he said, "You can die a hundred deaths if your loved ones die first." And then he stood, tugging me after him and laughing, saying, "Not here, ke emodo. Come, let us find something to drink."

Surprised by him, I let him lead me away. We returned to the flow of people, attaching to the knots that clustered beneath a tree in a planter here, or beside a small fountain there. Abadil's information proved very helpful, for I found him to be right: for whatever reason, the politicking among the high and influential of het Narel struck me as more personal than anything I'd been a part of before. Indeed, my observation that not every Great House was represented made me wonder if I'd inadvertently cast my lot in with some faction without fully understanding the one I'd spurned.

I did not spend much worry on the possibility. If a faction I had to join, the one Thesenet himself recommended had to be my choice. But I counted bodies and names so that when I returned home I could see who'd been excluded, and been made my potential enemy.

There was one emodo here that I wanted to see, very purposefully, and by name rather than title. Thesenet had introduced him but I had not had a chance to speak to him alone yet. With Darsi engaged in charming a group of Jokka that included the minister, I went seeking my quarry and found him in a secluded corner much like the one I'd been using with Darsi. He was not alone; there was an anadi with him, sitting at his feet with her head against his knee. They were bent together so that they seemed to flow into one another, and the sight of it stopped me entirely: my feet, my heart, even my thoughts. Fear, I thought, when I could think again at all. And wonder. Those things, like the two sitting together, were often found entwined.

An emodo and an anadi, entwined. I began to wonder about House Rabeil.

"Ke emodo," the other said, cupping the anadi's cheek and lifting his head to look at me. "I admit I'd been expecting you."

"Was this pose planned, then?" I asked, wary.

"To entrap you?" Eduñil asked. He smiled, tired. "No... this anadi is the Stone Moon's official gift to House Rabeil, and you will often find us together. She was my request and I was fortunate enough to be obliged."

"And no one wonders," I said, voice low.

"At my consideration of her?" he asked. And huffed softly. "Ke Pathen, anadi are not to be loved. One might grow fond of them, as one might a favored rikka or a servile ñedsu pup. But everyone knows deeper feelings never grow for Jokka who are taken from us so quickly."

The curve of his hand on her face was tender and the look on his face mask-like. I joined him, sitting on the bench opposite his, and said, "Abadil tells me a great deal about you."

"Does he?" Eduñil asked, ears splaying.

"As much by his silences as by his words," I finished, and lifted a brow.

"Ah, well," Eduñil said, glancing away. "He and I have been through a great deal."

"So he said," I agreed, crossing my legs and resting my hands on my knee.

Eduñil looked at me, then laughed. "You don't wear innocence well, ke emodo. But I have received your message, and I'll grant it full consideration."

"Good," I said, satisfied. I liked Abadil; it bothered me that he hadn't noticed the relationship he'd apparently spent a lifetime fostering. I looked down at the anadi, who hadn't moved save to flick an ear now and then. In her contentment I saw promise for Abadil... an emodo who could tend so gently to an anadi would surely be good for my clay-keeper. "I'm told you have been involved in this history since its inception."

"Some part of it," Eduñil allowed, his voice quiet.

"And my clay-keeper will not tell me the tale in full for fear of misrepresenting some portion of it," I continued.

"That would be his way," Eduñil said with a smile. "He is a historian, toe to ear. He'll tell you he's a clay-keeper but in every important way he's really a lore-knower, like in the old stories."

"I don't suppose you might tell me the parts you know," I said.

"I could," Eduñil said. "But not here. We could take a meal together, if you want to talk at length."

"I'd like that," I said. "Are you still in Transactions these days?"

"Not for now," he said. "It's not my year for it." He grinned suddenly. "We pass the title around still, and the Stone Moon does not seem to mind so long as none of us have been errant lately."

"So business in het Narel remains much as it was before," I surmised.

"The minister is generous," Eduñil said, and surprisingly I could hear no irony in his voice. "He lets us manage a great deal of our own affairs. But then, het Narel is smaller than het Kabbanil, from which you came. We can afford such luxuries."

"Yes," I said, glancing again at the anadi. She opened her eyes, sleepy; in them I saw an animal softness without fear or grief. Her consideration of me was unhurried and whatever she saw neither alarmed nor interested her, for she shut them again and resumed her submission to Eduñil's caress. "Het Narel is certainly not het Kabbanil."

"Just so," Eduñil answered. "Send me a message when you're free, ke emodo."

"I shall," I said, and left him to his prize... and I wondered at the House that let him display his affection so freely. It was true that we tended to overlook any feelings a Jokkad might have for an anadi but there were limits to everything.

The rest of the evening was uneventful, save for its length. We stayed until near truedark and by the time we'd mounted our rikka to go home I was well and again exhausted with holding up the mask to these strangers. We'd acquitted ourselves well; Darsi in particular had surprised me, for he'd not put a foot wrong the entire evening and had I not known just how little regard he had for me even I would have begun to wonder if he secretly adored me.

And as much as he irritated me, he deserved to know it. So as we reached our gates, I said, quiet, "You did an excellent job. I'm glad I brought you."

Surprised, Darsi said, "Thank you, ke emodo."

I left it at that; to be more effusive would have sounded insincere and I wanted him to believe in my sincerity. We rode through the gate, let the eperu awaiting us take the rikka away, and parted ways up the ramp, he to his bed, me to mine. And for once I didn't think of its emptiness, only that in it I need not dissemble. I folded all my fine clothes and set them on the clothes-chest, and then slept.

The following day I sent a formal acceptance of Thesenet's proposed contract to the ministry, oversaw the transfer of management from the Stone Moon's Claws to our eperu in the fields and arranged my lunch with Eduñil. That was also the first day I sat in the Head of Household's office to receive an itemized list of purchases—from Abadil, whose experiment was proceeding apace. Hesa had already scrawled a note alongside. I turned the tablet sideways: "GOOD BUT MAKE NOISE OTHERWISE."

I started laughing, which made Abadil slick his ears back. "Ah, ke emodo? I hope my requests aren't outrageous...?"

"No," I said, smudging the note out of the wax. "But watch your expenses, Abadil. You don't have a working prototype yet, so don't build out an entire industry until you do."

"Of course, ke emodo," he said, bemused, and took the tablet back.

That afternoon I also had my first invitation to a regular meet in the cheldzan shervel where I'd had my rooftop meal with Thesenet. It was from House Dzeri; I sent back a message that I'd be delighted to join my peers there. Darsi reminded me that we were supposed to hire on the rest of our House now that we were settled in het Narel, and I promised to begin showing at Transactions to read the records there in preparation for the ones that would conveniently be available soon.

And I had the visit to the anadi residence to schedule...

That, I put off. Partly because I didn't want to do it yet, and partly because Hesa had dived headfirst into the warehouse project and the initial organization required near-constant consultation with the Head of Household. Even if most of what I did was approve the eperu's suggestions, there were a great deal of them and all of them affected us. It was not unusual for me to end up in three of those meetings a day, some of them impromptu affairs in the halls or outside, others in my office. There was good light in my office, brought in by a skylight; I used it to admire the intensity of Hesa's interest, and how that fire shone in its eyes.

"You," it said after a moment, "are not listening to me, ke emodo."

"You're telling me it will take less time than expected to build the warehouses because the Stone Moon's codes for buildings not intended for continuous occupation are less stringent than those meant for residences," I said, "and that you are nevertheless concerned about under-building the warehouse because if it collapses the economic repercussions for the het will be painful."

It eyed me, mouth twitching.

"You need to re-dye your roots," I added. "Your hair is coming in copper at the brow."

"Pathen," Hesa said.

"Hesa," I answered, wondering at its tone.

It set its tablet down on my desk and folded its hands on its knees. "Your door is closed and your window is on the ceiling."

I glanced up at the window, and said, "I suppose someone might climb the building."

"I doubt it," the eperu said, and reached over the desk to slowly curl its fingers through the seam down the front of my tunic. I drew in a breath, enough of one to be ready for the kiss, which it took from me over the wax tablets of all the accounts and contracts I was still reading.

"We should move those," I said against its mouth when it released me, or I released it.

"You'll be careful," it said, grinning, and licked me.

So we did not share a bed the way I wanted to, and no doubt it did as well. But now and then, when we were sure we would not be disturbed in my office, we found ways.

Only four days passed between the party at Rabeil and my meeting with Eduñil and yet it seemed far longer. I was glad to get out, and quite a walk it was; the cheldzan he'd chosen was not in the Green, but in the market district in town. I hadn't realized how difficult it was for me to hold up the mask of an emodo of greater means—and aims—until I found myself among the sort of Jokka I'd grown up with. It was a pleasant surprise and it intrigued me that Eduñil had selected such an unpretentious location.

The cheldzan was a two-story building. There had been a building beside it, I thought, or one planned and never erected, for there was a space between it and the next. That space it had used to its advantage as a courtyard, and tables spilled from it out onto the lawn in front of the street. Eduñil was sitting at one of these tables, furthest back in the courtyard where a red awning threw a warm shadow over the seats.

"Nice place," I said, joining him.

He smiled at me. "Ke Keshul introduced it to me. They have good soup here, among other things."

I hesitated, then said, "So, you knew the Fire in the Void."

"The emperor's priest," Eduñil said.

"And some say other things," I said.

"I've heard," Eduñil said with a trace of sorrow. He smiled a little. "I don't know much of his life once he left het Narel. But of his life here, when the Stone Moon came... that I can tell you. And I think you should know."

"And why is that?" I asked.

"Because," Eduñil said. "He is the Void's avatar. And what he does not approve of, he destroys."

"And this applies to me... how?" I asked, disturbed.

"You live in het Narel now, ke emodo," Eduñil said. "And you came as one of the empire's heroes. Het Narel is of particular interest to the Fire in the Void as well as to the Stone Moon. You must walk carefully here, for all eyes are upon us. Particularly if you can look upon my friend without distaste."

"There are those who do?" I asked, surprised.

Eduñil studied me. And his ears splayed. His smile was without any humor at all.

"Let us order our food," he said. "Then we can talk."

Over soup served in bowls with handles shaped like a bundle of shuñe stalks, Eduñil spoke in a low voice, and I listened. He told of how the Stone Moon's first emissaries first came to het Narel to build their wells, and how he was the one to welcome them in based on advice he'd received in an uncanny reading from Keshul Akkadin-emodo, the Void's diviner.

"I was not entirely sure of him when I went," Eduñil said, fingers resting on the handle of the bowl. "But I didn't know where else to go and to be honest, ke emodo, I wasn't sure of these strangers. So I thought... what could I lose by asking?"

"And you asked, and the Void answered," I said.

"Yes," Eduñil said, his eyes losing their focus. And I believed him... at very least, I believed that what he'd seen had been compelling.

He continued, explaining how the Stone Moon had begun the pacification of het Narel. I was familiar with the process though I'd never drawn the duty myself. The empire came with money and gifts and began solving problems with its customary efficiency and brilliance, and at some point the town's principals realized they had a master but no longer minded because their lives were so much easier that the price they paid for it felt fair. Only when people became accustomed to those luxuries did they begin to feel the bite of the empire's restrictions. Or at least, that was how it almost always worked. Unlike every other het I'd ever heard tell of, het Narel had fought this encroachment from its onset through the person of the Fire in the Void, whose machinations on the town's behalf were scarcely believable. To me, anyway, as a former Claw of the empire he had set himself against. I knew what he'd been fighting. And amazingly, he'd almost succeeded.

"I saw it," Eduñil said. "With my own eyes. He'd never killed so much as an animal before that afternoon, ke emodo. But he put a knife through the two emissaries we'd captured without a hesitation."

"But one of them had gone back to het Kabbanil," I guessed, because it's what I would have done had I encountered the problems these Claws had.

"And brought back reinforcements," Eduñil said. "They dragged Keshul away, and I don't know what they did with him that night but he was expected to die from it."

"Expected?" I repeated, surprised. "They didn't kill him outright?"

"No," Eduñil said. "They kept him all night, then dragged him to the plains to die. But he didn't. Two weeks later he came back."

"Two weeks," I said. "In summer. On the plains alone, and presumably beaten close enough to death for the Claws to believe his fate inescapable."

Eduñil said, "Yes." He pushed his bowl away and said, "The Void came to him, ke emodo. And there was proof. He left us dark brown with a brown mane and came back white as a star at night."

I had never seen the male the emperor was rumored to have taken to his bed. I'd heard conflicting stories about his appearance. Some said he was beautiful. Some said he looked half-starved, uncanny. But all the stories said something about the white hair and hide. Hair could be bleached. But skin? I frowned.

"Yes," Eduñil said. "That was our response also. He walked in from the summer sands and presented himself to the remaining emissary of the Stone Moon, saying he wanted escort to the capital. And even hating him, Nelet couldn't argue, and sent him north. After that..." He trailed off. Shook himself. "After that, we saw very little of him. I know he was responsible for the execution of the remaining Stone Moon emissary and the Head of Household who'd betrayed him to Nelet. I know he interceded on het Narel's behalf several times. And I know he arranged for House Rabeil to receive its anadi tokens."

"He knew you had a friend," I said.

"Yes," Eduñil said.

"How did Rabeil not come to have an anadi presence in the House, if it had the contract for breeding the anadi?" I said.

"Ah, but we didn't have that contract initially," Eduñil said. "After the Stone Moon was forced to give up Kathara, the House Keshul agitated into unsuitability for the task, they managed the residence directly because we were on the verge of famine and had no food to feed new children anyway. In fact, they scattered some of our anadi to other hets in those first few months. Rabeil didn't receive the contract until years later. Until then we'd been in control of Transactions through my instatement there, and the empire didn't want to pool too much power in one place."

"Wise," I murmured.

Eduñil watched me. I let him. Knowing the difficult history of het Narel's entrance into the empire made sense of a great deal. Of the tension at the party, of Thesenet's attitude, of comments heard here and there. It was almost as if the town had scar tissue I'd been able to feel but not gauge the extent of.

Now I knew how that wound had been made, and why it had healed so poorly.

"I have always thought," Eduñil said, voice low, "that het Narel would be important in the history of the empire. And that it had not finished telling its story yet."

"It is evident to me that there are many stories here that no one has heard in full," I said at last. "Maybe when we hear them all, we will be able to..."

When I didn't finish, Eduñil said, "...to?"

But I didn't know. I smiled a little and said, "We'll have to find out together." Folding my hands together I said, "Tell me, Eduñil... did you know anything of House Reña?"

He finished his tea and said, "No, ke emodo... and if you are wise, you will not ask." I watched him stand. "A most pleasant meal, Asara. I hope we'll do it again?"

"I'd like that," I said.

"And when should I tell my Head of Household that House Asara will call on the residence?" he said.

I flicked my ears back, but said, "Next week, ke Eduñil. It would be irresponsible to take chances with the health of the anadi."

"You have the heart of a steward," Eduñil said. "I'll tell Rozen to expect your party. Good day."

I remained in that chair beneath the striped awning for quite some time, lingering with Eduñil's parting words. The heart of a steward. Who had heard of such a thing, outside of stories of times so long past het Kabbanil's ruins had been new when they'd been common? And how many more such words would I hear in het Narel? I'd have Abadil digging up musty old records too old for fidelious transmission. But then, perhaps that was how fact became truth, sifted through the minds of generations as they pass it, each rubbing the detail from it until all that was left was the core. Shod, a word so old it barely sounded like part of the language at all. Steward.

"The first handful of us are ready to return," Hesa told me later that night. "You'll want to go to Transactions as soon as you have the moment to spare because gods know we need the extra labor."

The four of us were sitting together over our meal: Abadil and Darsi on one side of the table, and Hesa sitting alongside me on the other. We'd taken to having our dinner several hours after the rest of the House had dined, and while it meant we made do with leftovers it suited us because we were more likely to be left alone in common room. The Jokka of the House felt that if we were in our offices we were working and could be bothered, but eating meant we were done with duty. We kept our conversations quiet but the room was large and the table we habitually chose far from the door.

Hesa and I both sat facing the door, anyway. We'd learned our paranoia for different reasons but it remained with us all the same.

"And where are they coming from?" I asked.

Hesa glanced at Abadil, who twitched an ear with a rueful expression. I narrowed my eyes. Returning its attention to me, Hesa said, "They're going to be out-of-work eperu caravan leaders."

I leaned back. "Isn't that a little too much truth?"

"It actually is truth," Abadil said. "These are some of Ilushet's people. But the story's believable, Pathen, because the eperu caravans have been disbanded. The licensing fees drove them out of business, and Void knows that's a crime... some of those caravans have been operating since they evolved out of the nomad clans." He tapped the table with a finger. "But the important thing is that the Stone Moon knows those eperu are out of work... and they know we're trying to hire people who are good at driving caravans. Where else would we look?"

"It makes you look like someone who knows how to make use of resources in the empire's interests that would otherwise be lying idle," Hesa said.

"It makes us look like we're allying with dissidents," Darsi said, ears flat. "The reason the empire pushed those eperu out of the market was because they were suspected of bringing supplies and weapons to the truedark kingdom."

I glanced at him, then said, "He's right."

"He's not," Hesa said. "At least, not entirely." At my raised brows, it said, "The eperu caravans were too hard to control, Pathen. The Stone Moon wanted the Houses to accrue the wealth associated with trade because it had better access to them to tax them. You were a Claw. Which would you have preferred to police? A House in het Kabbanil you could visit daily to harangue for late payment... or a band of eperu without permanent homes who could be anywhere on the back of the World when you needed them?"

"That's also true," I said. "But that doesn't invalidate Darsi's point."

"We've established you as a risk-taker who gives the persecuted and downtrodden an opportunity to return to society as productive members with the fiction about House Molan," Abadil said. "This is just more of the same."

"This is riskier," Darsi muttered, but he seemed less sullen... perhaps he was too busy being surprised at the feeling of being on my side for a change.

"It is," I said. "So we should be very good about proving ourselves loyal citizens of the empire, bound to our duty." I glanced at Darsi. "Next week we are going to the anadi residence."

Darsi's ears flicked back; he looked away with a grimace.

"Don't look at me," Abadil said. "You're not dragging me in there."

"We'll need another thirteen volunteers," I said to Darsi, ignoring him. "But you and I will have to go, for the sake of appearances."

"That will help," Hesa murmured. "No one likes breeding duty. If House Asara fulfills theirs so quickly after having been given the privilege, it will look very good."

"And why do you think you're getting out of it?" Darsi asked Abadil.

"Because if you take me there I will vomit all over my potential mate," Abadil said dryly. "I can't take the koli, it makes me sick."

"Can't you—"

Abadil held up his hands. "Don't. Don't ask me if I can manage without it. Not until you've tried it. Or have you been to a residence already?"

"Not yet," Darsi admitted, ears splayed.

"Then come back to me after you have," Abadil said. "And ask me. If you're capable without aid."

"Let's not fight about it," I said. "It's going to be unpleasant enough without making it worse amongst ourselves." To Hesa I said, "If I go tomorrow to Transactions, will everything be ready then?"

"Yes," it said.

"And I can leave the finding of the volunteers to you?" I asked Darsi, because as onerous as the duty was I knew being entrusted with the responsibility would please him.

"I'll find them," Darsi said. "Even if I have to bribe them." He paused. "I can bribe them, yes?"

"You can offer a monetary incentive," I said. "But don't overdo it. I don't want to encourage people who won't be careful of the anadi."

"All right," Darsi said. "Yes, I see what you mean. I'll find you the people."

"Good," I said.

Abadil said, "And I'll have a sample for you soon, ke Pathen. Within a week."

"So soon?" I said.

Abadil snorted. "I didn't say it would be a good sample."

I laughed. "Don't waste the effort unless it's right."

"Or the money," Hesa said.

"You two," Abadil said with a sigh. "Gods help anyone who tries to get anything past you. And don't you laugh at me, Hesa Asara-emodo. I've seen the notes you scrawl on my requests when you think I won't read them. You should be ashamed of yourself."

"And yet somehow I'm not," Hesa said, fighting a smile unsuccessfully.

"I have seen enough," Abadil said with a new long-suffering look. He seemed to have an entire arsenal of them. "I go! Ke Pathen?"

"We're done here tonight," I said.

"Very good," he said. "Come, Darsi!"

"Why?" Darsi asked, mystified but rising anyway.

"Void," Abadil said with a fresh sigh. "But you are daft sometimes, and I suspect on purpose. Are you?"

"No," Darsi said, lashing his tail once, but he sounded like he was trying not to laugh past his sour expression.

"We're leaving," Abadil told us, and took Darsi off by the wrist, protesting but, I noted, not too strenuously.

"You don't suppose..." Hesa said, trailing off.

"The two of them?" I said. And smiled. "No... no. Abadil has already given his heart away, he just hasn't realized it yet. And who knows what Darsi wants, but a man almost a decade his senior probably isn't it."

"As long as it's not you," Hesa said with a laugh.

"It had better not be me!" I said. "But I admit, one becomes accustomed to having him around."

"Yes," Hesa agreed. "One does." And added, "Pathen... that trip to the residence..."

"Must be done," I said. When it began to speak I held up my fingers. How I longed to touch them to its lips to quiet it, the way I might have in private... but even here in the relative safety of House Asara's common room, I would take no chances with its safety. "I know, pefna."

"That's what I'm trying to tell you," it said, softer. "You don't. And you won't until you go to the task."

"And what do you suggest?" I asked. "How should I prepare?"

"I don't know," it said, eyes pained. "Only that it's better to know that there is no preparing than to go to it with false confidence."

Darsi's voice at the door interrupted our talk, carrying clearly in the silence... something about there still being tea on the hearth, but a touch oversteeped by now so to add water. Both of us looked toward the door as Jushet's emodo spy padded through. For a spy he looked disarmingly normal: weary, distracted, with some of his tail having fallen out of the mussed braid. Before he could look toward us, I said, "Ah, one of Abadil's faithful workers. How goes the paper?"

The emodo looked up, startled, and then recognizing me sketched a hasty gesture at his brow. "Head of Household. It... is... going. I suppose."

I chuckled. "And doesn't that description fill me with confidence." When the emodo began hastily to speak I said, "No, don't worry. I know how it goes with experiments. Kaliser, isn't it?"

"You know my name," he said, ears splaying.

"We're a small House yet," I said. "Don't let me interrupt you. You were coming for a late supper?"

"Just tea," he said, edging toward the hearth. His eyes flicked toward Hesa, then back to me. "It was a long day."

"For all of us," I said. "But perhaps this was a fortuitous meeting. You're one of my few emodo from a House other than Molan... Kaduye, wasn't it?"

"Yes?" he said, hesitant.

"Perhaps you can help calm my pefna's fears, then. It seems to think that I should schedule nothing in the afternoon following House Asara's visit to the anadi residence. Have you done breeding duty? Should I be giving the emodo the remainder of the day to compose themselves?"

"The emodo and yourself," Hesa said in that unfamiliar voice, so distant, as if nothing could affect it. I realized now where it had learned that intonation: Ilushet used it, this voice like mountains and the earth.

"Molan," I said, as if I was ignoring the eperu, "did not do that duty. So none of them had advice to give me."

"Of course," Kaliser said, flattening his ears, for as a native of het Kabbanil he knew as well as I did that a House in disgrace would never be granted leave to breed. He cleared his throat, and I observed that his cheeks had gone gray beneath skin an otherwise appealing clay-rose color. He seemed to be struggling over some internal decision, but he made it by speaking. "I have had the opportunity, ke emodo. And no, I would not plan to do anything the remainder of the day. Perhaps even several days."

"Would that we had several days to be idle," I said. "But the afternoon I can do. Thank you for the warning, Kaliser."

"Ke emodo," he said, quieter. "It is my duty."

He drew the tea for himself, watered it and left without looking at us again. When I could no longer hear his footfalls in the hall, Darsi peeked inside, then padded to us, looking over his shoulder at the door. "Did I give enough warning?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "And thank you."

"That was luck," he said. "I was coming back myself because Abadil wanted to finish the cup he'd left. Did he, I mean did the emodo..."

"See anything?" I said. "No. We were just talking. But I don't think it matters. He won't betray us now."

They both looked at me, but it was Darsi who asked, "How can you be sure?"

For once he didn't sound belligerent. Cautious, certainly, but caution I could approve of. "Because he told me he'd bred the anadi. I saw his record at Transactions when I hired him; according to what was written there, he was superfluous in House Kaduye, sufficiently so for them to let him go. They would never have let someone important leave the House."

"So he should never have had a chance at the anadi," Hesa murmured.

"And yet he chose to tell me he had," I said.

Darsi frowned. "What if he was lying? To make you think he was revealing the truth about his background? So you would assume he was on your side and start trusting him?"

Hesa and I both stared at him. I started laughing. "I'm glad you're on our side, Darsi."

"Well, he could have!" Darsi said.

"Yes," I said. "He could have. But I don't think he did. All the same, I won't be bringing him into our council, ah? So no fear there."

"Maybe," Darsi said. "But don't let your guard falter, ke Pathen. There are enemies all around us." He inclined his head to me and left.

"Enemies all around us," Hesa murmured. "And allies as well. And the trick of it is separating them from one another without making a mistake."

"It's no different from how it was in het Kabbanil," I said.

"No," Hesa agreed and sighed. Then looked at me, head canted. "You really think Kaliser has thrown in with us?"

"He chose the well-being of the emodo of House Asara over concealing the lies on his record," I said. "What do you think?"

"I think," Hesa said slowly, "that you should take his warning seriously." And left with a brush of its fingers on my wrist.

"Former eperu caravan members," Thesenet said to me two days later. "Are you certain about this?"

So far I had attended five of these evening gatherings at the cheldzan shervel, where my work consisted of drinking a great deal of wine, tea or spiced broth and listening to other Heads of Household indulge in what amounted to gossip. I found it tiresome and wished they would talk about more useful topics. Like the weather. Or taxes. I would even have listened to dissertations on religion before putting up with trivia like who was seen last with whom. I suspect it even bored Darsi. It made Thesenet's occasional visits feel like water after drought... even when he asked uncomfortable questions.

"Who else, Minister?" I asked.

He frowned, just a touch of a crease between his brows.

"Let me frame the question differently," I said. "Right now, het Narel has eperu working in labor camps whose talents involve running caravans. What does het Narel need to begin its trade initiative?"

"But are they trustworthy?" Thesenet asked bluntly.

I arched my brows at him over my cup of broth. "If they aren't, why haven't they been executed?"

"Execution without evidence—" He halted at my expression.

We were standing in the back of the cheldzan near the shadowed stairwell, out of the press of the room in front of us. So I said quietly, "Ke emodo... I was a Claw."

He looked away, then said, "That's not how we do things here."

"No?" I asked. "No disappearances? You know as well as I do that the empire needs to maintain discipline to function and how that discipline is expressed when there is insufficient evidence for a public punishment."

"Yes," Thesenet said, meeting my eyes with something fierce in them, and angry. "But that's not how things are done here." And then, his shoulders losing their tension, he finished bitterly, "When it can be helped."

I looked at him, thoughtful. And offered, "Dead Jokka do no work for the empire."

"No," he said. "Your decision might be construed as... reckless, though, Pathen."

"By those eager to find fault," I said. "But you and I know that gainfully employed Jokka content with their jobs do not agitate for rebellion. The empire deprived a great number of eperu of the work they'd spent their lives perfecting. Now it will give them back that work to earn coin for the Houses of het Narel. How does that not serve the Stone Moon?"

"It serves the Stone Moon so long as the eperu don't hold a grudge against the empire for their disgrace," Thesenet said.

"The eperu live to work," I said. "Is that not what we are taught? By the eperu themselves?"

"Yes," Thesenet said. And then surprised me by sighing. "Perhaps I have been habituated to seeing threats where there are none."

"You do what you must," I said. "But Minister... you gave me this contract. Let me build your trade network."

"Ah well," Thesenet said with a huff of a laugh. "If I can't trust a hero of the empire, who can I trust?" He smiled and grasped my arm. "If you say it will work, Pathen."

"It will," I said.

He clapped that arm and left me in the shadows by the stairwell. I watched him merge back into the crowd, just long enough to find a path through it to the exit, and caught a few curious glances cast my way; no doubt it was noted that Thesenet had arrived, spoken with me and left without participating in anything more strenuous than a few desultory greetings. Joining me with a little cheek-rub that I permitted with resignation, Darsi said, "They think we're important to Thesenet."

"They're right," I replied.

The day of our visit to the anadi residence dawned gray and dim... appropriate to the errand, I thought, if a touch dramatic on the part of the World. I dressed and met Darsi and the other volunteers in the courtyard, where the eperu were readying the rikka. The anadi were kept in a separate facility on the far side of het Narel, far enough to require a quarter hour's walk merely to reach the city's edge; had it not been so far, I would have walked. I didn't think any of us would want to handle beasts later after seeing similar tack on a Jokkad.

The only noise in the courtyard that morning was the trickle of the fountain and the creak of leather as we mounted. It made me realize that House Asara was never quiet. In the fields where the eperu worked, in the House where the narrow corridors carried the sound from larger rooms, overwhelmingly what I heard was laughter, talk, the sounds of camaraderie. I might catch Hesa in rare moments of silence, where I could almost feel the grief it no longer spoke of... but the remainder of House Laisira had settled very well into our new estate and for some reason did not live in the fear that they rightly should. They had lost their comrades, but the World went on and there was work to be done, and they were willing to do it given a safe place to put their heads down at night.

I liked their laughter better than this quiet, but for what we were about to do gravity was more appropriate. I led the group away without looking back and heard the gates close behind us.

The sun had risen high enough to gild the edges of buildings, if not high enough to disrupt the autumnal chill, when we presented ourselves to the Claws guarding the residence. From there we were escorted to the building and refreshments were distributed to my people while the administrator of the residence took me aside to discuss arrangements.

"We might be asked to come again?" I said, dismayed and hiding it.

"The custom elsewhere is to ask the emodo to stay for a week in order to ensure that the anadi will have conceived," the administrator explained. "In het Narel it has produced better results to allow the emodo to leave after their session and ask them to return only if necessary. But we do require that two-thirds of the anadi conceive for the House to be eligible in spring for their children."

"I understand," I said.

"There will be an attendant assigned to each of you," he continued. "To guide you through the process. You may ask for a different witness at any time, but you cannot be permitted in the chambers without one. This is for their safety as well as your comfort. The koli is administered to all the emodo serving, unless they request otherwise."

"Of course," I said.

"Finally, you understand that the draft is for ten percent of the House's populace," he finished. "And as House Asara is listed at one hundred and fifty members, we have provided fifteen anadi for your stay. If you do not have fifteen emodo with you, someone will be asked to serve twice. That is the contract."

"We have the requisite number," I said.

"Very good," the administrator said. "Then if you will leave your House mark here—thank you—we may begin."

I returned to the others and said, quiet, "This is our duty. Let us do it with dignity and compassion."

They murmured their assent and were led away by the waiting attendants. Darsi paused long enough to say, "It's just a few hours. It'll be over before lunch."

I didn't know which of us he was trying to comfort, and I think he knew that he wouldn't succeed. Nevertheless, I answered, "Yes."

My reply provided no more comfort to us than his observation. We both knew that it only takes seconds to make a wound that leaves a scar.

And then he was gone, led through the corridors, and so was I.

"Will you take the koli, ke emodo?" my attendant asked.

"Yes," I said. I knew better than to think I'd be capable of the duty without it. As I had told Darsi, the fear of other Jokka didn't move me... and pity didn't either. So in a narrow room I sat on a bench and drank the preparation, wondering what to expect from it and trying not to think about the hours between me and freedom. And yet... I would walk free of this. The anadi never would. I held the cup in my hands and strove with that truth. The empire thought the plight of the anadi regrettable but believed there was no saving them from the cruelties of biology. Worse, the empire had seen that we had increasingly shirked from our responsibility to beget children to the point of winnowing our own species. In the end, I was to blame for the anadi residences, as were we all. Had we been more diligent about making children when we'd lived free, the cruel calculation of the empire's breeding plans wouldn't have been necessary.

We had a great deal to answer for. And much to fix, when at last we shook off the empire's hand. Gods knew how we could do it, but there had to be an answer that did not involve imprisoning a third of us underground.

The drug worked. I would have found it distasteful before; after the experience of having a lover in my bed that I wanted, that I cared about, it was almost unbearable. The falseness of it was a taste under my tongue, and the fever it inspired artless and without discrimination. The emodo who'd given me the cup crouched in front of me and considered my face before saying, "Are you ready, ke emodo?"

"It will do," I said.

He said, "This way, then." As he stopped before a room, he said, "We do not recommend walking to the front of the chair. It can be distressing to both participants." He opened the door for me. "If at any time you require aid, you may ask it of me. I will be sitting in the alcove." He pointed, and I looked but didn't really see. Whatever I said must have satisfied him, though, for he retired to his shadowed niche and left me to the heartbreak of what we'd fallen to. I rested my hand on the edge of the stone slope. My fingers twitched near the buckle of the harness, but didn't touch it. And though it had not been recommended, I did walk around to where the anadi had her cheek resting on the sculpted headrest. Her eyes were just open, lashes gleaming in the low light. She did not seem to notice me, nor did her pupils shift as I moved my hand between her face and the light above us. I glanced at her ribcage and measured the intervals between its rising and then cupped her face and rested my brow against hers. Her skin was cool... of course, for they'd sedated her.

I don't know how long I remained there. Somewhere past the heart-racing, mind-clouding effects of the koli I could taste the tears in my mouth. I let them gather until they stung my gums, my tongue... then I swallowed and waited for them to accumulate again.

My attendant did not interrupt me. I wondered how many emodo he had watched suffer through this cold, impersonal transaction. I was grateful for the time, and I took what I needed to compose myself and to grieve before I judged it unwise to prolong the wait. I didn't want the koli to wear off before it served its purpose.

Gods alone knew how I managed, even with its help. I have done many bitter things in my life, most of them during my short tenure as a Claw. I have killed in the emperor's name and drawn blood in useless sacrifice on his dais, and yet the hour and a half I spent in that room harrowed me in a way none of those acts had... perhaps because my duties as a Claw had been ordered by another Jokkad and I could tell myself that one day there would be no more such orders. But this... this was not an injustice dreamt up by a Jokkad. This was nature itself. And if we did not find some other way to serve nature, we would die.

"You did well," the attendant said, handing me a robe. "If you wish to wash and dress, you may return to the antechamber."

"Yes," I said, hoarse. "Thank you." And excused myself. Once I gained the privacy of the room with the bench I sat and covered my face and did not move until the drug began to wear off. Only then did I clean myself with the towels and water left there. I didn't look at myself while doing so, and I dressed without grace.

When I left I was escorted to the foyer to await the rest of my emodo, and when I was offered wine I didn't decline it. To become drunk would be disrespectful. But enough to distance myself from the memory... that I could do, and did.

One by one the others joined me. All of them were subdued; several looked sick, and I didn't know whether they had reacted poorly to the koli or to the encounter, and didn't ask. When the last of my volunteers returned, the administrator conferred with his attendants and then beckoned me back. Weary, I joined him.

"Your House has done well," the administrator said. "My congratulations, ke emodo. Only one of your number was unable to perform. Would one of you like to volunteer to complete the draft today, or do you wish to return at a later date?"

"What?" I said, stunned. And then gathering my scattered wits, "I believe you only required two-thirds..."

"To conceive," the administrator said, not unkindly. "Which we will not know for several weeks. If two-thirds of them conceive, then you will be given the children in spring. But the duty is for ten percent of House Asara's number: fifteen anadi. You have serviced fourteen. One remains." He met my eyes and said, "It must be thus, ke emodo. If we do not require the pairings, then inevitably they will not be enacted. The conception rate cannot be controlled. The matings can be."

I stared at him, trembling. Then slowly turned and looked at the emodo waiting to leave. Read the dejection in their posture, in the cant of their ears and the slump of shoulders. They were exhausted; the day was barely five hours old and they were done with it.

"All right," I said to the administrator. "Give me a moment."

I pulled Darsi aside and said, "Take them home. I'll be back in the afternoon. Early evening at the worst."

"Back by—but why?" Darsi asked, ears flattening. "You're staying? Why?"

"Someone didn't manage," I said. "And all of it will be for nothing if we don't finish. The children conceived today won't come to us; they'll be put in the orphan pool to be doled out to other Houses. And we won't be in the record as having completed the duty. It has to be done."

"Does it have to be you?" Darsi asked, surprising me.

"Look at them," I said, quieter. "And tell me who I should pick. Who I could pick in good conscience."

"If you're doing this to prove something..."

"Of course I am," I said. "I'm doing it to prove that House Asara is a dutiful member of the Stone Moon empire."

He looked at me, pained. And then surprised me by resting a hand on my shoulder, not with the cloying falseness of his lover's mask, but with actual feeling. Then he turned from me and said to the others, "Ke Pathen has business to conclude with the residence, but we need not wait through it. Let's go home."

Several of them looked at me, including one I thought with more shame than was necessary. So I said, "You've all done well. Thank you."

Once they'd left, I exhaled and turned back to the attendant. "Take me back."

I did not return home after the residence released me in the late afternoon. Instead, I went riding.

For a long time.

I had no destination in mind, other than "away from other people." I skirted the city, riding along the cropfields watered by the empire's cisterns and aqueducts, past a riverbed reduced to a trickle over barely moistened soil. I wanted no part of civilization—wanted nothing to remind me of the cost of that civilization—and continued on until I put the road to het Kabbanil behind me. Het Narel's lack of ruins made the eastern view an uninterrupted canvas for the falling sun, and I picked a place well away from town to dismount and walk a ways, leading the rikka. It helped to move. My entire body felt stiff. Not from exertion, but from a negation of all that it had performed in the previous hours.

I was exhausted and empty, and eventually I let the rikka graze and walked on until I could sit in the short grasses and watch the color drain from the sky. The wind off the plains was cold enough to cut through my thin shirt and I let it. I looped my arms around my knees and rested my brow against them and... I lost some time there, unable to put thoughts together, unable to make sense of anything.

Duty drove me to my feet, though by then I was cold enough to be clumsy. I pulled myself onto the rikka's back and rode home.

The two eperu opened the gate with alacrity and flattened ears; the fire licking their faces showed me their worried expressions, which I ignored since I had no desire to discuss my tardiness. I gave them the beast to lead away and looked up at the House, steeling myself against what I would face on entry. And then I walked inside... to quiet. I had misjudged the hour: supper must have concluded some time ago and most of the Jokka would have scattered to their beds, or to late-night talks with companions. I stopped in the entry hall, ears straining in the warm silence, and had to conclude it was better to be here than out on the plains alone. These were my people and... gods help me, their problems were my problems. I would not find their solutions alone. And if I couldn't bear their company tonight, well, that would pass. I went up the ramp to my rooms and opened the door, wanting only my bed.

I almost tripped over Darsi, who was sitting with his back to the bedchamber door.

He was lucky, at that. Had I been more myself I would have put a fist in his stomach and shoved him face-first into the ground before he could speak. As it was, I was lucky not to fall.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, too tired to be angry. Surprised, perhaps, but not angry.

Scrabbling to his feet, Darsi faced me. I could just see the gleam of his eye in the dark; it reminded me of that night in the wagon when we'd first spoken after our escape from het Kabbanil.

He drew in a breath and said, quiet, "Ke emodo. I had a thought, that we are supposed to be lovers so there is a reason for me to be out of my bed."

Strangely, given this incredible beginning, I felt no desire to interrupt him. There was something in his voice, something... broken but resolved.

"And Hesa has a bed," he continued. "So perhaps I might go and sleep in its bed. And if people come to find me, and I'm not there, well. I am in bed with you, aren't I? And if they come seeking Hesa, they will find someone sleeping there, as they expect."

For a long moment neither of us said anything as I stared at him. I was now very much awake. Every numbed nerve in my body was achingly, utterly awake.

"Darsi," I said. "You're not suggesting—"

"No," he said, firm. "I'm offering. Shall I do this thing?"

I said, "Not until I understand why."

"Because," Darsi said, and faltered. Then he gathered himself and said, "Because... some things... if.... People should touch because they want to, because they care about one another. You can lie with someone who cares about you tonight, Pathen. That's why. Because someone should."

For once, Darsi had struck me speechless. I expected that to please him, but he remained somber.

"Shall I?" he asked at last.

"Darsi," I said, and then cleared my throat. Quieter, I finished, "Thank you."

A sad smile touched his mouth and he left. I watched him go, still stunned, and then walked into my bedchamber and began slowly to undress, all my joints aching. I heard the outer door ease open and closed again, and then a silhouette separated from the arch leading into the antechamber.

"Pathen?" Hesa whispered.

"Here," I said, and had to clear my throat again. The eperu stepped closer, then kneeled in front of me, resting its hands on my knees. I wanted very much to gather it in and take the willing love that Darsi had risked so much to give me, but I couldn't move. At last, I said, "Hesa.... the anadi..." And then grief closed my throat around the words and the eperu sat up, wrapping its arms around me. Crushed against its dyed mane and hard shoulder, I finished, "I left them there."

And then I wept, hands digging into its back, and it did not flinch beneath my weight, not of my body, not of my grief and guilt.

"Pathen," Hesa said when my crying eased. Its voice was gods-breath soft against my ear. "You left them there... for now."

I grew still.

"For now," the eperu finished. "But you'll find a way to free them."

I sat back to look at it, at the calm in its eyes, and the certitude.

"What if I can't think of a way?" I asked, hoarse.

It rested a hand on my chest below my throat, one finger hooked on the collarbone. "You will," it said. "And then we'll help you to do it."

I set my trembling hand on its.

"Do you doubt?" Hesa asked.

I thought of the anadi, saw the glimmer of light on metal buckles, saw the sluggish blink of their eyes. All my skin grew taut with revulsion. With rejection. "No," I said, because while I lived I could not let such a thing stand. Hesa was right. I had left... but I would be back. And I would take them with me.

"Start with the anadi prizes," Hesa said. "Claim ours. From that beginning, then, grow. If you will it, Pathen... it will happen."

I let my head drop until I could rest my brow against its, and it set its free hand on the side of my neck.

"They didn't even tell me their names," I whispered.

"Of course not," it said. And sighed out, a breath I felt warm against my throat and chest. "It makes it easier not to know."

"They do it to you, too," I said, and from the tension that leaped up its shoulders it hadn't expected me to see that truth. "It's not as noticeable as with the anadi. But slowly and surely we are setting the eperu at a remove. They abet it because they already think of themselves as something apart... but we didn't... the emodo. But now that we agree, there is nothing to stop us from sundering all the relationships that make us what we are. That let us thrive. No more a single species, but three that see one another, now and then, for vulgar necessities."

Slowly, Hesa sat back on its heels and looked up at me, hands sliding onto my knees again. I gathered them into mine and held them, chafing my thumb over its knuckles. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"You're not," it said after a long pause.

"And yet we came to where we are for a reason. We fell here," I said.

"Perhaps we need wings," Hesa said with a tired smile.

I brought its hands to my mouth and kissed them, feeling all the weariness of the day I'd passed through and all the weariness of the days before me, and all that needed to be done in them.

"You need rest," Hesa said, turning one hand in mine to cup my chin.

"Stay with me," I said. "I need... I need one night with someone who made a choice. Who could make a choice."

"Of course," it said, voice softening.

I moved back and it shed its clothes, sinuous in the dim light. I held the blanket up for it as it slid into bed alongside me and then filled all the hollow spaces against my side. Setting a hand on my chest, it said, "Pathen."

"Hesa," I said.

"I was able to make the choice," it said, "because you made it safe for me to do so."

That made my breath catch, and I didn't know why it was fear and not affection or gratitude. When I could speak again, I said, "And having made the choice, will you touch a male who has sullied himself with this day's injustice?"

It pulled itself over me and lapped at my jaw. Whispered, "Given the choice, I will choose the same again. And I always will."

"Hesa," I said, drawing it close, needing it.

"Setasha," it whispered, and kissed the ugliness away.

An hour before dawn, the door to my chambers scraped open and both Hesa and I woke, abrupt and tense, listening. And then we heard Darsi's whisper.

"Hesa? Pathen?"

Hesa was already rolling out of bed, reaching for its clothes.

"We're awake," I said for it, keeping my voice low.

Darsi remained in the antechamber; I could hear him fidgeting, the flex of his toes on the floor, the hiss of his tail on the ground as he shifted from foot to foot. Hesa took my attention back with a kiss, quick but deep; I met its eyes and we smiled at one another, and then it was gone, fleet and silent. Darsi opened the door for the eperu and waited there, looking down the hall with such quivering intensity that he didn't hear me rise and pull my pants on, nor walk into the room behind him. When I spoke he strangled a yelp and jumped a step back.

"Don't worry. If someone happens on it in the hall now it'll have a ready answer for why."

"Yes," Darsi said, relaxing. "Hesa's quick that way. I can go now—"

"It'll have an easier time with that ready answer if someone doesn't find both of you in the halls," I said. "Give it a few moments to return to its room."

"Right," Darsi said and touched a quivering hand to his brow. "Gods, you startled me out of my skin."

"I didn't mean to," I said, studying him with fresh eyes. Without the lens of the worries that had afflicted me when we'd first met and without the cynicism with which I'd regarded his attempts to look distracting afterward, I saw... another emodo. Not lean but thin, as if a nervous disposition made him prone to forgetting his meals. With the hollows of sleepless nights and worries in his throat and cheeks, and with sensitive fingers that never stopped fluttering. I wondered suddenly what it would be like to live in the empire without knowing how to fight it, or feeling incapable of the battle.

He looked up at me and flushed white. I gentled my expression and let him look at me until he started to relax. Then I said, "Thank you."

He glanced at the ground and said, "You're welcome."

I considered what I'd seen of him, what I knew of him. And said, "Let me guess. The dark-haired truedark male. Barit, wasn't it?"

The blush grew positively fevered. "Ah... no," Darsi said, and then he finished sheepishly, "At least, not yet."

I thought of their relief on seeing one another on the hill when the strangers had been fleeing the ruins of Thenet's settlement. They'd been awkward around one another in safety, but in that moment of meeting after long parting.... "I don't think it'll be long."

Darsi's eyes brightened. "Do you really—" And then he shook himself. "Well, it hardly matters right now."

"I can send you back," I said.

"No," Darsi said, though I saw the wistfulness he entertained briefly and then set aside. "I'm needed here. Hesa and I have always worked well together, and this... we need to do this."

"It's not your fault," I said, quieter. "House Laisira."

"No," Darsi said after a moment. "No, I know. I'm not like Hesa, I... what I feel is grief, not guilt. I know the Stone Moon killed them, not me. But it still... I still have to do something about it. I have to fix it. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I do." And then, to see him smile, "Barit? Really?"

"He makes me laugh," Darsi said without thinking. And then realizing what he'd said, added, "I... I don't have those kind of feelings for you—"

"I know," I said, chuckling. "I only make you laugh because you have sensitive ribs."

He snorted and opened the door. "I'll see you at breakfast."

"All right," I said, and when he started to turn I looped an arm around him and drew him to me. He made a single noise of protest and then consented to the embrace. After a moment he even pressed his face against my neck. I rested my fingers in his mane and let him take the shelter he wanted and couldn't have, and was honored that he felt safe enough to do so. A few weeks ago I would have assumed it was because he now had a secret he felt he could hold against me. I knew better now. I had misjudged Darsi. He was contrary and petulant and anxious and fearful... and loyal and hard-working and tender-hearted under the crust.

And his trust made him mine, and my trust made me his.

I let him go and he drew in another breath, but a calmer one. And then I held the door open for him and shut it behind him, and closed the door forever on our quarrel.

I woke several hours later alone... but there was a dimple in the mattress on the side by the wall, for Hesa had slept where I could shield it from view with my body. The sheets still smelled faintly of the eperu: hair dye and sweat and honey. So did my hands. I rested them on my mouth with the tips just touching my nose so I could inhale the scent, slow breaths, easing a tension in my body I hadn't realized was there. None of the dangers, the injustices, the cruelties of our situation had changed in the past hours; if anything I was more exquisitely aware of them, as if my skin had grown more sensitive, my hands, my eyes. But I felt more capable of motion. Not because I had spent a night in willing company, though I had needed it and been fulfilled by it, but because of all that night implied: that I loved an eperu in society's despite. That an eperu loved me, though its own fellowship would have it hold itself apart. That we trusted one another with the secret of our feelings. That we had inspired another's loyalty. That we knew we could trust that emodo.

We were building something stronger than fear. Our only task now was to spread it through Ke Bakil.

I pushed myself from my bed and went to the day.

The early morning I spent in Transactions, finalizing the burdensome contracts that separated twelve eperu from the Stone Moon's labor pool and sent them to House Asara to report for their new duties. This was time-consuming work but I didn't feel the hours passing until I exited the building and found it near lunch. I bought my meal from a food stall, finger food that I regretted not being able to share. Afterward I had a cup of tea at a place too small to have become a cheldzan, but I did not particularly want company then. I was steeling myself for my next errand.

It took me to House Rabeil, where I was admitted to the garden where Thesenet had introduced us to het Narel's society. I sat on a bench to wait, enjoying the briskness in the occasional breeze that ruffled the drying vines trained up the wall behind me. Autumn was still new but many of the more tender plants had already died during some of the chillier nights.

"Ke emodo," said the Head of House Rabeil as he approached with a kettle. A servant followed him with a tray, setting it on the facing bench and then departing. "You honor my House with your visit."

I looked up at him. "Rather strongly worded, perhaps, ke Rozen."

"Not from the reports I have had," Rozen said. He sat across from me, pouring a steaming tisane into the cups before handing me one. When he noticed my gaze, he said, "You did not think I would not be given report of House Asara's first visit to the residence?"

Put that way—no, of course not. "I didn't think it was such a notable event," I said instead. "We came and served the anadi and left."

"Indeed. You came when you said you would, brought enough people to do the duty, and made no trouble over your reception. With the anadi you were all gentle. There were no... incidents, other than the one emodo who could not perform but apologized with every courtesy not just to us but to the anadi. And when House Asara left, it had discharged its duty in every particular, something most Houses don't manage."

"We were only fifteen," I murmured.

"Perhaps," Rozen said. "But I am grateful all the same. Tell me then the reason for your visit, that I might in some way show that gratitude."

I searched his expression. His words seemed too effusive to me, particularly when contrasted against the calm of his body, the deliberation of his movements and the mask of his face. It was only his eyes that convinced me to fear no hidden trap: there was too much resignation there, sorrows much older than House Asara. His focus was more there in the past than it was here with me.

"I came about the anadi prizes the empire has permitted House Asara," I said. "I wanted to arrange for a time to select them."

"Ah!" Rozen said. "Eduñil is in the House now. Let me find him and we can have that discussion now. He will have the schedule, as it is his duty to arrange the disposition of the anadi prizes."

"Thank you," I said, and he left me with the tea and the tray and the whisper of the autumn breeze. Rozen had not been gone long before I felt the pressure of someone's gaze. Without lifting my head, I said, "You can come out."

The anadi—for I knew her from the suggestion of the light from the edge of my vision—didn't move. But a moment later, she spoke, and her voice was a purity that stippled my skin from the base of my tail to the nape of my neck.

"The Stone Moon hero comes to House Rabeil for anadi to warm his bed."

"The Head of House Asara comes to House Rabeil to request an anadi to join his Household," I said.

I had given her pause. I waited, hoping Rozen would be delayed.

"Anadi have not joined Households since before the Stone Moon," she said at last.

"Anadi have not warmed beds for the pleasure of their lovers since before the Stone Moon either," I said. "But you were quick enough to accuse me of that."

"Accuse you," she said, slowly. "Because to take pleasure with an anadi, mutual pleasure, is perverse."

"Accuse me," I said, "because to take an anadi as lover rather than as breeding partner is against Roika's law and would see us both executed. I have too much to do to die."

"And what exactly is it that the Head of House Asara needs to do so badly?" she wondered, and I savored her voice. I had expected an anadi of sound enough mind to have this conversation to be bitter, to have rotted through with the resentment and injustice of her plight. But this anadi sounded only... curious. As if I was a puzzle, and no one had given her anything to occupy her for so long she couldn't remember what it was like to be interested in anything again.

"Come closer," I said, instead of answering her question.

"And if I do?" she wondered.

"Then I will give you tea," I said. And grinned. "Rozen's tea."

Another long pause. Then she said, "He won't mind." And stepped from beneath a branch into the alcove.

Was she beautiful? Did it matter? She was the color of the sky at twilight, a lambent gray-blue that was also lilac, luminous, a mystery. As was customary for the anadi since the empire her mane and tail had never been cut... but I was used to that in anadi who were at rest or immobilized, not someone in motion. Seeing it spill over her shoulders, down past her hips, long ivory waves: it was ornament designed for a stuffed doll, not for a living person, and it ripped open all the empire's inadequacies with fresh claws.

Perhaps she saw it in my face, for she froze. I forced the anger to drain from my eyes and said, "Forgive me. Tea? Or... whatever this is. I haven't actually tasted it yet."

She took Rozen's cup from me. "It's made from a flower. They call it riverbright now since it grows on the dry walls of the riverbed. But they used to call it lorekeep, when they thought it helped clarify the mind." She sat on his bench, tail spilling over the side near her legs, over the edge furthest from them, onto the stone floor and past it, pale on beige stone. "It's something that used to be given to anadi when they still merited jarana and personal attention."

"Rabeil has not lost the habit," I noted.

"No," she said, considering me, her hands cupping the warm ceramic. "You really are here for your anadi prizes, aren't you?"

"Yes," I said and the words continued without consulting the rest of me. "Will you be one of them?"

Her ears splayed, and then flattened and she looked away. "You find me attractive."

"Yes," I said. "But not because of what you look like."

That brought her attention back, her frown, her puzzled look and the surprise that she could still be puzzled.

"I don't need a prize," I said. "And I don't need a lover. But I need an anadi who is not afraid of speaking."

"Who is not afraid of you," she corrected absently.

I flicked my own ears back. "I am not cruel to the anadi," I said, voice taut.

"No," she said, tilting her head a little. "No, I know that. And... I am not afraid of speaking to you."

"Good," I said.

Perhaps I let too much of my upset into that word, because she set her cup down and sat beside me, all that tail spreading over the remainder of the bench. She didn't take my hand or set her own on me or look at me. Just... sat there, and leaned, just a little, against me.

Rozen found us there and paused at the sight. And then he smiled. "I take it you've made your first choice."

"Is she available?" I asked.

Behind him, Eduñil said, "She is... and she needs a good home."

"Then House Asara would be glad to have her," I said. "And the other two we are due..."

"At the end of the week?" Eduñil said. "We can arrange a tour for you."

"The end of the week is fine," I said. "If I can take this one with me now."

Rozen grinned, but it was a private grin, not directed at us. "I'll go make the arrangements now if it pleases you to wait, ke Pathen."

"It does," I said, and he left, tail flicking in what seemed to me to be great pleasure. I frowned, watching him go.

"It's because you've chosen the House eccentric," Eduñil said, drawing me back from my thoughts.

"The House... eccentric?" I said delicately, very aware of the slight weight of the anadi sitting next to me.

"Not a troublemaker," Eduñil said, looking at her now with a smile. "But an eccentric."

"I am hard to please," the anadi murmured.

To me, Eduñil said, "She needs more than the Stone Moon gives anadi anymore. But I think you will give her that, ke emodo." He touched the back of one curled finger to his brow. "If you will permit, I will see that the prize chest is delivered to House Asara that she might be properly cared for tonight."

"I... yes. Thank you," I said, and he left also.

I glanced at her. "The House eccentric."

"I'm..." She trailed off and then said, "I'm anadi, ke emodo. Isn't that enough?"

It was, in this world.

"You're Pathen," she said, trying my name on her tongue as if it had a taste she could sample.

"Asara-emodo," I said. "And you?"

"Kuli Rabeil-anadi," she answered, and I too considered her name. It tasted like irony, for her name meant "moon."

"You have never thought to change your name?" I asked after a moment.

"I was here before the Stone Moon, ke emodo," she said. "And they have already taken enough from me."

House Rabeil lent us a rikka so I could bring Kuli home. She rode at my back but did not lean on me, and her body betrayed a trembling interest in all her surroundings.

So, I took a circuitous route. Anadi were no longer seen in public save at rare moments like this when they were being transported to an important House, so I didn't dismount and bring her into any of the shops. But we rode through most of the Green's byways, and she spent the entire time looking this way, that way, her weight shifting against me as her head turned.

"What is it that you look at?" I asked in a low voice as we passed the Green's garden park.

"The light," she breathed, and in her mouth the words were a poem: two words and yet my heart skipped.

I looked as she did, saw the afternoon sun, low and slanted, casting lavender shadows. It glimmered in the skin of the Jokka passing, leafed the plants in copper. For a fleeting moment I saw the world as light, as without form or substance without the sun to make it real.

"House Asara has no garden," I said suddenly. "We should make one."

"What?" she said.

"We have fields," I said. "And a courtyard with a fountain. But no garden the way Rabeil has. We should make one." I glanced over my shoulder at her. "Would you like to design it?"

"W-what?" she said, wide-eyed. My glimpse caught her eyes and nothing more; they were beige and clear, like the tisane we'd been drinking. And then, regaining herself, said, "Before the Stone Moon. It was common for Houses to have gardens, for extra food and for pleasure. Does Asara still have the space?"

"It must," I said. "We'll look for it when we get home."

"All right," she said, and now her silence was a consuming one, internal; she no longer looked around her. I had given her a new puzzle. Smiling, I took the shortest route home.

Kuli's trunk and the instructions for her care had arrived before us. When I approached the gate there were Jokka already awaiting us, Darsi foremost among them. I was surprised to see so many emodo with him, and to recognize most of the Jokka we'd taken with us to the residence. Once we'd gained the courtyard I dismounted and helped Kuli down.

"The rikka belongs to House Rabeil," I said to one of the eperu—Jushet's spy, in fact—"see that it's returned to them, please." As it led the beast away I turned to Darsi and said, "Kuli Asara-anadi."

"Ke anadi," Darsi said, touching his fingers to his brow and then to his navel. "Welcome to House Asara."

"Thank you," she said, startled.

"This is Darsi, my second," I said.

"Your lover," she said, surprising us both.

"You've... ah... heard of us?" Darsi asked.

"She was the anadi at the party," I said. "The one you saw watching us."

"Oh," Darsi said, shoulders relaxing. And then he laughed. "I knew something would come of that. I told you."

He had, though what he'd said would come of it was trouble. We both knew it but he didn't salt the wound the way he would have before.

"Would you like a tour of the House?" Darsi asked. "Everyone's eager to meet you."

I glanced at the emodo waiting, at their expressions. Ah, Darsi. Was it your idea, I wondered? And if so, a great kindness. The emodo who'd gone to the residence wanted so badly to have a normal relationship with an anadi, to prove to themselves that they weren't doomed to the sort of miserable congress we'd been forced into.

"I'd... like that," Kuli said, glancing at the others uncertainly.

"Ke anadi," one of them said, saluting her as Darsi had. "May I?"

"Please," she said, ducking her head a little so that one of her long locks fell over the length of her nose. She followed him and the other emodo closed in around her, murmuring their names to her, asking after her ride, telling her about the House.

I watched them go, Darsi standing at my side.

"You're not following?" he said at last.

"No," I said. "Let them have their time. She's not my anadi, Darsi. She's a part of the House. Let her find her own confidants, friends, her own preferred company."

He smiled, just a twitch of his mouth. Then said, "Where should we put her? The House has caverns but they haven't been used in years."

"Under no circumstance are we immuring her underground," I said. "Give her a room somewhere. One with a window. Maybe near the back exits; I've given her permission to make a garden, she should have ready access to it."

"You want to put House Asara's anadi prize in a normal Jokkad's room and let her wander around outside?" Darsi said, cautious. "You know how that will make us look."

"Yes," I said. I glanced at him now. "Do you really want to put her underground?"

He flattened his ears and sighed. "No."

"We will take precautions," I said. "But let's not let the empire infect us with its sickness. As much as possible, Darsi, we have to live as we would wish to if we were free."

"All right," Darsi said. "You don't need me to tell you how risky it is."

"No," I said. "Me most of all."

"I'll go prepare her a room," he said. "I think I know which one will work."

I smiled and followed him in.

I didn't track Kuli's progress through the House, though I caught sight of the procession a few times. Each time I did, she had a different set of keepers, but though she remained bewildered by the attention she had relaxed. The emodo and eperu of the House were enchanted by her. I smiled and took my dinner alone in my office where I could make sure the new eperu had been settled. Hesa's notes on the process were concise and in places piquant, and I laughed at some of them. The bureaucracy of the empire made the transfer of contracts tedious, the eperu ones particularly, and on that matter Hesa was not afraid to make its opinions known.

After I'd finished the work I went to see what was on the hearth and found a spiced juice, something warm and fragrant and unfamiliar to me. I was sipping it when Hesa padded in and dropped into a chair.

"Hungry?" I said.

"Very," it answered. "I have been out all day trying to make sense of too many things. The crops will be going in soon, which will leave us fields for Abadil's endeavor, but we still owe food to the empire because of the size of our arable plots." It rubbed its brow with the back of a hand. "There's a math there to work out since our duty is not for fields-planted, but for crops-delivered; if we plant something that fails to yield for whatever reason, we'll owe the Stone Moon taxes."

"Could we default on the crop requirement entirely and just pay the fine?" I asked.

"If we had the money, which we don't," Hesa said. "Our fields are too large, Pathen. Opting not to work at least some of them for the het would be ruinous. But even if we could forego the duty, it wouldn't look right. As much as I hate the empire I can't argue with the crop requirement. It's our responsibility to one another to fill the granaries. To renege on that is not a blow to the Stone Moon. It's a blow against the Jokka."

"Are we still so close to famine?" I asked, bringing it a bowl of stew.

It looked at the bowl. "It's been a while since I looked at the food projections. We weren't in that business at home, not formally, but we paid into the common store with surplus honey as a way to mitigate our tax burden. But even het Kabbanil was sensitive to the yearly crop yields, and it was the best managed of the hets in the empire." It sighed. "At least the eperu have arrived. That will give me a chance to sit down and really understand what we're undertaking with Thesenet's proposal."

"But Laisira ran caravans from het Kabbanil," I said.

"Laisira ran a single House's caravans, and never further than one stop away down the road," it said, licking the spoon to clean it before tapping it on the table to demonstrate. "From here to here—point of initiation to destination. What Thesenet's talking about involves multiple stops. It brings up many more challenges: where do we store the goods between stops? Who holds the money? Who are we selling to?"

Recovering from the sight of its tongue on the spoon, I said, "Can you still do it?"

"Yes," it said, meeting my eyes. "But I'd really like a chance to talk to Thesenet myself."

I paused. "Eperu don't talk to Stone Moon ministers about business matters," I said finally.

"I know," it said. "And if you really think I shouldn't, I will educate you on the questions and you can ask them yourself. But it would save a lot of time if I didn't have to do that."

I thought of the empire's growing problems. "We don't have much time."

"No," it said.

I looked at the eperu and lowered my voice. "You are asking me to trust your safety with the highest official of the empire in het Narel, Hesa."

"I know," it said, grimacing. "I know, Pathen. And I don't know him well so you're going to have to tell me if it's safe. If he'll find the notion of an eperu running the business of the House criminal."

I blew out a breath. "Give me some time to think about it." At its expression I said, "I won't delay. But it's not a decision I want to make without consideration."

"All right," it said. "But I think your first instinct, whatever it is, is the right one." The eperu returned to eating and I let it. I didn't want to tell it that my first instinct had been smothered by my terror over what might happen if Thesenet decided that eperu like Hesa were against nature and should be executed before they could make trouble. I'm sure there had been a reaction, but gods knew I couldn't remember what it was.

Darsi joined us next, pouring himself a cup of the spiced juice before sitting across from Hesa with a sigh. "Well that's done. I think, anyway. She might still be wandering."

Hesa glanced at me, brows lifted.

"We now have one of our anadi prizes," I said. "She came home with me from Rabeil."

It laughed. "Like a lost ñedsu pup, is that it?"

"You have no idea," Darsi muttered.

"Where is she now?" I asked.

"I don't know," Darsi said. "I showed her the room, but I'd barely done that before someone showed up to ask her if she wanted to play jenadha with them, and she was off again."

That made me laugh. "Good for her, then."

"Pathen," Darsi said, quellingly. "She's anadi. She should be resting!"

"She's smart enough," I said. "I trust her to know the limits of her own body. When she needs rest, she'll sleep."

"She sounds interesting," Hesa murmured, listening to us with a cheek in one palm.

"She is," Darsi said. "But... a little bit crazy." He smiled, lopsided. "I guess she'll fit right in."

"So she will," I said. "Where's Abadil, speaking of crazy?"

"I haven't seen him," Darsi said. "He's been out a lot."

"With Eduñil?" I wondered.

"I don't know," Darsi said. "He doesn't tell me his errands. Has he told you, Hesa?"

"No," Hesa said. "But I've been out most of the day."

"It can wait," I said. "Tell me where we've put the new eperu."

So Hesa apprised me of the rest of its news, and Darsi added his, and they were interrupting one another on the matter of scavenging grass for the paper project since they'd both had a hand in organizing the expedition when Darsi stopped abruptly.

I looked over my shoulder and found Kuli in the door. She stepped in, her footfalls cautious and all that tail dragging behind her. "I was told I could find something to drink here," she said.

"By the hearth," I said. "Please, join us."

She served herself and we all stared. I don't think any of us could recall the last time we'd seen an anadi do something for herself, especially something as mundane as pouring herself a drink. She looked unsuited for such tasks and yet she executed them with an ease that made them seem perfectly normal. Then she approached us, and we rose. She stopped.

"You know Darsi," I said. "Kuli, this is Hesa Asara-emodo. Hesa, Kuli Asara-anadi."

"You... you're the pefna," Kuli said, looking up at Hesa. "I've heard about you from the others."

Hesa stammered, "Nothing bad, I hope."

She laughed. "The eperu say you do the work of ten eperu, which is good because they are each only capable of the work of five. The emodo think you are a great terror and are fiercely proud that they get to claim you as theirs."

"All this you got from a few hours in the House?" Darsi asked, startled.

"I'm good at listening," Kuli said. And faltered, "It's... not usual for people to bother to talk to me. So I like to listen when they do."

Hesa drew a chair out for her, being nearest, and she sat with her cup.

"I'm surprised you're up," I said.

"Anadi tend to stay up late," she said. "It's easier on us than being up early. But it's been a long day so I will probably sleep after this." She smiled at me. "Everyone's been so kind. I've been able to play board games. And they showed me the abandoned garden plot. Ke Darsi's room is... I... I have never had a room to myself, much less one aboveground."

"You're not overwhelmed, I hope," I said.

"No," she said. "Not in a bad way, at least. I like it here... I hope I can stay."

Darsi glanced at me. I ignored him and said, "You think you'll be taken from us if people discover we're giving you too much freedom?"

She looked at me, head tilted. "Of course, ke emodo."

"You," Hesa said, low. "You don't belong anywhere else. And if they try to take you, we will stop them."

All three of us looked at Hesa, who was the picture of calm save for the fierceness in its eyes.

"It's right," I said at last to Kuli. "I know it's useless to say don't fear, so I won't. But we won't let anyone take you from us. Which brings me to another matter, perhaps one you could advise me on."

"Ke emodo?" she said, eyes widening.

"House Asara has room for two more prizes," I said. "How should we choose?"

Darsi said, "And can we have one of the anadi we served at the residence?"

Now I looked at him and he flushed. "We've been discussing it, those of us who went. We... we'd like to save some of them. If we can. Except we don't know their names—"

Hesa made a pained noise in its throat and I was frozen. It was Kuli who said gently, "That is a great kindness on the part of the emodo, ke Darsi. But anadi who are or might be pregnant can't be removed from the residence. It will have to be someone who isn't currently in use."

"Someone," I murmured. "Or someones? Could we do as House Rabeil does and have someone different every month?"

Kuli glanced at me, ears flattening despite the hope in her eyes. She looked away and said, "That would be dangerous, ke emodo. The prizes usually aren't sent back because it can breed resentment among those who aren't chosen."

"Rabeil does it," Darsi said.

"Rabeil can do it without being noticed," Kuli said, low. "They're in charge of all the anadi for het Narel, ke emodo, so whatever they do, it's assumed to be done with the empire's permission and for its good. But to have another House take up the practice? There would be anadi processing through the het at least once a month. Everyone would wonder why House Asara had this privilege and no one else..."

"If any House, why not ours?" Hesa said. "We are the home of the Stone Moon hero. Perhaps they might think him eccentric."

"Or perverse," Darsi said, shoulders tense.

"Would it truly be a kindness?" I asked her. "Or would it be too difficult? I would want freedom, if only for a month. But I know not everyone would."

"Not everyone would," Kuli said. "But enough of us do. You could..." She hesitated, then went on. "I know the other anadi in the residence. I know who'd like the chance and who would rather be passed over. If you let me decide...?"

"I was supposed to see Eduñil later this week anyway," I said. "Perhaps I will invite him over first and see what he thinks of the idea."

"Is that a risk?" Darsi asked. "Talking to the emodo charged with assigning the anadi prizes about something potentially... troublesome?"

I thought of Eduñil's friend, of our talk in the cheldzan. "No. And he'll be able to tell us if it's safe to do so."

"All right," Darsi said with a sigh. "But I think I'm going to bed before the gods can come up with anything else to worry me with."

I chuckled. "Good night, Darsi."

He touched my shoulder—a real gesture, I wondered, or playing for Kuli? I could no longer tell. And then he left.

Kuli was studying Hesa. "You were never a jarana."

"No," Hesa said. "To guard the anadi was never my duty."

She said, "But you want to guard me."

"Gods help me," Hesa said. "Yes."

Kuli said, "Would it help if I said I'll try not to need the guarding?"

Hesa barked a laugh. "No. Not in House Asara. And not if it means forcing you to be something you aren't."

Kuli considered, pursed her lips. Then said, "At very least I will try to be circumspect. I want to stay here. And I don't want to get anyone hurt." She stood and said, "I'll retire too. I want to try my new bed."

"Good night, ke anadi," I said, smiling.

"Good night, ke emodo, ke eperu," she said and followed in Darsi's wake.

Once she had gone, Hesa said, "Gods. You know how to pick them, Pathen."

"Magnificent, isn't she?" I said, rueful.

"A kaña if ever I met one," Hesa said. "Maybe you should buy her a ring."

"That is inviting too much trouble when we have enough," I said. "I'll think about your request, Hesa."

"All right," it said. And made a great show of checking the door before it licked its spoon again. I wrinkled my nose at it and was gratified by the laugh.

"You should lie down, pefna," I said. "An eperu who does the work of ten should at least get the rest of one."

"I go as you command," it said, mouth quirking.

In the morning I prepared a message for Eduñil, extending him an invitation to eat at House Asara. I thought of delivering it myself but Rabeil was in the opposite direction from Transactions, where I was planning to resume my perusal of open contracts so that my hiring another set of Jokka would make sense. I sent for an eperu to act as my messenger and noticed that this particular individual had volunteered for that duty more than once.

"You like running messages?" I asked. "Or is it chance that sees you chosen for it?"

"I do like it, ke emodo," it replied. "I enjoy seeing the city."

As well it might; Laisira's eperu had had more freedom than their peers in the Stone Moon work parties but they weren't permitted abroad in the city without escort or errand. Jurenel had jealously guarded what few eperu Laisira had been permitted to retain from public view, knowing that the empire was likely to covet anything it saw too frequently, and that had kept them safe. But it did not surprise me that they had longed for more. Like me, the eperu of House Laisira were old enough to remember a time when they could walk the streets of het Kabbanil with no more plan than to entertain themselves and spend what shell they'd earned on the luxuries that often only they could afford.

Which reminded me. I was on my way out of the House after this, so I had dressed for it and from one of my pockets I drew a few coins. I offered them to the eperu. "If you're to be my messenger, you should be paid for it."

It looked at the coins then up at me, ears splayed. "But what would I do with money, ke emodo? Where could I spend it? Where would it be safe?"

"Buy something in town on the way back, if you wish," I said. "And say it is for someone else in the House."

It considered. "I could buy food without drawing attention, so long as I didn't stay." It smiled. "I haven't bought food from a stall in so long... I can't even remember the last time, ke emodo."

"Go on, then," I said, but after it left I frowned.

Hesa was in conference with the new eperu when I arrived at the quarters assigned to them. At the sight of me the discussion stopped and Hesa twisted around on its stool to look toward the door. "Ke emodo?"

"Do you have a moment?" I said. "I have a question."

"Of course," it said, and excused itself. I withdrew into the hall, bringing it with me.

"Do we pay our eperu?" I said.

"What?" Hesa said, startled. "No one pays eperu, Pathen. That's the law."

"Is it codified or just habit?" I said.

"It's codified," Hesa said, its entire body stiff. "Eperu aren't allowed to have money of their own. Their needs are provided by the empire either directly or through a House, which is required by law to offer them shelter, clothing and food." It lifted its hands at my expression. "And the amount of clothing and the type are also set down. You should know this, Pathen. You audited accounts for two handfuls of Houses."

"I went over their sales and expenses," I said. "There was a column for stipends for the members of the House. I assumed it included eperu...!"

"It doesn't," Hesa said. "And it never has and... Pathen, no. We can't. Do you truly want the wrath of the Stone Moon to descend on us? If you give the eperu money, you give them power. Why do you think the empire made it illegal?"

"We can't not pay half our Household," I said.

Whatever Hesa saw in my face convinced it of my intransigence on the subject. It said slowly, "If you want this, you will have to find some way to convince Thesenet of it. I won't do it unless I know it won't bring the empire down on us. It's better to do without money than to be hauled to a platform for punishment."

"No," I murmured. "I won't let that happen."

I now knew Hesa well enough to see the fear it refused to be animated by. So I said, "Ke eperu, I won't."

It sighed. "All right, Pathen." And managed a faint smile. "It would be pleasant to be able to buy things, now and then."

I let it return to its meeting and departed for Transactions, but I worried that I'd inadvertently sent my eperu messenger into a trap. The matter occupied me throughout my stay in the Contracts office, twining through with the question of whether to trust Thesenet with the revelation of Hesa's competence. The empire had always feared eperu and done everything within its power to limit their agency. They did not work, they were worked; they earned no money. They could no longer negotiate their own contracts, could not leave their duties, had no leisure time. The last thing I should do was advance the notion of eperu independence to the minister of the second largest het on Ke Bakil.

When I returned in the late afternoon, I found a message from Eduñil on my desk, agreeing to come by the following day. I went hunting my messenger and saw it in the fields, moving among the other eperu; it had come to no harm, then. Relieved, I returned to the House, detouring long enough to find Kuli in the paper hall, watching the emodo at their work and asking questions. Seeing her there distracted me, but not enough to fail to note Abadil's absence. I had not seen him for almost two days now.

"I haven't either," Hesa said when we gathered after supper. "Have you...?"

"Nothing," Darsi said.

"Has he slept in his bed?" I asked, now alarmed. "Has anyone checked?"

We met each other's eyes and then stood almost as one. I was the first to turn toward the door... so I was the first to see him.

"Abadil!" Darsi said behind me. "You've scared the breath out of us! Where have you been?"

"I had an important errand," Abadil said, looking at me. "And now I must request that you come with me, ke Pathen. I've been asked to arrange a meeting and it's waiting for you."

I couldn't read his body or his face. He was tense, almost quivering with it, but his gaze was steady and far more serious than was his wont. Whatever this meeting involved, it was important to him. But: "Now? It's late."

"I know," Abadil said. "But this is the only time that was safe. Please, ke emodo. You don't have to come alone... bring ke Hesa."

"Have you turned on us?" Darsi asked, voice sharp as knives.

"No!" Abadil said, shocked.

"Then why all this secrecy?" Darsi said. "A late night meeting you didn't tell anyone you were arranging and aren't telling anyone about now? With the two most important people in the House? Are you going to lead them to the empire's authorities?"

"No," Abadil said, ears flat and eyes wide. "Gods no! The secrecy is to protect the people coming." He looked at me. "When you see them you'll understand."

"Let's go," I said, before I fully realized the words were leaving me. Once they had, though, I didn't retract them. I didn't understand Abadil's tension but his gravity affected me. I needed to know what had caused it, not just for myself but for the safety of all the House. "Hesa?"

"With you, ke emodo," it said, but I heard the wariness in its voice.

"Darsi," I said. "Stay. We'll be back."

Darsi's ears flicked back. "Pathen—"

"I trusted you," I said. "And that trust has not been betrayed. This is Abadil's test. Would you have me retract it?"

He grimaced. "No. But if you're not back by truedark I'll send someone after you."

"Good," I said. To Abadil, "Shall we?"

"Yes," he said. "We'll need rikka."

Abadil would not be drawn out so I stopped trying; his anxiety when we lifted our voices made me wonder what had him so nervous. He didn't ride out through the front gate either, which would have taken us onto het Narel's streets, but instead led us through the moonlit fields and out into the low grasslands surrounding the eastern edge of town. Once he'd won us free of the het he headed north toward where the earth furrowed and began to swell into hills. What was he looking for? For he was searching for something, glancing at the sky, the horizon, the hills, the tension in his body agitating the rikka.

At last he stopped and slid off the beast. The locale was unremarkable save that there was a firepit dug, and in it a bowl.

"How did you find this again?" Hesa asked, perplexed.

Abadil jerked a chin at the sky. "I followed a map."

While he filled the bowl and lit it, we dismounted and found rocks to tether the rikka. Then we joined Abadil. He was standing, a fire-licked silhouette against the violet sky. The flames were brilliant, pale yellow and flickering red, and I looked away from them until my sight acclimated to the dark. I thought I'd failed in that when I saw the glow over the hill, that I was looking at an after-image of Abadil's dark shape.

But I was wrong.

"Thank the gods," Abadil said, exhaling. "They made it."

Three Jokka approached us and I saw them first only as luminescence against the blue: one colder than moonlight, that one first and strongest. After that, a shimmer of honey-gold, faint but pure... and last, a dark figure between them, walking. They became three people, two on rikka, one on foot. Behind me, Hesa drew in a sharp breath.

The foremost Jokkad had hair to rival an anadi's, hair that moved in a faint breeze that none of us felt. Despite the autumn chill, he wore only a pair of light pants and gave no sign that he noticed the cold.

They stopped before us. Then the emodo dismounted, tail sliding like a cable over the beast's rump until it could spill on the ground. He approached, bringing with him an uncanny chill I felt not on my skin but in my joints and the hollows of my teeth. I understood now the conflicting reports of this male's appearance. He was beautiful and disturbing, and of course I knew who he was.

He came to me first; we looked at one another for a long time. There was an intellect in his eyes sharp as glass but what arrested me most was the sense of... contentment he radiated. Contentment.

"You brought him, then," said the avatar of the Void on the World.

"As you see," Abadil replied.

Keshul considered me, pursed his lips. "You're taller than I thought you’d be."

It was not what I'd expected to hear from an oracle. "Should I be short?"

The emodo said wryly, "It would be easier on my neck."

Behind him, the Jokkad standing beside the rikka sighed and the one on the beast muffled a giggle.

"They despair of me because I keep fumbling these moments of world-shattering significance," Keshul confided, voice dry.

"No," I said. "You're doing fine." Because it was true; no matter how approachable his demeanor made him, the unworldly appearance, the chill, and most of all the improbable calm set him very, very much apart. "I presume I have the honor of speaking to the Fire in the Void."

"If honor it is," Keshul said. "Yes."

"And have you asked to meet me because you'd like to decide whether to destroy me on het Narel's behalf?" I said.

Silence then. Slowly, Keshul's brows lifted. "And who told you that I stood guardian to het Narel?"

"There are people who remember you," I said. "And how you fought the Stone Moon on the het's behalf. They seem to think you still have a personal interest in Narel. Are they right?"

"Maybe," Keshul said. "And maybe I have come to make a decision about you—" He stopped abruptly, looking past my shoulder. I twisted and found Hesa had taken a step toward Abadil, one hand curled into a fist. The menace in its eyes was enough to make Abadil back away hastily.

"You promised," Hesa snarled. "You said there would be no danger!"

"He's not going to decide against ke Pathen!" Ababil replied, testy.

"And who is this?" said a voice behind Keshul. The Jokkad on foot stepped into the firelight, the rikka it led following... and here was a neuter, long and lean, sculpted by more journeys on the World's back than I could easily imagine. Its eyes were alive with interest. "Did you bring an eperu?"

I hesitated, then said, "I have not made introductions. I'm Pathen Asara-emodo. This is my pefna, Hesa Asara-emodo. And Abadil you evidently know." I eyed my clay-keeper.

Keshul said, "Pleased to meet you, ke eperu. Behind me you see Dekashin on foot, and the anadi on the rikka is the Brightness's seer, Bilil. Both of whom bear with my nonsense why, I know not."

"Because we love you," Bilil said with the air of one advancing a very old, well-worn argument.

"Because they love me," Keshul repeated to us with that wry voice, but there was no mockery in his face: only tenderness and certainties that I had never thought I would see in another Jokkad.

"I hear treason from the mouth of the emperor's lover," Hesa said behind me, voice tight.

"You hear common sense from the mouth of the Void's own avatar," Keshul said. "Don't tell me I speak treason, ke eperu, when I see what you feel for your Head of Household in every line of your body."

Hesa backed away several paces, shaken. I stepped between it and Keshul, who watched impassively.

"You see what we are driven to," the anadi said from her perch on the rikka’s back. "We all know very well that we love across sexes as well as within them, and yet it is a thing that requires secrets and defense."

"The defense," Keshul finished, "of a former Claw of the empire." When I stiffened, he said, "I too have my sources. And they're not all Abadil." He threw an amused glance at my clay-keeper, who had the grace to look embarrassed. Continuing, Keshul said, "You are in no danger from me, ke emodo. This I vow to calm the fears of your eperu. Nor will I reveal your secrets. I know you are involved with the rebels from the truedark kingdom. I know that you have gone to het Narel in an attempt to create change. I only want to hear what you plan."

"And how do I know you will not take what I plan back to the emperor?" I said.

"You don't," Keshul said. "But I wouldn't; I have never betrayed the truedark kingdom to him, despite having known many dissidents in het Kabbanil including..." He looked at Hesa, "a dark-haired male in the silks of House Laisira wearing House Laisira's token. A male who took my message to Thenet about Roika's departure for the harbor at the end of the eastern road."

Hesa whispered, "That was you?"

"That was me," Keshul said. "But if you won't believe that, ke Pathen, believe this: I put the emperor on that ship. By the time it returns, anything you might have revealed to me will be old enough news to be useless." He smiled. "That is, if you're at all planning to succeed at whatever you're going to wreak. So. Can we talk?"

I hesitated, then gave him back a taste of his own humor. "Since you've spent such effort to come all this way, I suppose I should."

Keshul laughed and sat alongside the fire. Cautiously I joined him and looked up at Hesa.

"If it would not be an imposition," Dekashin said. "It would be a great pleasure to speak with another eperu."

Hesa flexed its fingers at its side. From where I sat I had a view up the hard edge of its thigh and hip to the yellow swath of light against its jaw, held clenched. I said, quiet, "Hesa. I think we are among friends."

"Ke emodo," Hesa said.

I set a hand on its wrist, startling it. "Remember what I promised."

And it did—me between it and anyone coming to take it... take us. It breathed out and smiled at me, then glanced uncertainly toward Dekashin and picked its way around the fire to the other eperu's side.

Keshul watched it go and said, "You found a fine partner there."

"Do you think?" I asked, ears flicking back.

He glanced at me then laughed. "You still aren't sure what to think of someone asking you questions like that, do you. Am I mocking you? Am I insinuating something about your perverse tastes? Am I making notes to use against you?" He huffed softly. "I know, ke Pathen. You're not the only one who loves inappropriately."

I studied him in the firelight. It gleamed on his skin, but the yellows and reds seemed to fade against the glowing white. The shadows it made, though, pooled in a deep gouge near his heart and another at his shoulder. There was a pearl tied at his throat, one I almost didn’t notice against his skin.

"Not what you expected?" he guessed.

"Not of the emperor's lover," I said. "If you were, if that wasn't rumor."

Keshul sighed, resting his wrists on his knees. "And if I told you I was?"

I considered his profile. "Then I'd say it probably wasn't a... healthy... relationship."

Keshul snorted. "Wasn't healthy. How accurate." He cocked his head, looking up at me. "You're not what I expected either of a former Claw turned rebel."

"And what did you expect?" I asked.

"Someone harsh and without charm," Keshul said. "Someone brutalized by the violence of the empire to the point of no longer having any sensitivity to... anything. But I don't see that in you. I don't even see offense at my attitude, which most Claws would have shown. The lover of the emperor shouldn't be... "

"Sarcastic?" I offered.

"Insouciant," he said, amused. "But it doesn't offend you. Do you like insolence, then?"

"I hate fear," I answered without thinking.

"Ah!" Keshul said. And then quieter, "Ah." He smiled to himself more than to me and said, "So, ke emodo. What's your plan?"

"The goal is to create a web of support for this Thenet to use when it returns to overthrow the Stone Moon," I said. "As to the particulars... I seem to be feeling my way through them."

"Take it as it comes, is that it?" Keshul said.

"Something like that," I murmured. I looked over at him. "Am I passing your test?"

"So far I have decided not to call the wrath of the Void down to turn you into an ice statue," Keshul said with a grin.

"A rather fanciful threat," I said.

Keshul touched the gouge on his chest. "Gods, I hope so." He shook himself. "Tell me, then, what you've done since you've defected."

And... I did. It was easy to talk to him; I would have thought that the avatar of a god would be a distressing confidant, particularly one who really was as uncanny as Keshul's rumors had reported. But he was a good listener and I sensed that he had sympathy for my plight. And perhaps he did. I had only known the Fire in the Void as Roika's lover and councilor, and yet I was facing someone who'd admitted to a perverse love not just for an eperu but an anadi as well, someone who'd fought the empire to the last blow before leaving for het Kabbanil. His experiences and mine might be very different in the details, but our ambivalence about our roles in the Stone Moon and our need to escape them—in that we were kin.

When I had finished, Keshul considered my words in silence. We watched the fire snap against the sky like a flag in the wind.

"Do you really think you can do this?" Keshul said. "Foster a bloodless revolution? Keep all the good of the empire while paring away the bad?"

I said, quiet, "Someone must, ke emodo... if not me, then who?"

Keshul started, then laughed, and there was something in it I couldn't define. It was very much an oracle's laugh and I found it unsettling, wondering what it was he saw. "I have heard such words before. They have the power to change the World, ke Pathen."

"I so hope," I said. "You won't come back to us to het Narel...? You are still the emperor's minister..."

"I am, and I'm sure I would be welcomed," Keshul said. "But I won't live without Dekashin and Bilil. The empire tore them from me once and that... that was already one time too many." He flexed his fingers on his knees and said, "No, I won't come back until what we are is no longer a crime. And I have a duty to await Roika at the harbor: the god wants that of me, to see what I began to its end."

"Does... He really speak to you?" I asked.

"Not often, for which I am deeply grateful," Keshul said. "But when He does, it can't be mistaken."

"Then," I said, "I'll see you again. When this is over, and it will be, must be over soon. When that ship returns..."

"Then we will see," Keshul agreed. "But I have hopes now." He stood, brushing off his pants. I noted that the soil clung to them but not to his tail or feet. "I am glad we met, ke Pathen."

"Just... Pathen," I said, standing, and offered a hand.

Keshul took it with nimble fingers, but cold. "Then… Pathen. I'm just Keshul. And you're right. We will meet again when Ke Bakil has its resolution."

"Gods willing," I said.

"That's what I'm here for," he said with a grin. Turning, he called, "I've decided not to blast him with lightnings!"

"Good," Dekashin called back, "because I'm not in the mood to clean up the pieces."

"Are you keeping him, master?" Bilil asked in her sweet voice, one that held a touch of mischief.

"He'll do," Keshul said, joining them and climbing back into the saddle. To Abadil, he said, "You hear that? I see and approve." And grinned, all coarse fangs.

"I'm glad," Abadil said. "Go with care, ke emodo."

"Have a drink for me," Keshul said.

"Fifty-coin, if I can find it," Abadil answered, smiling now too.

Dekashin, taking up the reins of Bilil's mount, said to Hesa, "Remember what I've said."

"I will," it answered, sober.

"Until we meet at the end of the road," Keshul said. "All luck to you, Pathen. Oh, and Pathen... catch."

It was a pouch he threw me, a light one. As I caught it, Keshul said with a grin, "In case you ever need proof of my affection."

"The affection of an avatar of the Void," I said. "Gods help me."

"Exactly," he said with a laugh. As he turned his rikka to the north, he called over his shoulder, "My friends, you have a little over a year. Use it well."

And then they were off. The three of us stood beside the firebowl, watching them recede: the two on the beasts, the eperu between them... their ease with one another, the distant murmur of their conversation, Bilil's laughter, Keshul's. An oracle, a seer and their guardian. That such a thing could exist on Ke Bakil...

"I hope you're not too angry with me, "Abadil said at last.

"No," I answered. "But let's get home before Darsi worries."

At home, walking back from the stable, Hesa said, "You haven't asked."

I folded my hands behind my back, pacing it through the fire-lit courtyard. "About your conversation with the avatar's guardian?"

"Yes," it said, stopping at the threshold of the House.

I opened the door for it and said, "If you'd wanted to tell me, you would have."

The eperu paused, meeting my eyes. And then thanked me with its smile before passing inside.

The following morning I received Eduñil on a patio that had been made agreeable for entertaining rather hastily. It extended from the back of the House and faced what I assumed would have been the gardens, but was now barren earth. I noted Kuli's interest, however, by the fact that the soil had been turned; she had no doubt recruited some eperu to prepare the plot for whatever she planned.

"I hope," Eduñil said once we had a pot of hot broth and a plate of dumplings to pick at, "that I am not here because our eccentric hasn't worked well for your House."

"Kuli?" I said. "Oh, no. She's fine." I chuckled. "More than fine. I'd be surprised if there was a single person in the House who doesn't like her. So much so that it seems remarkable to me she hasn't had that effect on House Rabeil's people."

"She does," Eduñil said. "But she goes back to the residence every few months so that someone else can have a turn outside it."

"Does she," I murmured.

"An extraordinary individual," Eduñil said. "I would hate for her to waste her life, unseen."

I glanced at him. "Are you allowed to speak such thoughts, ke Eduñil?"

"I don't know," Eduñil said. "I am in House Asara. Am I?"

I rested my skewer on the side of my plate. "Perhaps you might have some insight for me, ke emodo. Given that you seem so aware of the... nuances of such permissions."

"Go on?"

"Would House Rabeil be willing to extend to House Asara the same arrangement that allows the anadi to visit for a period before returning to the residence?" I said.

Eduñil speared himself another dumpling. "Does House Asara not want a specific individual, then?" he said after a moment.

"House Asara's emodo wanted to choose one of the anadi they served last week," I said. "But did not know their names."

He looked up at my sharply. "They asked you?"

"Yes," I said. "They knew we were only due three but they wanted the ones they'd met before."

Eduñil set his skewer down then, facing the opposite direction mine was. He folded his hands together at his brow and rested his head against them.

"Does this trouble you?" I said. "Or really even surprise you?"

"The purpose of the anadi residence is to prevent the emodo from forming attachments to the anadi," Eduñil said without raising his head.

"And to the extent that it does so, it serves its builders' purpose," I said.

"The Jokka's purpose," Eduñil said.

"Its builders' purpose," I repeated. "Not the Jokka's. Unless you wish to live in a society where all three sexes live apart and think of each other as lesser beings. Do you?"

"Of course not," Eduñil said. "But I don't see how encouraging fraternization can lead to anything but suffering."

"Is that why you keep an anadi friend of your own?" I asked. "And why you permit the rotation of anadi into House Rabeil out of the residence?"

He grimaced, looking away.

"Ke Eduñil... don't you want to live among emodo who treat other Jokka with compassion and respect?" I said.

"Of course," he said. "But we live beneath the Stone Moon, ke Pathen—"

"—and the emperor is gone, and will be for some time," I said. "Thesenet seems less interested in the letter of the law and more in the prosperity and contentment of the het."

"You are suggesting we push because we might not be reprimanded?" Eduñil said. "But what if we are?"

"Then we make the appropriate noises, pay the fines and do as we're told," I said.

"And if the fine is your life?" Eduñil said. "If the fine is your punishment on the platform?"

"I'll take that chance to give the anadi an opportunity to breathe the air above their caverns and see the sun on autumn leaves. Wouldn't you?" When he didn't answer, I said, quieter, "Of course you would. You already made that choice when House Rabeil began its practice."

"It's safer for Rabeil," Eduñil muttered. "Everyone assumes we have cause."

"If you fear what Thesenet will say," I said, "ask him first. But if you do, you will be ceding to him the power the empire gave to House Rabeil to manage the anadi in het Narel. Are you truly the ones entrusted with that power? Or are your decisions to be subject forever to the minister's whims?"

"You say that as if we ever had that power," Eduñil said.

"You may not have in the past," I said. "But if there is a time to assert yourself, now would be that time. Then you get two things you want, ke emodo: more power for your House... and more of a life for the anadi for whom you stand guardian."

That affected him, from the suddenness of his look.

"Consider it," I said.

Eduñil sighed. "You make compelling arguments, ke emodo. And I really want to believe there is room for change in the empire."

"There are a lot more citizens in het Narel than there are Claws," I said, spearing myself a fresh dumpling.

After he'd left, Kuli found me still sitting at the table, and from how quickly she did it she'd been waiting.

"You were listening?" I said.

"Maybe a little," she admitted, flushing white at the ears. "You don't mind?"

"Not when the talk is about your proposal," I said.

She perched on the chair Eduñil had vacated. Someone had braided her hair into multiple plaits with long leather cords and brown vines. Perhaps in spring they would use flowers? I looked forward to it. "Do you think he'll do it?"

"He will," I said. "But he'll need some time to convince himself of it."

"We can wait," Kuli murmured. "We're good at waiting."

I watched her face, her eyes glowing from beneath her lowered lashes as she ran her finger over the honey on Eduñil's discarded dessert plate. "Who turned the garden soil for you? And what are you planning?"

She brightened and began to explain, and I listened with pleasure to her animation, her enthusiasm. Gods, what a sin we committed by acting as if the anadi were lost to us before the mind-death took them. We thought to avoid heartache by hiding them from sight but all we did was transfer the pain from ourselves to them. Very convenient for us.

The matter of childbearing remained, but there had to be some way to manage it. That I could not imagine it now, observing Kuli's excitement and how it lit her eyes, did not mean it didn't exist.

When Darsi and I arrived the following evening at the cheldzan the conversation in the room drifted to a halt. As we paused in the center of the room, the Head of House Dzeri stepped forth and said, "Ke Pathen. We would be pleased to invite House Asara to the Leaf Gathering at the end of autumn."

I had heard a little of this fete from Abadil; that it was important, that only the noteworthy Houses of the het attended... and that new Houses had to be invited by those already chosen, or they would be turned away at the door.

"House Asara would be honored to attend," I said.

"Then we offer the leaf," the Head said, and held it up for everyone in the cheldzan to see, and it was indeed a leaf... falcate and traced with the suggestion of veins, but made of metal, bright silver metal like the knives of the empire. It had been threaded with white ribbon at the base and the year had been stamped on it. As I reached to take it, the Head said, "For display, ke emodo. In your storefront, when you have one."

"I suppose I'll have to rent one then," I said.

The Head of Dzeri—whose House managed property throughout the het—grinned. "Yes, do. Come to me, will you?"

I laughed. "I will." And took the leaf from him to the satisfaction of all those watching. My acceptance signaled the end of the excitement; they returned to their conversations, leaving me to find a drink with Darsi, to whom I gave the leaf. I was surprised to find Thesenet seated in the back, hands cupped around a hot cup of broth.

"You know you'll have no end to trouble now," he said when I paused by his table.

"Why's that?" I said, sitting across from him.

"The Leaf Gathering predates the empire's arrival," Thesenet said. "We've let it continue because of our policy on local celebrations." He paused to see if I understood and I dipped my head. It wasn't Roika's way to take such things from the populace. Thesenet continued. "So I've observed the custom for the years I've been here, and I've never seen the leaf go to such a new House, especially one without a storefront. It's the het's way of indicating prestige, not power." He sipped his broth and then finished, "There will be people who dislike you receiving it."

"The upstart House that hasn't yet made a single coin, is that it?" I said.

"Just so," Thesenet said. He glanced at me. "You don't seem worried."

"You are asking me to fear crime under the Stone Moon," I said.

"To be punished, criminals have to be caught," Thesenet murmured.

I leaned toward him. "Are you admitting something to me, Minister?"

"No more than you already knew," Thesenet said. "You were a Claw, ke Pathen. How many criminals do you suspect went unpunished?"

I said, "Very few, ke emodo. Very few."

"It only takes one," Thesenet said.

I stared at him.

"Just a warning, ke emodo," Thesenet murmured.

"Thank you for it," I said. "I'll keep watch." I stood, then added, "Minister?"

"Ke emodo?"

"If someone were to be caught in the act on my property," I said, "and perhaps an over-zealous guard made them incapable of standing formal trial..."

"A pity," Thesenet said. "Dead Jokka not being capable of answering questions."

I smiled. "I believe I understand you, Minister."

"I knew you would, ke Pathen," Thesenet said.

I left him at his table in the back and went to join Darsi, who'd found himself a cup of fragrant mulled wine. He offered it to me and in keeping with our story I accepted it and drank.

"So what was that about?" he said in my ear as I put an arm around his waist.

"Not here," I answered and gave him back his cup. A little louder, "Let's celebrate our leaf."

"All right, my Claw."

How Darsi turned that into an endearment, I couldn't fathom... and yet somehow, he managed. Together we wandered back toward the largest knot of people to resume mingling.

When we returned with our news Abadil took the leaf from me and grimaced. "I think Thesenet is right. But that might work in our favor."

"How so?" Hesa asked, holding out its hand so Abadil could pass it the token. "You think it would be better to flush our enemies into the light?"

"Sounds like unnecessary risk to me," Darsi said, but he sounded so resigned that we all looked at him. He dropped into a chair and said, "I've accepted I'm on the caravan being driven by the crazed Jokka along the edge of the terrifying cliff. I feel obliged to say these things, though."

I chuckled. "If you didn't we'd wonder if you'd taken some disease."

"So where shall we put it, since we have no storefront?" Abadil said. "That's where the leaf usually goes. Every year Houses that receive them add the latest to the previous ones, so that you can see at a glance how long they've been important in het Narel."

"Ah, so that's what that means," Darsi said. "I'd seen the displays in the shops but dismissed them."

"The Head of Dzeri suggested we hang it outside the House until we have a storefront," I said.

"Or until we have the warehouse up," Hesa said, giving the leaf back to me. "The source of our power in the het."

Abadil huffed. "You wait until I perfect my paper, ke eperu. Then we'll see what makes our money in Ke Bakil."

Hesa laughed softly. "Money is not power, ke emodo."

"Maybe not," Abadil said. "But it helps."

This conversation was perhaps too clear in my mind when the minister paid House Asara an unexpected visit several days later, accompanied by two Claws in the stark uniforms I used to wear. I received him in the antechamber to my office, which was large enough for the two of us to sit together at the small round table and keep the Claws nearby without looming. They took up station at the door and watched the emodo who brought us heated wine and spiced nuts and white cheese. Thesenet offered no pleasantries while we waited; I didn't try to break his silence. Once the emodo had withdrawn, I said, "Not a social call, Minister. What can House Asara do for you?"

"House Asara can tell me what one of its eperu was doing with money," Thesenet said.

I leaned back in my chair. His face, his voice... all very neutral. But the question... "Perhaps you'll allow me to ask you for more detail."

"There is not much more to say," Thesenet said. "Someone reported that one of your eperu was seen buying food at a stall. We discovered this was true when we stopped it for questioning."

That made my vision bleed white with rage. "You have it detained?" I asked.

Something in my tone must have warned him to speak carefully. "We haven't harmed it. I said we asked it questions and that's what we did. No torture, no punishment. It's not even in a cell; they're holding it at the barracks in one of the spare bunkrooms. It was very forthcoming when we asked about the rumor. It said you gave it a coin, and that it had been saving it until that day, and then it bought something on the way back to the House."

Bought 'something,' I thought. Because actually saying 'a fried cake' or 'a skewer of grilled vegetables' would make it plain just how absurd the complaint was.

Thesenet waited for my response in seeming repose, but I caught the hint of a flinch when I set my hand flat on the table between us. "I hope you are correct, Minister."

"I'm not lying," he said. "So perhaps now you might explain why you gave money to an eperu."

"Because," I said. "That eperu works for House Asara. Don't you pay your employees, Minister?"

"I pay my male employees," Thesenet said, stiff. "It's against the law to pay any of the others."

"Tell me, ke emodo," I said, and leaned forward to pour him some of the wine. "Do you still care for the prosperity of het Narel?"

"Of course," Thesenet said warily.

"So," I said, pouring into my cup now. "You have money, which you give to an emodo. The emodo goes out to spend it. He buys a few fripperies, perhaps. Spends an hour in the cheldzan. Goes home, then, because the hours between work and sleep are few. He spends perhaps a quarter of what he earns." I glanced up to see if he was listening, and he was, frowning. I set the jar down. "Now, you halve that original salary. Give half to the emodo, who goes off and spends what he did before. Give the other half to the eperu who... also goes off and spends some of it. More of the money is now exchanging hands, isn't it?"

"If you're trying to convince me to give the eperu salaries because it will make the het richer—"

"Won't it?" I asked.

Thesenet said nothing, but he did take the cup, turning it on the table. "Pathen. I can't pay the eperu. It's against the law."

"Failing to pay the eperu salaries is the way it's done in het Kabbanil," I said. "This is het Narel."

"Which is part of the same empire!" Thesenet said, exasperated.

"And the empire doesn't allow the ministers to make decisions to promote local welfare?" I said, sipping from my cup.

Thesenet scowled at me. "If I instated such a "local" law, ke emodo, the next time Roika rode into town I'd be dead on a platform."

"And what if Roika doesn't?" I said. "He's off on some trip across the ocean. What if he never comes back?"

"What if he does?" Thesenet said. And leaned back, folding his arms. "This is treasonous talk."

"This is practical talk," I corrected. "We are discussing how to introduce more money into het Narel's economy."

"If we give the eperu money," Thesenet said, bending toward me, “we give them power."

"Why are you afraid of that?" I asked.

Stunned, he sat back in his chair.

"What do you think they'll do with power?" I asked. "Buy seed cakes and spiced wine? Have fur-lined gloves commissioned so their hands don't chafe in the cold while they're working the fields? Wait, they might buy themselves nice clothes and go spend their money drinking in the cheldzan. Where they might meet people who might wish to employ them? Except it's illegal for them to break their contracts now. Do you think they'll take up arms against us, ke emodo? Do you think we've given them cause?"

Thesenet had grown gray beneath his skin.

"I'll answer that for you," I said. "The eperu will never take up arms against us, Thesenet... because they feel they were born to serve the Jokka, and serve us they will until they die of it. So is it fear that keeps you from paying them? Or guilt?"

Thesenet stared at me for several heartbeats, eyes wide. Then, deliberately, he reached for his cup and drank. "Well," he said. "Never let it be said that you do anything without thinking it through, Pathen." I pushed the plate of nuts at him and he took one with a sigh. "Nevertheless I can't overturn one of the empire's fastest laws on a whim. No matter how I feel about it."

"You would rather waste the money," I said.

"Than waste people's lives?" Thesenet said. "Because they'd die the moment Roika heard what was going on here. Yes, ke emodo. I err on the side of safety. Better poor than dead. Better unappreciated than tortured."

It was so close to what Hesa had said in response to my petition... I considered the minister while he crunched through one of the nut candies. And then I went with my instincts. "While you're here, there is a matter that needs your attention. If you'll excuse me a moment?"

"Of course," Thesenet said.

I stepped outside long enough to find someone and ask them to bring Hesa, then I returned to the room and refilled our cups. Thesenet had downed half that one as well when Hesa arrived. I wondered what he saw when he looked at the eperu: if he felt the energy that animated it, the fierce vitality, the quick intellect... and the absolute devotion to the health and safety and prosperity of the rest of us.

"Hesa Asara-emodo," I said.

"Ah, yes, the pefna," Thesenet said. He sounded puzzled. "I remember from our ride."

"Ke Hesa," I said. "The minister has agreed to listen to your concerns." To Thesenet, I said, "I've charged the pefna with the execution of the warehouse contract based on its business acumen. It offered to educate me on the issues sufficiently to ask its questions, but I don't have the experience to know what questions to ask in response to your answers. I thought we'd save some time if the two of you spoke directly."

"All right?" Thesenet said. And addressed himself to Hesa. "Go on, pefna."

Hesa glanced at me once, a hesitation I assuaged with a small dip of my head. It drew in a breath then and sat at the table. "Minister, thank you for your time. Can I send someone for a map while we discuss the preliminaries?"

It was not a brief meeting. I sent for a real meal an hour into it, and we were still talking two hours later. I'd been guessing when I said I wouldn't have the experience to anticipate the ramifications of Thesenet's answers, but I'd been right. I learned as much as I suspect Thesenet did from Hesa's questions. The warehouse project implied issues neither of us had imagined: where would we store the city's goods when we arrived at a destination? What if those goods were continuing on to another stop? What if they were perishable? Where would the caravans park? Who would build the warehouses in these distant cities? Who would administrate them? Who would buy wares to fill those warehouses? How would the accounting be kept? Who had the authority to hire people in those cities? And on and on it went, with Hesa pressing Thesenet either for answers or for the power to make the decisions on his behalf. It was an astonishing afternoon, and by the time Hesa rolled up its maps and saluted us both with the neuter's respect to males, hand to breast, I felt as if I'd been run over by one of our as yet unrealized caravans. Thesenet was little better from his expression.

After it left, he slumped. "Void and Brightness! You've employed a minor god of commerce, Pathen. Where on the World did you find it?"

"In het Kabbanil," I said. "Making money." I laughed. "Quite a lot of it."

"I can't imagine otherwise," Thesenet said, shaking himself. "At least I'm absolutely sure now that the project's in good hands."

"Hesa is competent," I said, pouring him the last of the wine.

"Competent!" Thesenet exclaimed. "More like brilliant!"

"And I don't have to pay it a coin," I said, sipping from my cup.

Thesenet stopped in the act of reaching for his.

"What a bargain!" I said. "Imagine if I'd had to pay it. I probably couldn't afford competence like that. Of course, it turned eperu before the empire came, so at least it hadn't grown accustomed to an emodo's salary." I set my cup down. "How fortunate for us!"

Thesenet grimaced. "All right. All right, you've made your point. But you're right about not being able to afford to hire someone like your pefna easily."

"No," I said. "But if I gave Hesa a salary can you imagine what it would do with it?"

I had seen Thesenet's face when he was imagining great and wonderful potentials before. There was a touch of avarice there for that exceptional future.

"I suppose I could just give it my money and let it invest it for me," I said.

Thesenet growled. "You are horrible, Pathen. Just horrible." He wrinkled his nose. "Also, you should do that."

I chuckled. "Maybe I will." As he rose, I said, "They're meant to be our partners, Minister. What have we lost by relegating them to the role of slaves?"

He winced and sighed. "Later, please. Batter me with your painful ideas later. The pefna's already filled my head to bursting."

"All right," I said and stood. "When will I see my eperu? The one you're holding for the dreadful crime of buying a spice cake."

"I'll send him as soon as I get back," Thesenet said. "And it was a bowl of boiled beans."

"Compounding its terrible sin by eating something healthy," I said.

"Ugh!" Thesenet said, but he was trying not to laugh. If it was a tired laugh, well... at least it was honest. "We're done, Pathen!"

"Minister," I said, bowing. "Stop by any time."

After he'd left I summoned Darsi, Abadil and Hesa to the common room, where supper had already sped though several Jokka lingered over their empty bowls and cups. We took our usual table in the back and I disclosed what had brought Thesenet to the House, keeping my voice low.

"Someone caught one of our eperu buying something... with a single coin? The only coin it had?" Abadil said, ears flat. "What are the chances? It's hardly believable."

"Unless someone's been watching us," Darsi said.

"That eperu," Hesa said. "The one you gave the coin... one of the ones you favor for message running, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said. "Maybe someone's watching our runners to see who we trade messages with most often."

"But who's responsible?" Abadil mused. "It's too soon for this to be about the leaf."

"Is it?" Darsi asked. "Gossip travels fast. Besides, it doesn't have to be about the leaf. It can be because the minister likes us, or because we're rich, or because we're new and have this enormous estate... I could start counting the reasons people would resent us, but I'd run out of fingers. And toes."

"Hyperbole," I murmured.

"Maybe," Darsi said. "But one of us needs to be paranoid and I have the most practice." He grinned and we laughed.

"We'll be more careful," I said.

"And no more money for eperu," Hesa said to me. "We have work to do here, Pathen. Let's not draw Thesenet's eye toward us too often."

"All right," I said, and then a hush spread into the room. We looked toward the door... and there was my messenger.

I was across the room before I realized I'd pushed back the chair, had clasped it on the shoulders. I searched it for bruises, cuts, for any sign at all that it had been abused... and it touched my arm. "No," it whispered. "No, ke emodo. I have not been harmed. They... they didn't even tie me."

"Not a scratch?" I said, willing it to tell me the truth.

"Not a hair out of place," it said, though I could feel it trembling beneath my hands. "I'm fine. I... I really am fine."

"All right," I said quietly.

"Ke emodo," the eperu said, and its trembling became more marked. "They didn't punish me."

"No," I said. "Because I won't ever allow it. Never, ke eperu. There will be no fear in my House."

It closed its eyes, shoulders sagging.

"Go," I said. "Go have something to eat and drink. Get some rest."

"All right," it said. And added bravely, "though it's going to be a long time before I feel like eating!"

I laughed and said, "I'm sure there are some honeyed nuts left in the kitchen. See if those renew your appetite."

"I think I'll try," it said. And drew back from me so it could bow. Not the salute that connotes respect... but a true bow, one leg stretched before it, the other bent, and its arms crossed over its chest. I watched with a hammering heart until it rose and departed... and realized then that the silence in the room was absolute. Everyone had been watching, and while there hadn't been many to see there were enough.

I sighed. That story would be all over the House before dawn.

I retired early but couldn't sleep and gave up the attempt in favor of reading over the House's accounts in my office. When at last those ceased to hold my attention I returned to the antechamber where I'd spent most of the day with Thesenet and sagged into one of the chairs, putting my foot up on another. Someone had left me a jar of warmed wine... who? And why? I had never expected to be waited on. I hadn't been born to power... far from it. This role was the first time I'd had it in any honest measure. I eyed the jar, then sighed and poured myself a cup.

I was still sipping it when Darsi peered into the room. "Ah, you're awake."

"Yes?" I said, rousing myself. "Do you need something?"

"No," he said. "But Hesa does, so be expecting it."

"What?" I said, straightening, but Darsi was already gone.

Then there truly was no hope of sleep. I left one dim lamp on the table so it could find its way and went to my bed, sitting on its edge. There I waited in agitation until I heard the whisper of the eperu's passage through the front room, the pause near the table. Then the light came with it to the bedroom.

"Hesa," I said. "Are you well?"

"Yes," it said, setting the lamp on my clothes-chest, then turning to consider me. I wondered what I'd done to earn such an enigmatic look but knew better than to press. And at last, it sighed and looked down. "Pathen. Do you know what the law says is the punishment for an eperu caught with money?"

"No," I said quietly.

"Death, Pathen," Hesa said. "Eperu caught earning money are killed, and their employers are whipped." It crouched in front of me to meet my eyes more directly... to show me its own. "One of my eperu was caught with money today and it wasn't executed."

"Things are changing," I said.

"No," it said, voice tense. "Things are not changing. You are changing them, Pathen. You are responsible for saving the life of my eperu—"

"A life I recklessly endangered," I said, rueful.

It lifted a hand and said, "I won't deny that. But by cultivating the minister, you protected it from your mistake. You..." Its voice cracked and it looked away to compose itself, then finished, "You stayed the hand of the empire, Pathen."

"I couldn't let them hurt it," I answered.

"I love you," it whispered, and slid into my arms. "Gods, Pathen, how I love you."

"I love you too," I answered, mystified by what moved it but willing anyway. I touched its cheek, just below the eye where once a red-gold curl had hung. "Why are you surprised? Did you think I would let the Minister hurt one of our own?"

"No," Hesa said, kissing me and pulling me down to it. "No, I know you wouldn't."

"Then why...."

Hesa rested its fingers on my mouth and repeated my words. "No fear in your House."

"No," I said, voice stiff. "I hate fear."

"And that is why people will love you, and already do," it said, and wrapped one lean arm around my neck to guide me down. I tasted tears in its mouth when we kissed, but it did not allow me to break away to tell it that I also hated grief. I resorted to other ways to make that known. They were more effective anyway.

As before, Darsi came to us before dawn. He remained at the door, ears trained toward the hall, but he watched Hesa this time as it dressed and stole a final kiss before leaving. I stretched and sat on the edge of my bed, savoring the memory before rising and joining Darsi in the antechamber.

"It looks so... happy," Darsi said, still staring out into the hall.

"Does it?" I wondered. The jar of wine was still on my table. It was no longer warm but I took a sniff of it and found the aroma good.

"Yes," Darsi said. "Maybe we should do this more often."

I looked up at him.

Darsi rubbed the back of his neck. "I know it's risky, but... it's our House, isn't it? Other than the handful of spies, it's all our people. In here, anyway, and the Jokka we’re borrowing to help work the fields… well, they’re eperu. That minimizes the danger."

"But doesn't remove it," I pointed out.

"No," he said. "But... you could also fall down and crack your head open on the corner of your desk."

I studied him, then sat in one of the chairs. "This sounds like you talking yourself into something, Darsi. To be honest."

Darsi made a face, then sat down too. "It's just that... well. You forget, I've known Hesa all my life. My adult life, anyway. And we've worked together for a long time. And I've... gotten to know it, well enough to see its moods...."

"This is a very roundabout way of saying that Hesa is a good friend of yours," I said.

Darsi said, exasperated, "We're not supposed to be friends with neuters, Pathen. You know that. The empire finds that to be in poor taste."

"I know," I said, more gently.

"What I'm trying to say is that I've never seen Hesa... happy. Like this," Darsi said. "Committed to duty, sure. Pleased or satisfied with things, absolutely. But... this?" He looked at me. "You've given it a home, a purpose, and someone to love. And it deserves all those things."

His certitude gave me pause. And then I chuckled and said, "At last, something we agree on completely."

Darsi said, "You'll let me arrange this more often?"

"Do you think I want to say no?" I said, amused.

"Good," he said. And padded into my bedroom. He returned wearing one of my robes and then tossed his clothes on the ground, pants here, shirt there, sash and wraps... when it was strewn to his satisfaction, he said, "I'll be back with a pot of tea." And left quite boldly wrapped in my clothes, no doubt to reinforce the story of our relationship. I used his absence to wash my face and build the fire. By the time he returned with a tray I had donned a battered old shirt and was seated again.

"Do you mind that I'm staying?" Darsi said, setting the pot and a plate of fruit between us. "I thought it would be useful to make sure that if the truth is uncovered there will be at least some conflicting rumors."

"I don't mind," I said. And I didn't. We had the tea and fruit and spoke quietly of business. Hesa had left the work of managing the House's day-to-day affairs to Darsi while it took on the financial contracts. He cared about that work and did it well, everything from assigning quarters to scheduling people to do laundry to listening to grievances. I very much enjoyed the chance to hear him talk about it.

An hour and a half later, he dressed in his now-wrinkled clothes. There were people in the halls now, enough to see him saunter back to his room, yawning and rumpled. I leaned on my doorframe and watched him go, arms folded and a smile on my face.

The next day was very quiet. Darsi and I made an appearance at the cheldzan where Thesenet greeted us and shared a drink over a high table. I was gratified that he wasn't holding our discussion against me... if anything, he seemed easier in my company.

I was not the only one who noted it, either. The following morning I had a missive from Rabeil, one that prompted me to summon Kuli to my office. Such a funny thing: no one ever knew where to look for Kuli and yet they knew they had only to ask enough people to find her among some group, talking, watching them at their labors, helping in her own way. House Asara adored her... and her contentment came with her through my door. She settled on the edge of a chair in front of me, one leg folded under her; today she was in someone's tunic, a little too large for her but in a harmonious soft gold edged in brown.

"Ke Pathen?" she said. "I hope there's not something wrong?"

"Rather the contrary," I said. "Rabeil has approved our request."

Her eyes brightened. "Then..."

"If you have two names I can give them for our first candidates," I said, "they'll send them along."

"Oh, ke emodo!" she exclaimed. "How did you convince them?"

I thought of wine in cups on a shared table. "They reached the decision for their own reasons, I'm sure."

She sat back, which for Kuli meant sitting upright rather than leaning forward in interest. Folded her hands in her lap and cocked her head. "And you were one of those reasons. It really is true, isn't it."

"What is?" I asked.

"You said that we're safe here,” she answered. “That you have made it safe here."

I hesitated. "That's my goal, yes."

She smiled and rose. "Start with Ineret and Selfa. I'll be glad to have their company again and neither of them has seen the sun in a long time."

"I'll tell Rabeil," I said.

"Thank you," she said, touching the heel of her hand to her womb and then to her brow. And then she left, taking her enigmatic expression with her.

The week that followed was a good one. Freed by Thesenet to use its best judgment, Hesa began work on the warehouse contract in earnest, and it was rarely happier than when it was executing a difficult and engaging project. I knew this because the trysts that Darsi safeguarded saw it into my arms several times, and I drank its satisfaction like a heady liquor. We received our anadi as well and their gratitude at being free, if only for a few weeks, was heart-wrenching. Kuli brought them outside to help her with the gardens, and while they were shyer of House Asara than Kuli, the emodo and eperu could not help but care about them. It was a rare day I didn't glance outside an east-facing window and see the three of them in a patch of shade by the gardens, being aided by whatever member of the House could be spared. Someone always had a little time to spare.

But only a little. At the end of the week, Abadil called me into the great room he and the others had converted into a paper-making facility. There on a table was a single page, a square as wide as my open arms. It was a smooth, dark cream color, faintly textured, and seeing it I wanted immediately to feel it and stopped. "May I?"

"Go ahead," Abadil said, satisfied.

I lifted the edge and felt the gratifying lightness of it—a lifetime of handling waxed rounds and slates had trained my wrists to expect something with more heft. For what it was, though, the paper felt sturdy and the texture was as pleasing to touch as it had been to look at. "This will last?"

"This will last," Abadil said, arms folded. Then added, one ear quirked, "We're fairly sure, anyway. The only way to know is to use it and see if it falls apart in five years or fifty."

One of the emodo behind him spoke... our spy, I saw, Kaliser, who by his glowing eyes had well and truly become a believer. In paper, at least. "We've tested it in every other way. Tearing, rolling, folding, dropping water on it, dropping it in water, staining, pressing..."

"Even chewing," someone said in the crowd, prompting laughter in my watchers.

"As far as it's possible to compare, it's like the paper we have remaining from the archives," Kaliser finished.

Abadil bent and retrieved a small wooden tray from beneath the table. There was a pot of ink on it and a brush, like the ones Transactions kept for painting House stones. "If you would, ke emodo? We've been saving it for you."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Please," he said.

I took the tray and set it carefully on the edge of the desk before uncapping the pot and dipping the brush in it. My fingers chafed the barrel as I considered what to write and how to write it... a brush doesn't handle like a stylus or a piece of chalk. And who had ever had such a vast field to write on? It would be more like using a stick to draw on the ground than the cramped motions we used for writing anything official.

Tasking myself to treat it more like the breadth of the World than like a tiny stone made me suddenly feel it that way. How cheap paper would open minds. What a wonder to sit in front of a stack like this and know you could write large, write your thoughts no matter how long...!

I smelled the acrid fragrance of the ink as I set brush to paper. I wrote the date, each letter as tall as my palm, and then under it: "House Asara recreates the art of paper-making."

I stepped back, wiping the brush on a towel, and Abadil moved into my place. He read the words aloud and his team erupted into cheers. As they congratulated themselves, Abadil grinned and said, "We'll hang this page on the wall once the ink dries and get to work making you some money, ke emodo."

"By revolutionizing Ke Bakil," I said, amused.

"Of course!" Abadil said. "I'll be one of the rarest of things: a historian who makes history." He bent toward me, smiling. "Do you doubt it?"

I thought of the sense of freedom that had suffused me, feeling the brush in my hand and all that space before me, waiting to be filled. "No. Not at all."

"If it weren't for Darsi, I'd never see you," I said between ravenous kisses and Hesa laughed against my mouth.

"I know it must seem that way," it said, and made its way along my jaw, nipping. "But we are very busy. We want to send the first caravan out by the end of autumn."

I rested my hands on its arms, pulling away just enough to be able to concentrate. "That's barely two months from now."

"The sooner they go, the sooner we can tend to our own needs as well as het Narel's," Hesa said.

"If you're sure it can be done," I said, thumbs chafing its arms, slowly. "I don't want our people collapsing of exhaustion."

"We'll be fine," it said, reaching for the buttons at my chest. "I'm finally able to run an operation with more than a double handful of eperu! What I would have given in het Kabbanil to have that luxury, but we lost most of our eperu to the empire when it first took power." It smiled up at me, eyes bright. "No fears, Pathen. The work is good."

"If my pefna says it is so," I said, tangling my fingers in its mane, "then it must be so. But I must say, you're terribly ambitious."

It laughed. "You hardly know the depth of it, setasha."

Sometime later we slept... that too was a gift Darsi made us, since the frequency of our nights together meant we spent less of them sating urgent needs and more of them just... touching, or talking. Or even sleeping together. Eperu do not sleep the deep sleep of breeders, but I grew accustomed to the rhythm of its breathing as it moved through its lighter dreams. I could judge the strain of the day by how deeply Hesa slept. Now and then it even approached a breeder's slumber.

There was no excuse for both of us failing to hear our trespasser but we didn't until a scrape of a paw against stone jerked us both awake. The noise was in the bedroom, not the antechamber. I sat up, claws out, about to demand a name.

"Ke emodo?"

I frowned. "Kuli...?"

"Ah, I'm sorry. I should have said something earlier but I didn't want to wake you—"

"Earlier?" I hissed. "How long have you been here?"

"Not long," she said, sounding distressed. "I just... I've been pacing outside, a little. There is a question I have wanted to ask you."

In the middle of the night? I thought, torn between irritation and concern. "All right, Kuli. Could you... just wait outside the bedroom while I dress?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes, and... I'm sorry for interrupting your sleep, and ke Hesa's."

"W-what?" I said.

"It's here, isn't it?" she asked, her voice earnest. "I can't see it, but I can hear it breathing, and smell it."

Behind me, Hesa had frozen. And then, low, it said, "Pathen, get a light."

I reached to the side-table and fumbled for the lamp until I could start it. The flame revealed Kuli by the door, hugging herself and looking confused.

"Did I say something wrong?" she said. "I'm sorry. I haven't said anything to anyone—"

"How did you find out?" I asked, tense.

"I wander at night," she said. "Most anadi do, we're used to being more wakeful at night when it's cooler. The other two don't have the habit so much because they've been underground, but I was with House Rabeil before I came here and I got used to being up at night. I saw ke Hesa coming here earlier."

"Kuli," I began.

"I know," she said. "I won't ever say anything. Don't you think I know better?" She flattened her ears. "I would never betray you or anyone in Asara to the empire. That's... that's why I'm here, actually. Seeing ke Hesa come here, it was the last thing I needed."

Hesa drew itself up behind me, resting a hand on my back and looking over my shoulder at Kuli. "Needed for what?" it asked.

"To make my decision," Kuli said. She drew in a breath and met my eyes. "Ke emodo. I want to give House Asara a baby."

I was glad I was already sitting. "Kuli... I'm… not sure I heard that correctly."

"I think you did and you just can't believe it," she answered. "But I mean it. I want to give the House a child. Maybe several."

All three of us were silent then. Hesa's hand on my back trembled, but that was all.

"I've borne two already," she said. "If you're worried about my health. I know I can do it."

"Two pregnancies without the mind-tax is rare enough," I said. "Kuli, the risk..."

"It's worth it," she said. "I want to do this. Ke Pathen..." She trailed off, then shook herself and said more firmly, "Ke Pathen. I don't want to give children to anonymous emodo. I don't want to risk myself for strangers. But House Asara has become my family. I care about the people here. And more importantly, it's safe here. To live and love and thrive." She glanced at Hesa, then back at me. "I want my children to be born here. I want them to grow up here."

"But you don't have to—"

"Have children?" she finished. "But if I don't, who will?"

"Is that a good enough reason?" I asked, ears flattening.

"Maybe not," Kuli said. "But... it's not my only reason." She padded into the room and stood in front of me, looking down at the two of us on the bed. She licked her teeth, then said, "I've marked the lights in the sky twenty-four times, ke emodo. I was born anadi and I stayed anadi through all my Turnings, and I've spent my life afraid or in a listless despair. The empire's arrival didn't really change anything for us. In some ways it was a relief because the Stone Moon didn't tell lies about the lot of the anadi. But things in Asara are different. This is the first place I've been happy. I have friends. People talk with me, have real conversations... I have a daily jenadha game! And I have a garden full of plans and a reason to look forward to seeing those plans bear fruit. I wake up looking forward to being awake...!" She smiled and all of that, all of it was in her smile. "I find I love the world at last, ke emodo. And that makes me want to give that world to someone new."

Hesa hid its head against the back of my shoulder, though I could feel it shaking. I reached for Kuli's hand and curled my fingers around hers. "Is that truly how you feel?"

"Yes," she said.

"Then why all the pacing outside?" I asked gently.

She flushed and looked away. "I thought you would think less of me."

"Less of you!" I exclaimed.

"For wanting to have children," she said. "Anadi don't want children. I don't even think emodo want children, except in abstract. I wasn't sure what you'd think of me bearing them, and then having to raise them when Houses don't have jarana anymore to help with the child-rearing, and that's without what it would cost you to fight to keep the children here—"

I touched her hand to stop her. "Kuli. Kuli! No, I don't think less of you. Quite the opposite."

Hesa cleared its throat and said, "We can work out the logistics."

"We can," I said. "Though the most important question is... who will you have as the sire?"

"Oh!" Kuli said. She smiled a little, uncertain. "I thought... well, I thought I'd ask all the emodo who went to the residence. If they'd like. We wouldn't know which of them had sired the child, but... after their experiences there, I wanted to give them a happier memory. That includes you, ke Pathen, if you want." She smiled over my shoulder at Hesa and said, "Though I know ke Hesa is good to you."

"You do?" I said, bewildered.

"Yes," Kuli said. "You're both happy. Everyone can tell." She lifted her hands at my expression. "Not that you make each other happy, but that you're a good Head of Household, Pathen. Like in the days before the empire. When there was a good Head of Household, everyone was happy. That's what they say."

"I see," I said, dizzied.

"So... will you allow it?" she asked, clasping her hands in front of her breast.

"If you're certain," I said. "Yes."

"Oh!" she said, sighing. "Thank you. Thank you, ke emodo." She gave us the Trinity's full gesture which I hadn't seen in so long... I couldn't remember. When had the sexes intermingled enough to make it necessary outside of the temple, and who bowed to the gods with the Stone Moon's foot on their necks? But Kuli set her open hand at her womb—anadi—then touched her heart with the side of her hand—eperu—and rested the base of her palm at her brow—emodo.

The proper response from me was an open hand at my brow, so I gave it to her... felt Hesa behind me mimick me, but with open hand at its heart.

"You honor us, ke anadi," I said. "And House Asara."

"Thank you, ke emodo, ke eperu," she answered, somber. But her eyes welled with her happiness. "I'll leave you to your rest."

After she'd left I slumped onto my side, heart racing. Hesa lowered itself beside me and threaded its arm over my ribcage, hand spread on my breastbone. I felt its cheek against the back of my shoulder.

"What just happened?" I whispered.

"An anadi chose the welfare of the species over her own life," Hesa said softly, "because of what you have created here."

"No," I murmured. "It's not that simple."

"Yes, it is," Hesa said. "And... no, it's not."

I looked over my shoulder at it, disgruntled, and it chuckled softly at my expression. "This won't solve the Jokka's problems," it said. "Kuli is an exceptional anadi, and I don't think every anadi will make her choice if they are made to feel loved and respected. But I think there are anadi who would. That's assuming, of course, that every House will choose to treat their anadi as people. Many of them will only remember the heartbreak of watching their female members dwindle and shy from opening their arms to them."

"So why haven't we?" I asked, voice low. "What makes Asara different?"

"You do," Hesa said. "You treat the eperu like the emodo. You treat the anadi like the emodo. You care about all of us, Pathen. And a House acts like its Head. You're brave, just and kind... so we follow."

I grimaced. "Gods, Hesa. You make me sound like some paragon."

Its fingers tickled my heart lightly and I squirmed. "You have your weaknesses. Red-headed eperu among them."

"One red-headed eperu, anyway," I said. "Whose red hair I still miss."

Hesa nipped the back of my neck and I could hear the grin in its voice. "The day will come."

I turned, rolling it onto its back and holding myself over it. "You say everyone follows my steps, ke eperu... but I say to you the House takes its models from the principals of its House, not just the Head."

"And what House has had principals since the Stone Moon?" Hesa asked, gaze serious. "The empire came and made the pefna, the jarana, the kaña all irrelevant. Emodo had power. Everyone else was a convenient tool."

I leaned down and licked its lips until it let me kiss it. When it was shivering under me, I murmured in its ear, "I'll accept responsibility for the House's generosity of spirit only if you share it with me, ke eperu."

"Done," it answered, and pulled me down to it.

The news of Kuli's choice spread like fire in a dry field. When I returned home from my errands in the het—Transactions again, in preparation for the last group of eperu waiting to join the House—I could taste the excitement in the halls. Where there were people working, I heard them talking about it: that Kuli wanted a baby. A baby! I paused in the door to Abadil's shop and heard the emodo teasing the prospective fathers about their luck. That alone... that the emodo she'd decided to lie with were considered fortunate... what a change Kuli had managed in a single day.

From there I strolled outside. The eperu left behind from the warehouse project to tend the fields were filled with the same enthusiasm, but of a different sort: they were talking amongst themselves about which of them had the most experience with anadi, with pregnancies, with children. Where there were eperu borrowed from the empire, they were asking whether the visitors had wisdom to share on the matter. They were, I realized, trying to elect a jarana for the House. I wondered when Hesa would show up in my office with the eperu they'd decided was best suited to the task and guessed it would only be a few days, if that.

Kuli was in her garden-to-be with the other two anadi. They were deep in some conference that I did not want to interrupt, but I could hear the whispers, fervent and excited. Her two companions seemed uncertain, but her happiness was infectious. They couldn't help but react to it, relax into it. Would they give her advice, I wondered? Would they help when her time came? These two wouldn't be here to see the end of her pregnancy, and I wondered how the anadi who would take their place would react.

I prayed Kuli would have an easy time of it. For all our sakes. I didn't want to think what would happen to House Asara if the first anadi they embraced lost herself in labor.

When I returned to the House I went to the common room for tea. There I found Darsi bent over a floorplan of the estate, talking with an emodo and an eperu about choosing a good room for a nursery because, above all, there would be no using the caverns for anything but storing food.

I poured my cup and took it outside, and in the hall I stopped and closed my eyes. I don't know how long I stood there, but I at some point drew in a breath and went to my office to do my own work.

Perhaps it was our joy that distracted us. Two days later I was having my predawn tea with Darsi when an eperu skidded into the hall and ran to my door. "Ke emodo! The fields have been destroyed!"

Darsi and I both stood. "What?" I said.

"Come, quickly, please!" it said, and the two of us hurried after it.

That is how I came to stand outside our property at the foot of our fields in the chill dark before dawn, looking at the utter ruin of the crops. Nearly all of them had been... shorn? Trampled? Destroyed, certainly, for they'd been crushed and scattered. They'd only been a month from harvest.

"Void," Darsi whispered, pulling my robe more closely around himself. "What happened?"

I swept the fields with a glance, found a knot of eperu bent over several fallen. I went there immediately and crouched alongside the first. Not dead, I saw—thank the Void, for it tamped my wrath to something manageable—but shivering from exposure and rubbing chafed wrists. When it saw me, it cringed and said in a hoarse rasp, "Ke emodo, we tried—"

"Of course you did," I said, setting a hand on its arm. "Tell me what happened."

"There were too many of them," the eperu said. "At least twenty, more. We never saw their faces. They blew out the firebowls first and then overwhelmed us... and then... this. They did this."

We left only a handful of eperu to watch the fields at night, to chase away pests and keep an eye out for fire. Few people employed formal guards anymore, save for prestige; the empire's Claws enforced the law and prevented crime. But those Claws patrolled the streets, not the fields held in common for the het. One did not target crops when the Jokka were still recovering from past famines.

"I'm sorry, ke emodo," the eperu said. "We have failed you, the House, the het."

There was raw skin around its mouth where it had been gagged. I wonder how long it had screamed to have frayed the flesh so badly, to have such a ruin of a voice left over.

"You have not failed us," I said. "Blame for this will fall entirely on those who committed the crime... as it should. And we will find them and punish them."

It drooped in its fellow's arms. To it, I said, "Take them inside, have them tended, get something warm in them."

"Yes, ke emodo."

I found Hesa surveying the destruction, crouched beside one of the crushed stalks.

"Is any of it salvageable?" I asked.

It dusted its hands free of soil and rose. "We might be able to get something out of the northeastern edge, if we're careful. They did their work well."

I had forgotten what Hesa's anger sounded like. It sang dangerous harmony with my own.

Behind us, Darsi said, "But who would do this? What's the point of it? I don't understand. All they've done is cut into the het's food store. Who'd want to do that?"

"We need to find out if anyone else's fields were targeted," Hesa said to me.

Hearing something in its voice, I said, "But...?"

"But I don't think they were," Hesa said. "I think you'll find the only House that has suffered this crime is Asara." It looked at me, eyes flashing in the brittle light just staining the horizon. "This was a message, Pathen. They left our eperu alive instead of killing them so we'd know that someone came in force expressly to destroy our harvest."

"But why?" Darsi repeated.

"To trouble our relationship with the Minister?" I murmured, frowning.

"Or to use up our money," Hesa said. "We'll have to pay the difference now in taxes."

"Then someone who thought we could be ruined by running us out of money might have made the attempt," I said.

"Pathen," Hesa said, voice sharp, "they're right. Unless you're hiding funds I don't know about... we won't have enough to cover the cost."

Darsi paled. "You're not serious."

"Even with the warehouse contract?" I said to Hesa.

"We're spending money to fulfill that contract right now," Hesa said. "It won't start earning us money until the first caravans come back."

"Abadil will be ready to sell in a few weeks," Darsi said. "He wants to build up inventory before we take it to the marketplace..." He stopped short and said, "Do they know about the paper?"

The thought of someone forcing their way into the House and destroying all Abadil's infrastructure was enough to blind me with rage. Before I could answer, Hesa said, "We'll put guards on it. But we'll have to take eperu away from the warehouse project to do it, which will delay the completion of the contract."

"We need the last of our people," I said.

"But what will you hire them with?" Hesa said. "Shell?"

"I'll have to go to Thesenet," I said. "When would the empire normally be collecting the tax on unused fields?"

"At harvest," Hesa said. "That's a month from now."

"Two weeks before the Leaf Gathering," Darsi murmured. "I wonder if someone was hoping that we'd go bankrupt, lose our status, and no longer be able to attend."

"They will be hoping that until the day the Void culls their souls," I said. "We're not falling if  I have to beg Thesenet for an extension. And I won't have to." Hesa's expression prompted me to take its arm in a hand. I bent toward it and said, "Hesa, trust me."

"Pathen..."

"Didn't you say money wasn't power?" I said. "You were right. Trust me."

"It's not power but it can ruin you," it said.

"Hesa," Darsi said, surprising me by touching its other shoulder. It looked at him, startled. He said, "He's right. We'll find a way."

Hesa closed its eyes and let its head droop. "All right," it said heavily. "All right." It looked up at me, eyes glowing. "But promise me, Pathen. Promise me we'll find these people."

"Oh, we will," I said. I looked at the ruin of the field. "For assaulting our people... and for stealing food from the mouths of others just to hurt us... we will. In fact..." I frowned. "Do we have guards on the warehouse site?"

Hesa looked up at me, ears slicked to its mane. "No. There are no goods being kept there right now. There's nothing to guard but the unfinished building and the three wagons we've bought toward the initial caravan."

"But if they destroy those, and the building..." Darsi trailed off.

Hesa drew in a breath, shaking.

I lifted a hand. "Set a watch on it but make sure the watchers are concealed. Our enemy may have a spy to tell them we are launching the paper project, but even if they do their more likely target is the least defensible, and the one that will put us in bigger trouble with the empire. They'll move for the warehouse next."

"We're going to be very short on eperu," Hesa said, low.

"We can put emodo to work guarding the paper," Darsi said. "Maybe they can take turns sleeping in the project room."

"Emodo sleep too deeply," Hesa said.

"Then they can take turns keeping a watch," I said. "The entire empire is overseen by emodo enforcers."

"Who failed to catch our assailants before they could bankrupt us!" Hesa exclaimed.

"Yes," I murmured. "I'll have to discuss that with Thesenet also."

Darsi said, "It can be done. And they'll be eager to do it. It's their project, Hesa. They care about it." He smiled a little. "Or if you're still not convinced, we can have the anadi check on them to make sure they're still awake. They wander at night. I'm sure Kuli and the others would be proud to be asked to contribute."

"That's not a bad idea," I said.

"You want to put anadi to work helping emodo to guard the House?" Hesa said, struggling for composure.

"It's their House too," I said gently.

"And we are shorthanded," Darsi said. "We'll all pull together. Once the wagon's free of the mud you can go back to coddling the breeders."

Hesa covered its face with its hands. To Darsi, I said, "Will you contact Thesenet for me, please? We'll have to begin a formal investigation."

"Yes, Pathen," he said, and took his leave.

I stood facing my pefna, whose arms I very much wanted to clasp in my own. But even that minor gesture would have been too demonstrative for the parts we played in public, and we were in the middle of an open field with the empire either about to be summoned or already on its way.  So I lowered my voice and let it hear my conviction in it. "Hesa. Setasha. We will make this right."

It let its hands fall from its face and drew in a long breath. Then squared its shoulders. "You're right," it said. "I'll go arrange for the warehouse's spies. I'll send the eperu who were attacked... it will comfort them to have something constructive to do."

"Good," I said. "I'll be here with the minister if you need me."

It glanced once at the field, then said, "All right, Pathen." And went to its duties, leaving me to survey the wreckage of House Asara's contribution to the food stores of het Narel. I crouched and ran my fingers through the rumpled soil, feeling the fibrous stalks of the grain where they'd been trampled into the earth. Here and there I found scattered seeds. It felt gritty, like the oily ash of the truedark settlement's remains. I tasted that ash in my mouth and knew it as an anger so deep I couldn't separate it from the rest of me. Had Suker said I resented the empire for its injustice? He'd been right. But he had not gone far enough. I hated all injustice. I hated waste. I hated fear and grief. All the things that made the Jokka their prey... those things I swore to hunt to ground.

I would catch the people responsible for this crime. It was only a matter of time.

By mid-morning Thesenet's Claws were searching my fields for evidence as I stood with the minister at the border.

"This is monstrous," he said. "Absolutely monstrous."

"Yes," I said. "I presume we're the only ones who suffered the attack."

"We've heard of no others," Thesenet said, tail twitching in sharp, angry flicks. "They came at night when the Claws were sure to be gone. Did they know that they're only here to oversee the eperu still aiding House Asara with the harvest?"

"I don't know," I said.

"I should have left some here to watch," Thesenet growled.

"You didn't know someone would do this," I said. And added, "Though if you wished to lend me a few of those Claws I would put them to good use."

Thesenet glanced at me, brows rising. "Oh?"

"Guarding the warehouse and the paper operation," I said. "It seems clear someone wants to see House Asara fail. Which it will, Minister, if you do not offer us an extension on our taxes at harvest's end. We don't have the money to compensate the Stone Moon for the entirety of our crop offering."

Thesenet's ears flattened. "Was that their game then?"

"That's our guess," I said.

"Someone put their jealousy at your House's success over the welfare of the Jokka of het Narel," Thesenet said, lips peeling back from his teeth.

"Over the Jokka of Ke Bakil," I said. "Since famine anywhere in the empire is mitigated by the common store."

Thesenet was silent, standing alongside me. The cold morning wind pulled at our clothes, whispered unfettered over the now naked fields where the silhouettes of emodo in the empire's uniforms picked through the detritus, backlit by the rising eastern sun. We savored our shared anger and it made us kin.

"You'll have your Claws," Thesenet said.

"They'll say you are showing favor to us," I said.

"Let them," Thesenet said. "They wish to come between House Asara and the Stone Moon ministry in het Narel? Let us show them how their efforts have brought us closer instead."

What a poor, poor decision our enemy had made to target us. I said after a moment, "The emodo you send. Ask for volunteers."

"Yes," Thesenet said. "That would be best."

As I expected, the Claws found nothing despite spending the afternoon seeking evidence. There had been little consistency in the destruction: the stalks had been scythed, or knifed, or trampled or crushed; the breaks were at different heights; and the ground was too firm in most places to hold a print, or where it could the prints were confused by what looked like wrappings. Thesenet left as angry as any member of House Asara, promising tax extensions and volunteer Claws to guard us. We agreed that publicly House Asara was to have suffered a terrible natural disaster... let our enemies be confused as to whether the empire was helping us or if we were lying to it.

Given the magnitude of the disaster, we had come out of it well. Thesenet hadn't needed to be guided toward any of the decisions we'd needed him to make in order to preserve the House's future, and by late afternoon we'd received aid in the form of eight Claws. I kept four of them to safeguard the estate and sent the others to Hesa at the warehouse site. That the Jokka of the House seemed to feel no dread in response to the sight of these additions didn't occur to me as odd until much later, when I found myself in my antechamber after an exhausting day, eating supper four hours late. Our House, full of dissidents, rebels and perverts, had gladly embraced the empire's enforcers. And one had only to look into the eyes of the Claws to see their zeal on our behalf.

Truly, the webs of trust we were weaving had grown convoluted.

Hesa dragged itself in the door and to a chair, and as I watched poured itself a cup of warmed wine from my jar. "For once," it said, voice ragged with weariness, "no one will be looking askance at me for being here. They all think I have been too late working, and thus very late with my report to you. Which... is actually true." It drank, and finished, "Darsi is busy with Kuli."

"Darsi is what?" I said.

"Kuli wants her baby," Hesa said. "Kuli has not changed her mind despite this proof that the House is not safe. 'Of course it's not safe, ke eperu,'"—a credible imitation of Kuli's intonation, if not the soft soprano of her voice—" 'Life isn't safe. But I believe in House Asara.' "

"So she and Darsi..."

"Are copulating in her room," Hesa said. And slumped onto the table, shoulders shaking.

Concerned, I touched one of them. "Tell me."

"How many times can you save us from destruction, Pathen? Before the gods decide you have cheated them once too often?"

I thought of Keshul and said, "Maybe the gods are on our side this time."

"Oh no," Hesa said, and lifted its head, weary. "No... the gods have never been on our side. Or where were they when the Stone Moon came?"

"Then take Kuli's words to heart and believe in me," I said. When I had its attention, I said, "Whether I like to remember it or not, setasha, I was a Claw once. And some part of me will always remain one. The empire and I... we know one another. We were family once. When we're in the same room together some part of us still thinks of each other that way. Does that make sense?"

"Maybe," Hesa said, hesitant.

"The goal is not to destroy," I said. "The goal is to reform. To evolve."

It sighed. And said, "I've set the watch on the warehouse. The extra emodo were welcome... but I don't like them being in the House."

"The empire put spies in our midst," I said. "But at least one of them is no longer certain of his loyalties. Let the Claws patrol our property, Hesa. The more they know of us, the more like family we'll become."

"I hope you're right," it murmured. And pushed itself to its feet. "I should go. There are strangers in the House."

"Yes," I said. I trusted the Claws to do their job and I knew if they stayed long enough I could win them to us. But it was unreasonable to expect them not to report capital crimes to the Minister... like perversion. But I let myself catch its hand and stroke the underside of its callused fingers, the length of its palm. This it permitted with a shiver. "Go rest, pefna." I smiled. "House Asara is making a baby. Not everything is going wrong in the World."

"No," it murmured. "I suppose not." It curled its fingers around mine, then released them. "Good night, Pathen."

I wanted the protection of my emodo paper-makers more than I begrudged the emptiness of my bed... but I very much regretted not being able to comfort my beloved that night.

The following days were difficult and hectic ones. I spent them nose-deep in accounts either in my office or in the Holdings branch of Transactions, where the Ministry stored financial records. Thesenet and I had several lively discussions about how long an extension I needed and why, by the way, did I want to hire now when my assets were technically frozen. But I was determined to have the last of my eperu support brought in from the truedark kingdom and fought for it, and at last Thesenet obliged me after I pointed out that nothing would convince the het of our continued good relationship like House Asara being able to hire labor despite a destroyed crop offering. “It will convince our enemies to try something new to sabotage the relationship,” I said, and because Thesenet agreed I was given leave to hire... but not to pay anyone in the House, nor make any purchases or withdrawals that did not directly relate to the warehouse project until we'd paid back the loan. The Minister was willing to go very far to accommodate us, but he could not waive the obligation.

I didn't expect him to. I was also glad Abadil had already spent the capital to finance the first year of the paper project. He was very much aware that his cheerful competition with Hesa over which of them would earn the House the most money had become a far more desperate responsibility; when I saw him in the halls he looked grim and tired.

But the last of our eperu came home to us, and their arrival allowed us to replace the Claws patrolling the House with our own people. We sent the Claws to the warehouse site. Though we'd found our borrowed enforcers agreeable we were still glad to have our privacy. I certainly was, and Hesa too, though when we finally met in the late evening we stripped one another and went to bed without doing more than touching each other here, there, a hand on a shoulder, on the chest, on the back above the base of the tail... as if reassuring one another that we were alive and whole.

And there we would have slept had we not been interrupted. At least this time we both recognized her footfalls.

"Kuli?" I said, tired. "Is something wrong?"

"If this is a bad time," she said and paused.

"No," I said, sitting up slowly. "Come in, tell us what brings you here."

She stopped at the door, one hand on the frame. "Ke emodo... you're the last."

It took me a moment to realize what she meant.

"You... you've already been with all the others?" I said, feeling as the world was shifting beneath my feet. I very much didn't want her answer to be 'yes,' but—

"You're the last." She smiled a little. "I've had time for more than once, in some cases. They've found it... comforting. That I was still planning to have the baby."

And she was proud of that, from her voice. That she'd been able to give them hope at a time when all of us felt very uncertain about our future.

"Thank you for that confidence," I said. "It makes a difference."

"I know that now," she said, voice soft. And added, "Darsi asked if the three of us—the three of us anadi, that is—were willing to check in on the paper room during the night, to make sure the guards were still awake. We've been doing that too." A smile I could hear in her voice, then. "We haven't caught anyone sleeping yet, but we did get a few board games out of it."

I had not yet answered her tacit request. I knew it, and she knew it, and Hesa knew it. The lover I'd chosen for myself was silent at my side, did not even touch me; the lover I should be welcoming into my bed remained at the door. The two of us began to speak at the same time and she lifted her hand to still me. I let her talk first.

"Ke emodo," she said. "You don't have to do this. The offer is intended to help heal. If you don't want or need that, there's no need to do it."

And I very much wanted to tell her that was so and to send her away. I almost did it. But I remembered the anadi in the harness, the sluggishness of their drugged breathing. I remembered the nightmare of laboring over them to bring forth their pleasure, for neither sex can breed without it.

We had created the anadi residences by doing exactly what I was contemplating now: turning our back on the anadi because we had reasons we'd rather not mate with them. If I sent her away, I would have to shoulder the responsibility for the residences in full understanding, both of what they entailed for the anadi imprisoned in them, and of what I had been incapable of to spare them.

So I said, "I would be honored by your trust, Kuli."

I could hear her smile in her voice. It was a gentle one. "May I bring a light?"

"I'll get it," Hesa said.

"No," Kuli said. "No, please, ke Hesa. I'd like you to stay. If you're willing. And... if it doesn't distress you, ke Pathen. It wouldn't be strange to me. There were always observers in the residences." Her tail hissed as it dragged back against the stone. "I'll get the light."

"Pathen?" Hesa asked when she had withdrawn. "I'll stay if you wish."

"Do you wish, though?" I asked.

It looked toward the door, then said, "Kuli asked."

I set a hand on its arm. "If you don't want to have to see me..."

It rested its head against mine, smiled, and the love in its voice was as palpable as any caress. "Pathen. I will never doubt what you feel for me."

"You would share me with a breeder," I said.

It nudged me, nose to cheek. "I would, and I must. You're male, setasha, with a breeder's duties. To keep you from them would be a wound."

I drew in a breath. Then cupped its cheek and sighed. "All right."

When Kuli returned with the light, I was sitting on the edge of the bed to receive her. I watched as she set the lantern down on my clothes-chest, trying to see her as someone I would want in my arms. I was fond of her, but fondness is not the same as attraction. My desire to honor her didn't move my body. But I thought that instinct would finish what I began. So I brought her close and helped her remove the borrowed shirt. I kissed her neck and found her ticklishness endearing. I touched her gently, as I had the anadi in the residence, to bring forth her desire. I set her down on her back and...

...stopped.

And there I remained, unable to move, overcome by the memories and my rejection of everything in them. I tasted the wind off the plains where I'd sat for hours, trying to gain back my sense of who I was, separate from the person who'd forced himself on two Jokka who'd been so afraid of the experience they'd been sedated just to bear it.

Kuli was not afraid. Kuli was not unwilling. But I couldn't touch her, and the shame of my failure was bitter in my mouth. I wanted to speak, to apologize, and couldn't do that either.

Kuli struggled upright and reached, not for me, but for Hesa. "Ke eperu. Please, help us now. Help me."

Before I could protest, Hesa bit my shoulder and worked its way up my neck until I twitched, hissed. It kissed me, and Kuli licked down the opposite shoulder, and they pulled me down to the bed. It became a confusion then of mouths and hands and fever, and the only thing that mattered was that the smell in my nose was familiar, honey and hair dye and sunlight. Kuli bent over me, her mane falling on my chest in a heavy rope, and Hesa's voice in my ear, hot and damp, whispering the same pleas I heard when it was beneath me instead—

—when Kuli at last collapsed onto me, I curled an arm around her and closed my eyes until my panting subsided. When it did I looked down at her and found her relaxed, and on her face a look of radiant contentment. Like the sun it melted all the cold from my gut, my joints. The memories of the residence remained, but they no longer imprisoned me.

Having ensured her wellbeing, I looked reluctantly toward my lover... who was wearing an expression so complex and yet so full of awe that I longed to ask it what it was thinking. But it shook its head and mouthed, 'Later.'

I gently rolled us onto our sides facing Hesa and made sure Kuli was comfortable, since she did not seem likely to move. And there she fell asleep nestled between us. I set my head alongside Hesa's and allowed myself to follow.

Several hours later, Hesa's touch on my arm brought me from slumber. When I stiffened, it whispered, "No danger. But it's near time for me to leave. It will be dawn soon."

Kuli hadn't moved in her sleep; her head was resting on my chest beside her curled hand, and the rest of her body was cradled in the curve of Hesa's.

"They sleep deeply, don't they?" Hesa murmured, touching the anadi's shoulder with gentle fingers. "It astonishes me. I thought emodo dreamed hard."

"It's strange," I admitted. "I've grown accustomed to sleeping with someone who moves far more."

It laughed, quiet. "A kind way of saying I'm restless."

"You're eperu," I said. And looked at its face, so close to mine I could only focus on one of its eyes. "Hesa... you're well?"

"With this?" it said. It smiled, looking down so that the light gleamed on its lashes. They were still copper. "For as long as there have been eperu, Pathen, it was their duty to help the breeders, not just in the fields, but in the caverns as well. We have always been intimately involved in the care of the anadi, in their pregnancies. We raised their children with them. It was understood that this was one of our duties... one of our roles. We facilitate."

I smiled a little and nudged it. "Pefna, support."

It laughed breathily. "Yes. I've always been involved in labor. Since I was good at it, I never had the chance to take part in the other duties eperu perform." It looked up at me. "Now I have. And I feel..." It inhaled and then sighed, smiling. "I feel complete." It leaned forward and kissed me, very soft, and said, amused, "You should see your face, Pathen."

I could only imagine my expression was a mirror of its own the night before: complex, and tinged with wonder.

"Besides," it said, "it needed to be done. You needed it."

"Yes," I said. "I had to know..."

"That you were not that person, or at least not only that person," Hesa finished. "And you're not. We all know it. Now, perhaps, you know too." It cupped my cheek. "I should go... I need time to wash. And I can dye my roots before the House wakes."

"All right," I said. "Tell Darsi so he doesn't worry about coming to warn us." As it slid over me, I added, "Setasha... thank you."

It kissed me and answered, "The gift was mutual." And touched Kuli's cheek once, and my shoulder and left.

I looked at the anadi in my arms and saw the future of House Asara. I held her until after dawn and then I tucked my blanket around her and left her to sleep while I went to the day.

Two days later I was in the common room having a late night tea with Abadil and Darsi when an eperu skidded in, so quickly it grabbed the doorframe to stop itself. "Ke emodo!" it cried. "The warehouse was attacked and that attack has been repelled!"

I shoved my chair back. "Tell me we took one of them."

"We did," it said, flushed with its anger and satisfaction. "And they're bringing him here."

"Was anyone hurt?" Abadil asked from behind me.

"Not badly," the eperu said.

"Come," Darsi said. "Sit for a moment. Have something to drink." He ushered the eperu to the hearth and made sure it was recovering from the run before returning to me. "What do you want to do, Pathen?"

"With the prisoner?" I said, fighting not to bare my teeth. "Ask questions."

Abadil said, quiet, "We're not Claws to take prisoners, ke emodo, or to dispense with them as we see fit. That's the empire's job."

"And if it becomes a matter for the empire to resolve," I said, "I'll ensure he's remanded to Thesenet." To Darsi, I said, "Have them bring this person to my room when they arrive."

"Yes, ke emodo," Darsi said.

Upstairs, I went to my chest and dug into it until I found my knife. It was still wrapped in the cloth the Claws had given me in the wilderness near the razed settlement. I unwound the fabric until the blade was naked and then hooked the grip through my sash and went to my antechamber to wait.

I didn't have to wait long. I heard the commotion before the party arrived: Hesa, four of our eperu, four of the Claws... and one stranger, hands tied at the base of his tail, somewhat scuffed but nowhere near as bruised as I had expected.

"Tell me," I said.

I expected one of the Claws to answer but they deferred to Hesa, whose ears were slicked to its mane. "They waited until after we'd left for the evening to come. There were ten of them in hoods and cloaks. We came on them while they were destroying the building materials. This one wasn't as quick as his friends."

The emodo in question didn't look sinister enough for the crimes he'd committed. There was nothing remarkable about him: he was a vague grayish brown with dark hair and a narrow face. His feet were wrapped in strips of cloth and his hands were trapped behind him so I couldn't guess if he'd been born male, which might have given me some clue as to his motivation. I considered him. My rage wanted to kill him; the rest of me wanted answers, and then to kill him. It would be safer for the prisoner for there to be witnesses to our discussion... but he might talk more if we were alone.

"Leave him with me," I said.

One of the Claws said, "Ke emodo? He's a dangerous male. It may be safer to have at least one person to deter him from violence."

I took the knife from my sash and showed it to him. The weapons issued to Claws in het Narel, I'd noticed, didn't have the bone inlay meant to evoke the Stone Moon; those were limited to the first Claws of the empire, those who'd donned the uniform in het Kabbanil. My display caused widened eyes among the cohort sent by Thesenet; there was new respect in the speaker's voice when he said, "I see you can handle yourself, ke emodo."

"Nevertheless," I said. "Stay outside the door, please."

"Of course," he said, and they withdrew.

Hesa folded its arms over its chest, teeth bared. It didn't have to speak for me to know its mind: it wanted this male for itself. It wanted to ask the questions. It wanted justice. Preferably immediate justice.

"I'll take care of this," I told it.

"Then we, too, will stand outside the door," Hesa said.

"Please," I said.

Reluctantly, it left, taking the rest of Asara's eperu with it.

The moment the door closed I grabbed the emodo by the shirt and had him up against the wall.

"Now," I growled. "You will tell me who sent you."

"Or what?" the emodo said. "You'll kill m—rk!"

I pushed the blade against his neck, just enough for him to feel it. "Don't yell," I said. "I wouldn't want you to cut yourself on this by moving too much."

"I should have known you would resort to violence," he hissed. "Once a Claw of the empire, forever a Claw." He lifted his chin. "Go ahead, Stone Moon. Do it. It's what your masters want."

I pulled the blade from him as abruptly as I'd threatened him with it. Stunned, he slid to the ground and I let him, stalking to the door and pulling it open. To the Claw waiting there, I said, low, "Take him to the Minister. See if someone can find out who he is and what House he's from."

"At once, ke emodo," the Claw said, startled but recovering well.

As his subordinates fetched the prisoner, Hesa said, "Have someone check his hands for calluses or some other sign of the work he might have normally done."

"A good notion, ke eperu," the Claw said, and I liked the casual way he accepted the suggestion.

"What's your name?" I asked him.

"Ganeth, ke emodo," he said.

"Ke Ganeth, then," I said. "Thank you for your help, and well-done. Please have the Minister contact me when he knows anything."

"I shall," he said, and the Claws left, taking their bewildered criminal with them.

"You let him go," Hesa said.

"Yes," I said. "Everything I was going to get out of him, he told me in one exchange." When it glanced at me, I said, "He thinks we're in league with the Stone Moon."

Hesa stared at me. "You mean to tell me we've been attacked by people who would ordinarily be working with us."

"Yes," I said. "So perhaps you might talk with Abadil and see if he knows if there are any rebel nests in het Narel... because I very much fear we may be about to hand the Jokka who should have been our allies to the Jokka we are working to undermine."

Hesa touched its fingers to its brow. "Knowing our allies from our enemies..."

"So you said before. Go and find Abadil."

"And you?" Hesa asked. "What will you do?"

"Wrap my knife," I said, and hoped that doing so would also put away my worry and rage with the steel.

Abadil could not tell us where to look for our assailants; he knew of people but none of them had dared to band together in numbers large enough to destroy fields or construction projects. It was Thesenet who discovered the identity of my prisoner several days later and divulged it to me in his office in the seat of the Stone Moon in het Narel.

"You are not serious," I said in response to his revelation.

"I am, very much so," he answered.

"You are telling me that Akkadin, the House that produced the emperor's closest advisor and lover, is responsible for this travesty?" I said, my voice rising.

"I know," Thesenet said, dropping into his seat across from me and sighing. He looked exhausted. "I'm surprised the Fire in the Void hasn't arrived to scatter them to the sands."

I wasn't. That Akkadin had become a locus for dissent and resentment made perfect sense to me given what a Stone Moon minister had done to one of their members. It didn't matter that Keshul had become a part of the empire after his torture. The only thing relevant to the House was that they'd had first seats at the clay drama that had seen one of their most valued members dragged away in disgrace. And certainly Keshul wouldn't argue with them fighting the empire, though Thesenet did not seem to know enough about him to realize that. So I said, "Did Akkadin have some quarrel with the empire?"

"The emperor did have its Head of Household executed," Thesenet said, rueful. "That was before I arrived."

"I see," I said. "And you're absolutely sure."

"We are," Thesenet said. "Six people identified him as someone they'd known from Akkadin."

"Gods," I said. "What a waste."

"Yes," Thesenet said. He glanced at me, tired. "You don't seem quite so eager to exact justice from these people now that we have their identity."

The words left me without thought. "I'm a Claw of the empire, ke emodo. The Fire in the Void was the emperor's minister. Of course I don't relish the thought of punishing his House-mates."

That satisfied Thesenet. He didn't give me time to grapple with the fact that I'd called myself a Claw, though. "We'll have to break their House stone."

"What?" I said, looking up.

"Destruction of imperial property is a capital crime," Thesenet said. "You know that as well as I do, Pathen. And on this scale?" He twitched his shoulders. "Anything less would set a terrible precedent... and be dangerous besides."

"But Akkadin is one of the fixtures of het Narel," I said, ears swept back. "Despite being a minor House everyone knows its name because of ke Keshul. Breaking the House that gave rise to the foremost aide to the emperor!"

"I know, I know," Thesenet said, irritated. "But what else can I do!"

"Let me talk to them," I said. "Let me secure their loyalty to the empire. I can do it."

He sat back slowly, frowning. "Now you're the one saying unbelievable things, ke emodo. What could you possibly do to make it safe for me to allow a House inhabited by vandals and criminals to continue to operate in my city?"

"Their quarrel is with me and mine," I said. "Their attacks were designed to bankrupt House Asara and make the Stone Moon its enemy. I know now why they have that quarrel... and I know how to settle it. After that there will be no more attacks. You won't have to break the stone of one of the most famous Houses in het Narel... and you won't lose all of its talent to the empire's slavery. Anyone can do labor, ke Thesenet. Will you sentence all the emodo of House Akkadin to the work of eperu and see them die early for it?"

He looked away, mouth tight.

"Please," I said. "Let me try. If I fail you've lost nothing."

"Except you!" Thesenet said. "And if you think that losing the Stone Moon hero responsible for the victory over the truedark kingdom isn't significant..."

"They won't hurt me," I said. "I was trained to violence, Minister. You and I know it."

Thesenet sighed. "Fine. But take the Claws with you."

"I will," I said, to mollify him. "And I'll salvage this situation. Let the rest of the het continue to think House Asara suffered from its natural disaster. That way when House Akkadin returns peaceably to the empire's arms no one will question why they were permitted to commit a crime against the city and not suffer the penalties."

"If you succeed," Thesenet said.

"I will," I replied.

"This is madness," Hesa hissed from the back of its rikka.

"Darsi's not here, so you are are speaking for him, is that it?" I said.

"They'll want to kill you the moment you step into the House," Hesa said. "And yet you refuse to take any of us with you!"

"If I do take you with me, they really will kill me the moment I step into the House," I said.

Behind us, my borrowed Claw captain said, diffident, "Pardon me for saying so, ke emodo, but your pefna is speaking sense."

I glanced behind me; Thesenet's assigned contingent had remained with House Asara under Ganeth, and three of his subordinates were riding with him on our way to the other side of town where House Akkadin stood. I was keeping my promise to Thesenet to bring them, but I wasn't going to let them follow me into a meeting with Jokka working against the empire. And I certainly wasn't going to give the members of Akkadin an opportunity take a hostage against me... particularly one like Hesa, whose peril would not only keep me in check but reveal my own crimes to those seeking weapons against me. I could no more tell the eperu to stay behind than I could leave the Claws, but it could wait outside with them while I solved Thesenet’s—and the rebellion's—little problem in het Narel.

"Be that as it may," I said. "I think it will be a sufficient statement to ride into House Akkadin's yard with all of you. Entering the House alone should convince them that I'm there to talk."

"I don't like it," Hesa growled.

"I agree, ke emodo," my Claw said.

"You can dismount and wait at the door," I said. "But no further."

Ganeth sighed. Hesa just looked at me and I regretted the fury I saw in its eyes, knowing that it hid the fear it refused to show anyone.

I'm not sure what I'd expected of House Akkadin. It looked very much like any other minor House, and yet knowing that the Fire in the Void had lived there made me wary of its mundane appearance. If one such prodigy could spring forth from such a common-looking place, gods knew what else might be born there... other than het Narel's branch of the truedark resistance. We rode into their yard beneath the stares of the few emodo standing outside the House. There Ganeth, Hesa and I dismounted while the other Claws remained on their animals.

One of the emodo approached me, ears flat. "What does the empire want today?"

"House Asara wants a word with Akkadin's Head of Household," I said. "I'm fairly sure he'll know why."

The emodo's eyes widened and he took a step back. He glanced at the Claws and then at me.

"Now, please," I said mildly.

That emodo fled. I followed. Behind me, I heard Ganeth say to Hesa, "All right, maybe there's not as much to be worried about as I thought."

Hesa's reply: "Desperate people are always dangerous, ke emodo."

Indeed they were.

The flustered emodo led me straight to the Head of Household's office. I kept just out of sight of him; once he'd entered the room for his hasty conference, I stepped inside and closed the door for him.

Both of the emodo in the room stared at me. The Head of House Akkadin was far younger than I'd anticipated... barely past the age of his second Turning, I thought. But he was quick enough with a knife, for he had one in his hand before I'd finished entering the room.

"Don't throw it," I advised. "If you miss me, you'll be without a weapon if I lunge for you."

"I've got a knife too," the other emodo said, teeth bared.

"Which you shouldn't have informed me of," I said. And sighed. "Gods, are you all so witless? Are you trying to draw the Stone Moon down on you? Because you have... and I'm the only thing standing between you and a broken House stone."

"W-what?" the first emodo said.

The Head of Household frowned at me. "I know who you are."

"You think you know who I am," I said. "But you don't." I untied my pouch from my sash and threw it onto his desk. "A gift from a friend of mine. Have a look."

The Head of Household's eyes narrowed, but he slowly reached for the pouch. I waited for him to pick it up and open it. I'd looked myself after coming home from my meeting with Keshul but hadn't known why he would have given me such a peculiar memento.

This emodo, though, recognized it on sight. His pupils dilated and then he looked up at me. "Where did you get this!"

"From Keshul Akkadin-emodo," I said. "He said it would serve as proof of his affection."

"Is that Rashal's tail?" the first emodo asked, aghast.

The Head of Household glanced at him, then said grimly, "And part of the bone attachment, yes." He fingered the metal ring at the end of the braid. "He was fond of these ornaments."

"Your former Head of Household, I presume," I said, understanding finally.

"Yes," the youth behind the desk said. "He gave Keshul to the Stone Moon to be tortured... and for that, Keshul arranged to have him killed. Though I didn't know he'd taken the tail as a trophy." He looked up at me. "I'm Shekonet Akkadin-emodo. I'm not the Head of House Akkadin."

"But you're the head of its resistance," I said. "So you're the one responsible for stealing the food from the mouths of your fellow Jokka."

"An emodo moves into het Narel, one responsible for the destruction of the hope of the Jokka's freedom from tyranny," he said. "A male who somehow learned the most secret names of all our leaders and where they were hiding... and destroyed them. And you think I wouldn't raze a field to ruin him?" His eyes burned. "The empire burned a great deal more when it destroyed the truedark kingdom."

"Yes," I said. "But your actions have put me in the awkward position of having to save a House that the empire should be punishing at a time when I'm trying to convince the empire I'm on its side." I leaned forward and said, "Shekonet. I appreciate your ardor and I understand what you're trying to accomplish. But the only thing standing between you and destruction right now... is me."

"And what is it that you want?" he asked, ears flat.

"I want you to follow me," I said.

"Follow a Stone Moon Claw!" the other emodo said, incensed. "We would never—"

Shekonet held up a hand to still him, and incredibly the other obeyed. There was something in him, then: the others deferred to him despite his youth. I could see it, too… there was something in his eyes. What had he seen, I wondered, to give him such steadiness of purpose? "Why should we?"

"You'd prefer to haul paving stones east down the road to the sea?" I asked. "Because those are your choices." I gentled my voice. "Ke emodo. I need help building an alternative to the empire. I know Keshul would be pleased to hear that House Akkadin had a hand in that endeavor. But it's building that we're doing... not destroying. I can't help you if you continue to commit acts of vandalism against the Stone Moon. I had to talk the Minister into allowing me to make this attempt as it is."

Shekonet studied me. Then smiled ruefully. "You remind me a little of the seer."

"I don't see how," the other emodo muttered. "Keshul was tough and brave and smart. This emodo is—"

"—a guest of House Akkadin," Shekonet interrupted. "Why don't you get us some tea, Mekun." After he'd left, Shekonet said, "Forgive him. He was close to Bilil... have you met him?"

"I've met her," I said.

"Yes," Shekonet said. "You see some of the problem." He smiled a little. "He was of an age with us when he lived here as ke Keshul's apprentice, and he Turned late... very late. The Stone Moon took him—her—away to the anadi residence." He sat and gestured to the chair across from his. "There is too much history here. We drown in it."

"So I see," I said.

"Is it true?" he asked, hesitant. "Does the empire know we committed the crimes?"

"They identified one of the males in the raiding warehouse party as belonging to Akkadin," I said. "Based on that the Minister would rather break you all than take the chance the House is harboring dissidents."

Shekonet blanched and closed his eyes. He steadied himself with a breath and then said, "Tell me what we have to do to save Akkadin."

"You jest," Thesenet said to me over our table on the roof of the cheldzan shervel. "They wanted the warehouse contract?"

"They want to be a Great House," I said, toying with my tea-cup. "Or more accurately, they feel they deserve to be a Great House, having given the empire one of its most notable ministers. It has never ceased to rankle that they haven't risen in status along with their former House-member."

"You're telling me this really was jealousy," Thesenet said, appalled.

"They want to serve the empire," I said.

"They want power!" Thesenet exclaimed. "That's different!"

"Beneath the Stone Moon, one acquires power by serving the empire," I said. "Minister, they are a tool waiting to be used. You can destroy them or you can put their zeal to work on the behalf of the het and the empire. Think of this as... an opportunity."

"You're mad," Thesenet said to me. "Pathen, they're criminals!"

"Love makes us all do mad things," I said.

"You... you're laughing?" Thesenet said with a scowl. "You find this funny?"

"It does strike me as ridiculous, yes," I said. "Doesn't it strike you that way?"

Exasperated, Thesenet refilled his tea. As he did, I said, "They want to be important, ke Thesenet. Give them something to do and they'll stop growling at the heels of every other House with an important contract. Isn't ke Keshul's House worth that much consideration?"

"I suppose," Thesenet grumbled. "But I don't know what I'm going to do with them."

"Put them to work copying records," I said. He looked up at me so I continued, "Our first stack of paper will be ready soon. Someone's going to have to shift all the records in Transactions and Holdings to paper. And there's everything in the historical archives as well. Het Narel is known for its archive... we could make copies of everything in it now and send them to other parts of the empire cheaply."

"Cheap copies!" Thesenet said. "Strange thought." But he had that look in his eyes, the 'seeing all possibilities' look.

"There's too much work there for the emodo employed at Transactions to handle," I said. "And you don't want them wasting their time on it when they need to be serving the current needs of the het. Why not let Akkadin do it, then? It will keep them inside. It will keep them busy. It will give them the prestige they crave, to be the first House entrusted with the transfer of records. And it would save them for the empire, which prevents the waste of their talents."

"Fine," Thesenet said. "But I want to talk to these people. If they don't show the proper remorse, if they aren't respectful—"

"They will be," I promised, for I had coached Shekonet in his new role as imperial devotee.

Thesenet sighed. "Pathen. There is not enough liquor in the empire for this job."

"At least let me help you make a start on it, then," I said, and called one of the servers over.

I heard no news about House Akkadin in the days that followed. My frequent errands to Transactions showed their House stone still on display so I gathered Shekonet had played his part well. I was glad to have averted that catastrophe and gladder yet that we'd neutralized the enemy responsible for our losses. But the resulting shortfall catapulted the House into a frenzy of activity. With the House's financial needs falling on them both, Abadil and Hesa worked far too long, and both took to falling asleep at their respective project sites. I let it go with Hesa because the eperu could afford to spend themselves without proper rest... but when I saw Abadil sleeping on the floor in the paper room one too many times I drew him into the common room and forced him to eat. As he stumbled through the meal, I said, "You need to take better care of yourself."

"We'll be able to sell next week," he said, ignoring the comment.

"What?" I said, startled.

"Next week," he said, groping for his cup. "We'll be ready. We'll have enough for the empire's first shipment, plus extra to sell at the storefront. When we have a storefront. You should get us one."

"How is that possible?" I asked. "Where are you finding the time?"

Abadil smiled wearily. "The eperu you set to guarding us at night? I trained them on the process. So two of them guard and the rest of them—"

"—make paper," I said. "Without a permit for cross-sex work."

"I assumed you wouldn't report me to the Stone Moon for inappropriate use of eperu labor," Abadil said, too tired to put much vim into the words.

The image of eperu doing fine-work, the sort of work reserved to emodo, was striking. I shook myself and said, "Even adding a second shift I don't see how it's possible. The expeditions to gather material take a day each."

"Not anymore," Abadil said. At my glance, he said, "We're using the crops. They're right outside the door and there's nothing else to do with them. It was let them rot or put them in the molds." He met my eyes. "Next week, ke emodo. House Asara will be solvent again."

"You're that certain," I said.

"I am," Abadil said. "Now stop fretting about me and worry about the warehouse project. That's the one we need to succeed, and quickly."

"Despite it spending all the money you'll be making," I said.

"Money isn't power," Abadil said with a sudden grin. "It just helps."

I laughed. "All right. Next week, then. But at least have a proper cot brought in if you're going to fall asleep in the work-room."

"I promise," Abadil said, resting his hand over his heart.

Four days later, Abadil was walking beside me down the streets of het Narel, leading a rikka-drawn cart loaded with the first stack of paper. When we arrived at Transactions I was not surprised to find the minister awaiting us, the cool morning sunlight gilding his face and shoulders.

"I heard the new paper was arriving today," he said. "May I?"

"Please," I said. "Ke Abadil?"

Abadil led the minister to the back of the cart. The eperu of House Asara had built special crates to the paper’s measure, using strips of precious wood joined with exquisite craftsmanship and branded on the top with Asara’s House sigil. Abadil lifted the lid on one of them so Thesenet could reach inside and touch the smooth surface of the topmost sheet. I saw the shiver that ran the length of his spine and smiled.

"You have a cost per sheet?" Thesenet said mildly once he joined me.

"Why don't we go inside," I said, "and discuss it."

News of House Asara's innovation spread so quickly that by the time Darsi and I arrived to the evening meeting in the cheldzan we were crowded by the worthies of the city with questions. When the Head of House Dzeri signaled me with a significant look I left Darsi to handle the barrage and allowed Dzeri to draw me aside. Managing property took a great deal of administration. I could only imagine how many waxed rounds, stone tablets and hoarded bits of vellum and silk Dzeri was maintaining just to track its many rentals.

"So, ke emodo," he said. "Perhaps we might discuss your storefront on the Green. Maybe we could adjust your rates in return for a monthly delivery of paper..."

A ripple of gasps ran through the crowd as Darsi brought forth a palm-sized sheet, cut by Abadil for demonstrations.

"I think we can come to an agreement," I said easily.

Abadil put Kaliser in charge of managing the storefront on the Green; the empire's former spy brought three more emodo with him for staff and proved that he needed them all the first day we opened. Demand was going to readily outstrip supply for a while, and we hadn’t even started shipping to other parts of the empire. But before we could do that, we needed a finished warehouse, and to that end Hesa had drafted not just the House's spare eperu—now freed from their duties in the destroyed fields—but also the imperial eperu labor that would have been helping us with the harvest, and the Claws detailed to guarding the construction site. It no longer slept in the House nor came home, so I was reduced to receiving reports of the project's status from runners.

One such runner came to me one evening with yet another brief account, numbers, percentages complete, amount of materials used... and I tossed it aside and said to the eperu, "I'm going back with you."

Startled, it said, "Of course, ke emodo."

The road to het Kabbanil curved around the western edge of the city on its way north. The warehouse had been sited alongside it where the road straightened, and there I found... a building. A nearly complete building, with Jokka at furious work on it by the light of more firebowls than I could easily count. We rode to it, passing stacks of brick, wood, rope, passing caravans lying idle beneath large canvas tarps, passing labeled and color-coded crates.

"They're cargo," Hesa said as I came nigh. "Since we have guards here now at all hours, we've started procurement."

"So soon?" I said, not liking the fatigue I heard in its voice or the sag of its shoulders.

"We'll be shipping by the Leaf Gathering," Hesa answered, taking the reins of my rikka. "Come, Pathen. Come see."

And it led me into the warehouse... me and my rikka, for there was a channel carved straight through the building. The floors were raised almost to the level of the beast's shoulder, and for a moment I wondered why Hesa had chosen such a peculiar design... and then I saw.

"Gods!" I said. "What I wouldn't have given to have something like this in Laisira!"

Hesa chuckled, leaning against the rikka's shoulder. "That's why it's built that way. See, it's marked out on the floor."

I looked and recognized the sections painted off by size, for had I not spent a summer loading wagons for House Laisira? When a caravan drove into the warehouse, four of its wagons would fit under the roof and their beds would be level with the building's floor, so eperu could push the cargo straight onto the wagons without having to lift or lower them. Then the caravan would drive the next set of four inside. There was enough room on the other side for the eperu to unload the incoming cargo too... once the warehouse was operational I could see how quickly it would go, with the caravaneers pushing their imports off as the warehouse eperu pushed the exports on.

"This is marvelous," I said as around us the work continued.

Hesa led the rikka out through the channel, doubling around the edge of the building until I found myself staring into an unusually large window. From where I was sitting on the back of the beast, I was at just the right height to look inside. "My office," it said. "Designed so couriers can drop off reports of what's selling in which het. So we have some notion of where best to send what we have in stock before we run the caravans, which travel more slowly."

I looked down at its head. "And let me guess. Those couriers are already running."

"Of course," Hesa said. "And we have matching warehouses going up now in het Kabbanil and het Serean. They won't be ready for another two months, but they'll be able to receive cargo at the sites, since I've made it mandatory to have guards during construction."

"Hesa," I said. "This is... tremendous. But surely rushing a project of this size—"

"Pathen," it interrupted, looking up at me. "Pathen, you heard the Fire in the Void. We have less than a year now to accomplish our goals. Even more importantly, we won't be secure in het Narel until we've fulfilled the contract the Stone Moon's awarded us. Once these caravans are moving we'll be essential to the het's prosperity. This is my contribution to our safety."

"I agree those things are important," I said gently. "But your eyes are milky with fatigue and every time the rikka stops you lean on it. Even eperu have to rest, Hesa."

The head of my borrowed Claws choose that moment to approach. "Ke emodo!" he called.

"Ganeth," I said.

"You've come to take your pefna home?" he said, resting a hand on the side of my rikka before glancing at Hesa. "I assume, anyway. I think it's been sleeping on the ground for over a week now."

"I'm fine," Hesa said.

"You're near collapse," Ganeth said, ears flattening. Looking up at me, he said, "No one works harder than it. That's the problem."

"I'm fine!" Hesa repeated.

"Take it back to a proper bed, please, ke emodo," Ganeth said. "We won't suffer for a night without it. There are plenty of people here to oversee the work and guard the site."

"I think that's a fine idea," I said.

"I think it's ridiculous," Hesa muttered.

"Get on the rikka, ke eperu," Ganeth said. "Or I'll pick you up and put you there."

Hesa said, "Let me leave instructions—"

"We don't need instructions," Ganeth said. "Everyone has plenty to do, enough that it won't be done before you get back. You can give us new instructions then but for the sake of the gods, go lie down now before you give yourself a fit. And then where would we be!"

"He's right," I said. "Come up, pefna."

I thought its pause was defiance until I saw its closed eyes and realized it was so tired it was drifting off against the rikka. "Help me," I said to Ganeth, and between the two of us we got Hesa up in the saddle behind me. Its warm weight on my back would have been comforting had I not known that it was asleep.

Ganeth said to me, "I've never seen anyone work like your pefna works, ke emodo. It sets a good example until it sets a bad one, if you take my meaning."

"I do, yes," I said. "I'll put it to bed."

"Good," he said, relieved. "We're all fond of ke Hesa, even those of us who've only just met it. I'll tell everyone where it's gone." He backed away and saluted, hand to brow. "Good evening, ke emodo."

"Ganeth," I said, dipping my head, and then I guided the beast away from the site, one hand around the arms the Claw had tucked around my body to keep the eperu balanced against me. Did he suspect? This could be an attempt to entrap me if they suspected. And yet the respect in his voice had been real, and the relief when I'd agreed.

Perhaps I had not won the Claws after all... it might have taken a brilliant eperu who'd worked itself to a breeder's fatigue for that.

When we reached the House, Hesa woke just enough to dismount and lean on me as I guided it inside and to the pefna's modest room in the eperu quarters, a bald room without ornament and with little furniture. Its bed was a brief cot with a single blanket folded at its foot. I sat the eperu on the bed and gently undressed it over its mumbled protestations before settling it on its side.

"Too much to do," it murmured.

"Tomorrow," I said, unfolding the blanket.

"Claws everywhere," it said. "Can't afford... have to be careful..."

"And you are," I said, tucking the blanket up to its shoulder.

It surprised me by grasping my wrist. I paused, watching as it forced itself to lucidity long enough to meet my eyes. "Pathen. When the day comes... deny me."

Chilled, I stared at it. Then folded its arm beneath the blanket. "Sleep, Hesa."

"Promise... promise me," it murmured, but its eyes were already closed.

Working too long in proximity to our enemies must have made its fears—our fears—more immediate. But I was glad it had fallen asleep before it could force me to make a vow I would break. I had meant every word I'd told it when we'd first been together on the back of a wagon fleeing het Kabbanil. To repudiate it was not in me.

I backed out of the room, pausing until its shoulders rose and convinced me it was still breathing. I knew eperu taxed to their limits would sleep a breeder's sleep but it was disturbing to watch someone I knew to shift and move regularly at night lying there so still, almost as if unconscious.

"Sleep yourself out, ke eperu," I murmured, and left, past the rows of cheap bunks that served the eperu in the Houses allowed by the empire to keep them. Asara's eperu had decorated the walls and their mean beds, at least; it gave their quarters a happier air. I wondered why Hesa had decided not to do the same and in my preoccupation bumped against someone in the hall.

"Ke emodo?" An unfamiliar voice. "I'm sorry, I didn't even see you... I should have been more careful."

I helped steady her, for anadi she was. "I don't know you... you must be new?"

"Yes, ke emodo," she said, lowering her face. "The two of us arrived yesterday. Ke Darsi helped us settle in. And Kuli, of course."

"And like her you're a night-wanderer," I said and chuckled. "Well, no harm done. Though if you're looking for someone to keep you company this late, I'd recommend the other anadi. The emodo tend to be asleep by now and the eperu are all engaged."

"Oh!" she said. "Yes. I was hoping for something to drink more than company..."

"Then you want the common room," I said. "Keeping going down the hall, you'll find it to the right."

"Thank you, ke emodo," she said, smiling.

"It's nothing," I said, and saw her on her way before returning to my room. Had it really a month since we took on the first anadi from the residence? Gods, I was losing the weeks. I thought of the year Keshul had promised us—one could treat a suggestion from an avatar as a promise, surely—and frowned.

I hadn't understood just how much time I'd been losing until I came home late the following evening and found Darsi in my antechamber, sprawled on a chair in front of a cup and a jar of wine... a quite large jar of wine.

"Did you know," he said conversationally as I entered, "that they keep the expensive liquor up here in the second floor storage rooms, instead of in the kitchen? Because they've reserved it for your use?"

"No," I said, pulling my coat off and folding it over the back of a chair. "I rarely drink."

"Me neither," Darsi said, "so I don't know why they buy it at all..." He squinted at me. "You smell cold. Where were you?"

"At the warehouse site," I said. "Hesa's been overworking. I thought it would be a good idea to show my face there more often, keep it from giving itself the mind-death." I lifted a brow at him. "What about you? From the scent off your skin you've been at that bottle for a while."

"Oh?" he looked at it, perplexed. "This might be the second bottle. Maybe."

I sat across from him and took the other cup. That was encouraging; he hadn't come here to be left alone with the liquor, he'd come hoping to drink with me. "So. What's wrong, Darsi?"

"Kuli's pregnant," he said.

I sat up. "Already? She knows?"

"She knows," he said. "She hasn't said anything to anyone else, though, in case it doesn't take. Sometimes they lose the children in the first few weeks."

"Sensible," I said, my heart slowing again. "Normally I'd say this was cause for a celebratory jar of wine, but you don't seem in a very celebratory mood."

Darsi looked up at me, pained, and said, "I love her, Pathen."

"And," I said after a moment, "you're afraid for her now that she's with child."

"That I'll lose her," he said, trembling. "Yes."

I sighed and poured for myself.

"That's it?" Darsi said. "Just... acceptance? I'm... I've admitted to loving an anadi, Pathen!"

"You expect that to disturb me?" I said, flicking an ear back.

"Well, no," he admitted. "But... loving an anadi's worse, somehow. I mean, really loving them. They die!"

"They suffer," I said. "And they are more prone to the mind-death. But we all die, Darsi. I just assigned myself a nightly tour of the warehouse site because House Asara's pefna-eperu—an eperu—is doing its best to kill itself. The mind-death hunts us all."

"But... an anadi!" Darsi whispered, covering his face.

I said, "A Jokkad, Darsi. A generous, brave and thoughtful Jokkad. Why wouldn't you love her?"

"But I have to give her up!" he said.

"Why?" I said. As he looked up, wide-eyed, I said, "She's given two children already to the residence. If she brings this one to term, that will be three. I don't see why that shouldn't be enough. Though if she wants to give you a child of your own..."

His face had blanched. "Pathen..."

"Darsi," I said, briskly. "You love her. Does she love you?"

"Yes!"

"Do you enjoy each other's company?" I said.

"Yes," he said, ears flattening.

"Then what's the problem?" I said.

He looked at his cup, shoulders sagging. "I didn’t plan this, Pathen. To love an anadi. I don't know what I'd do if I lost her. And I don't know... if I can bear her doing her duty, knowing the risk to her."

"Darsi," I said gently. "It's not your choice to make. It's hers."

He looked away, fingers clenched on the table. I respected his silence and sipped from the cup. It really was very good wine.

"How do you do it?" he said softly. "How do you live with your heart beating outside your body?"

I smiled a little. "Honestly? Very badly."

Darsi barked a startled laugh. He ran a hand over his brow. "Gods, Pathen. What have we come to."

"And where are we going," I murmured. I ignored his glance and tapped my cup against his. "To House Asara's first child, born of an anadi's true choice."

Darsi looked down at his cup, then lifted it. "To Kuli."

My decision to oversee the warehouse project to moderate Hesa's zeal worked only because the project was so close to completion... but it did work. I was satisfied that no one was laboring to the point of collapse and the eperu at the site were pleased to have me there to watch their plans manifest. It was worth watching. I thought Thesenet had bought his het's prosperity at a bargain price.

Abadil's paper project brought sufficient income to induce Holdings to allow withdrawals again, and I returned to paying the House's petty expenses. Transactions still sent the weekly accounting on wax tablets, but I did my record-keeping on our own paper and found it an unexpected pleasure... the smell of ink and the feel of a brush rolling in my fingers. It made the House administration less tedious.

I was in my office copying the weekly accounting when Abadil arrived with Kaliser at his heels. "Ke Pathen?"

I tapped out the excess ink and set the brush aside. "Abadil? What can I help you with?"

"It's not me this time, if you please," he said. "Kaliser here has a troubling observation to share with you."

"Is that so," I said. "Please, have a seat, both of you."

Kaliser, former imperial spy, was nervous... but he sat before me and fixed me with an earnest gaze. "Ke emodo. I fear that… I fear that my fellow emodo are paying the eperu."

"What?" I said.

"That eperu that you gave money to," he said, folding his hands together to keep them still. "The one that got in trouble... the story about that... no one's ever forgotten that you thought it unfair that the Stone Moon doesn't allow eperu to be paid. So the emodo have gotten together and split their salaries, and are keeping half in a separate common store for the eperu."

"Do the eperu take the money?" I asked, frowning.

"No!" Kaliser said. "No, they don't. The emodo... they go to the market in groups and divide up the shops between them. Then each one goes to the shops he's been assigned and comes back to report what's for sale. One emodo writes the information down and runs it back to the House...."

"And the eperu gather around this list and order from it?" I asked, struggling with my expression.

"Then the runner goes back and distributes their requests so the rest of the emodo can buy them," Kaliser finishes, shoulders falling.

"All at once?" I said.

"Oh no," Kaliser said. "Only if it's a small number of purchases. If it's a large number they wait several days between purchases."

"Is it the same emodo each time?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"No," Kaliser said. "No, it's a different group each time."

"So no one will realize that House Asara's emodo are buying more than they should be," I said.

"No," Kaliser said. "But anyone who came here would know, ke emodo... the eperu aren't supposed to own property and they do. And that's... that's what worries me." He looked up at me. "We have Claws now coming here more often. What if one of them sees...?"

"A reasonable fear," I said. "Thank you for bringing it to my attention."

Kaliser stood and added, anxious, "You won't punish them? Any of them, I mean? Not the eperu or the emodo?"

"No," I said. "I won't."

Relieved, he touched his palm to his brow and dismissed himself, leaving me with Abadil, who closed the door behind him.

And then we both started laughing. When we finally stopped, Abadil said, "We have a clever and indomitable House, ke emodo."

"So we do," I said. "And I see Kaliser is well and truly part of it."

"I didn't doubt," Abadil said with a grin. "Everyone who comes within your aegis falls in love with House Asara. Even that Claw of yours is fond of Hesa, and who ever heard of a Claw of the empire becoming fond of an eperu?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said. "It's happened before."

"What!" Hesa said when I pulled it aside at the warehouse to tell it.

"Surely you wondered why there were so many things in the eperu quarters?" I said. "They've been decorating."

"They... I..." Hesa came to a halt, pressing the heel of its hand to its brow. "Pathen," it said. "Eperu can't have property! It's against the law!"

"They don't have property," I said. "House Asara's emodo have given them gifts. Since eperu can't own anything, those gifts are the property of the House. They're merely being used by the eperu. If anyone asks we'll tell them, quite properly, that the gifts will remain with the House when the eperu leave."

"The eperu aren't ever going to leave, Pathen," Hesa said, exasperated.

"A small detail we don't have to share with the Stone Moon's accountants," I said.

"Pathen—"

"Hesa," I said, interrupting. "I won't stop them. You convinced me of the dangers of giving the eperu money directly and I won't put any of our people in danger that way again. But I won't reprimand our emodo for generosity. It mattered to them that their comrades be compensated and they found a way that endangers no one. What message would it send for me to tell them to stop? To the emodo and the eperu of the House?"

It fell silent, watching our people at work, the firelight limning their shimmering skins against the deep blue of the late evening sky. Then it sighed and said, "You're right. You can't do that. But the eperu can't be seen with property outside the House."

"Have they been?" I said. "Give our people credit for their intelligence, Hesa. That neither of us knew about this is entirely due to their discretion. Let them wear their nice clothes and enjoy their small pleasures in the House. They've earned them."

"All right," it said. And glanced at me. "They really went through all that trouble. The emodo."

"According to Darsi they're all involved," I said. "It is a House custom now, giving gifts to eperu."

Hesa laughed. "Giving gifts, my tail! They're running a procurement system!"

"Apparently they've learned something of business affairs," I said. "I wonder how."

It threw a smile at me, a casual expression of a pleasure I hadn't seen in far too long. I thought of its bare room; of course, no one had dared approach it to ask it if there was something it wanted from the market, for fear that it would shut the whole operation down.

Which was fine, because that left me the honor.

The next day I took Darsi by the arm and dragged him out of his office, ignoring his protestations about the work I was interrupting. He relented when he saw I was serious and said, "At least tell me where we're going."

"You know that the emodo are buying gifts for the eperu," I said.

"Of course—"

"No one has bought anything for Hesa," I said.

That gave Darsi pause. Then he said, "Let's saddle some rikka then. Though... to be honest, I think we could spend all our money in the Green and not have spent enough. If we were all paid in proportion to the amount we earn and the hours we work..."

I laughed. "If we were all paid thus, no one on Ke Bakil could afford Hesa's services." We left the House for the stables, where we saddled our own rikka; the eperu who normally would have done so were at the construction site. "While we're out you can also buy gifts for Kuli."

"You think..." His thoughts drifted. He drew the bridle onto his beast and threw the reins over its neck. "Is that wise?"

"The anadi have always been the recipients of gifts from their House-mates," I said. "And if anyone is buying for Kuli, it should be you. Besides, she's having a baby. We should find things for the child too."

"This might be fun," Darsi said, sounding bemused.

"It wouldn't be a bad thing to have fun once in a while," I said, and pulled myself into the saddle.

We stopped first at Holdings to withdraw some of our salary, and from there we spent a rare afternoon at leisure. Even that was a form of work, to let the het see the Head of House Asara abroad with his lover, obviously still in possession of his wealth and spending it without visible concern. Darsi bought Hesa softer blankets, woven with a beautiful grain pattern in orange and cream... "For me more than it," he said to me later with a laugh, "since I'm the one using the bed." We both bought clothes, for Hesa and Kuli both, and scarves—"Not as good as Laisira silk, but it'll do,"—and a waist chain for Kuli like the ones anadi used to wear when they could be valued members of a House, true metal with tawny opals. We even picked up a doll for the baby. But I didn't find what I wanted until we rode to the temple district so Darsi could buy incense and a small burner for it, to pray for Kuli's safety.

There, tucked amid the other shops selling religious trinkets and talismans, I found rings.

For generations, the Houses of Ke Bakil had recognized their most valued members by awarding them rings: the largest for the emodo, threaded through the gap where the tail lifted from the back; for anadi, a medium-sized ring pierced through the navel slit; and for eperu, the smallest of the three, hung from a single ear. Beneath the Stone Moon the piercing of valued emodo had become mandatory, a way to call out the individuals suitable for breeding duties, but eperu and anadi no longer earned rings. I hadn't seen them for sale since the empire's arrival... but then, I hadn't been looking.

"Is that wise?" Darsi asked when I bought one.

"It's proper," I said, and wrapped the ring in one of the scarves. I expected a comment so when he didn't reply I looked over and found him somber. "Yes?" I said.

"Of course," he said quietly.

We rode home where we applied ourselves to arranging our signs of appreciation in Hesa's room and by the time we were done its room no longer looked so barren. The ring I folded into the scarf, and left in the center of its bed.

I worked later than I planned that night. Asara's paper store had generated a great deal more work in tracking expenses, income... and influence. I now had Houses petitioning me directly for supplies of their own. With those petitions had come even more invitations to gatherings, and while I turned down most of them I knew Darsi and I had to appear at a few. I was studying several of these invitations when a shadow fell over my desk. I looked up and found my pefna at the door. The scarf trailed down from its hand like a wash of fire, bright yellow and orange silk, and the gossamer was unfolded over its palm to reveal the gleam of gold.

"Pathen," it said, voice low. "I don't know what to say."

"What is there to say?" I answered. "You have earned it several times over. Not just here, but at Laisira as well."

"I... I can't wear this," it said. "It's not done anymore."

"I know," I said. "I won't ask you to, setasha. But whether you wear it or not, you needed to have it."

It looked down at the ring and trailed light fingers over its curve before folding the ring back into the scarf and setting it on my chair. And then it quietly closed the door on the world, and for someone who'd not known what to say I found it very eloquent indeed.

Kuli thought to make her announcement without fanfare, but the rest of us would have none of it. Abadil and Hesa arranged an afternoon off for the whole House and Darsi bought holiday food, enough to need a cart to bring it back. We appropriated the common room for the party, laying out a feast before bringing everyone in for the announcement, which was greeted with thunderous cheers. The prospective fathers of the child built Kuli a mound of pillows and blankets and then enthroned her on it while she laughed in between wholly ineffective protests. There she presided over the festivities, accepting this tidbit or that cup, beaming or blushing as the occasion warranted. In her lap she had the doll we'd bought for House Asara's first child, and she wore Darsi's waist-chain around her hips—"While it fits," she'd said to me with a smile so winsome and amused that I saw how Darsi had fallen in love with her. Our anadi guests looked bewildered but glad to be there, and the emodo and eperu of the House... well. They had not just a welcome break from their work, but a real reason to celebrate. The plight of the anadi remained criminal, but in House Asara we had righted that wrong for one anadi. If not one, why not more? The hope in the room was headier than the wine.

Ganeth's entry caused a hesitation in the laughter and talk near him. Before the silence could develop fully, I said, "Captain? Over here."

The Claw advanced to my side, looking uncertain. "Ke emodo."

"What can I do for you, Ganeth?" I said, nursing my tea.

"There was no one at the construction site," he said. "I was concerned..."

"Oh!" Hesa said, coming closer. "I apologize, ke emodo. I should have left word that we were taking the afternoon off."

"Ah... no harm done," he said, uncomfortable. "I left half the Claws there to guard the site and the rest of us rode here to make sure nothing had happened."

"Something has," Abadil said with a grin as he reached behind me to pluck up a pastry. "A party!"

"Yes," I said. "We're celebrating the conception of ke Kuli's child. Would you like to join us? You and the Claws you've brought can spend an hour here, then rotate out to give the rest of your squad a chance to join us."

All this seemed a great deal for Ganeth to assimilate. "That... that's very kind of you, ke emodo. Conception?"

"You're familiar with our anadi prizes?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Ah, ke Darsi... he sent us to escort the two of them that were due back, and to bring back the two new ones."

I said, "Kuli is our permanent resident and she chose to have a child by our emodo. We're celebrating the success of her efforts... and her choice to do so."

Ganeth watched one of the eperu bring Kuli a fresh cup of tea, their teasing interaction, the softness of its expression. He glanced at me and said, "Her choice."

"Truly worth celebrating, yes?" I said.

He touched his hand to his brow and inclined his head. "Ke emodo. We would be honored."

"Bring in your own, then," I said, "and share Asara's joy."

As Ganeth vanished into the hall to summon the other Claws, Abadil said over his half-eaten pastry, "You never stop working, do you, ke Pathen."

"Strangely, there never seems to be a lack of work to be done," I said.

"At last!" Hesa exclaimed. "You know how I feel!"

We all laughed. The party survived the inclusion of the Claws... prospered, even. Perhaps the members of Asara had taken to my example, for they plied the empire's enforcers with wine and festival breads and introduced them formally to Kuli and the other anadi until their shyness faded. I noted Ganeth talking with one of the anadi, even, and while I'd already liked the emodo for his concern over Hesa's wellbeing, his blushes at her attention endeared him to me.

I spent several hours in the party, but the work of the House truly hadn’t stopped accumulating. After evening fell, I kissed the back of Kuli's hand and asked her pardon for departing her gathering. She laughed and said, "Ke emodo. Yes! You may go. So long as you leave me someone to oversee the thing to its end."

"I trust ke Darsi will suit you?" I said, amused.

"I think he will," she said, lowering her lashes, but her voice trembled with the laugh she was withholding.

"You've done a great good for the House, and the Jokka," I said to her, quieter. "Thank you, Kuli."

"Pathen," she said, grave, "Thank you for giving me the chance."

Hesa raced its self-appointed deadline into the last month of autumn... raced it, and won. Two days before the Leaf Gathering I was sitting on the back of a rikka beneath a pale morning sky, very aware of the silence of the minister. I thought perhaps he'd been expecting to tour an empty building... an impressive one, certainly, but an expression of potential power, waiting in echoing quiet for the blood of the empire to course through it. But we had arrived to the sight of the first of three caravans being loaded in the warehouse as eperu queried the employees of the second and third as to their destinations, double-checking them against lists… lists written on paper, meant to be kept as permanent records. The huff of rikka in the chill, scratching the ground and leaning into their traces, the creak of wheels and the thump of crates and jars passing from hand to wagon, the quick and constant conversation... this was no mute facility waiting for purpose.

"Ke emodo! You're early."

And here was Hesa... fierce, beautiful Hesa, looking weary but holding its head with a proud, high tilt. It was dressed in utilitarian clothes but had pulled its short mane back with one of the sashes Darsi and I had given it, bright as sunrise, a flare of orange behind its shoulders.

"Pefna," I said, grave. "The Minister has arrived to approve the warehouse."

"Then let me show him what the Stone Moon has bought from House Asara," Hesa replied and looked up at Thesenet. "Minister."

"Ke eperu," he said, and dismounted.

We followed Hesa into the bustle, threading our way past the rikka and the great shadowed shapes of the wagons, up the ramp and into the warehouse. There Thesenet found his voice to ask Hesa questions which it answered in detail, pausing only when interrupted by someone who needed its approval on some task, or to report some status change. Darsi had not exaggerated the complexity of the undertaking when he'd put forth his objections to the project initially... but Hesa had put it all together in a little over two months, from a vague plan advanced to me over tea on a rooftop cheldzan to loaded caravans leaving for three separate hets, filled with cargo the eperu already knew would sell there. By the time it had brought Thesenet to the map painted on the wall beside its office and explained the chalked notations on it, I knew we'd won him completely. Abadil had made our fortunes and perhaps our place in history... but Hesa had given us our surety in the empire and with it, the door to all our aims.

I stood beside it next to its office. The minister was standing on the unloading platform—empty for now, since we had not yet received an incoming caravan—and this gave him a fine vantage to watch the activities of the eperu across from him, stacking the wagon beds using diagrams designed to maximize the use of the space in each. I could almost see him trembling with excitement. After that we let him wander. He'd arrived with two Claws, but as he investigated the warehouse two of Ganeth's emodo joined him and started answering his questions. By the time he made his way back to us, his eyes were shining.

"Truly," he said. "You have exceeded my every hope. This is brilliant." He turned to Hesa. "Ke eperu... such work deserves a bonus. Is there aught I can give you?"

Hesa's ears splayed. "Ah... ke emodo. You are generous, but I have few needs."

"Surely there's something," he said.

Hesa looked away, watching its eperu at their labors. "Perhaps—"

"Yes?" he said.

"Not for me," Hesa said. "But for those who've worked on the project..."

"A noble thought," Thesenet said, encouraging it. "What shall I give them?"

"A day off," Hesa said. "True leisure, from when they rise from their bunks to when they go back to them."

Thesenet leaned back and smiled, and a very fond and bemused smile it was. "You won't take a gift from me, but you'll ask for relief for the people beneath you."

"Minister," Hesa said. "A gift would be kind, but wasted on an eperu. The day off, though... that will have meaning."

"I notice," Thesenet said, mouth quirking, "that you asked for this day off for 'them.' Did you forget to include yourself in this request?"

Hesa paused, startled, then answered sheepishly, "I didn't even think of it, ke emodo."

"We're not sure ke Hesa knows how not to work," I said, amused.

"Well then it must surely practice," Thesenet said. Sternly, "Ke eperu, your people can have their day off. But so must you. A leader must lead by example."

"Of course," it said, rueful.

"Then I am well-pleased to make the gift," Thesenet said, grinning.

Hesa inclined its head, then added, "Minister... your Claws have labored just as hard as we have on this project. Will you extend that offer to them as well?"

Surprised, Thesenet said, "Of course. And thank you for thinking of them."

Hesa smiled a little. "Ke emodo. I am the pefna-eperu of House Asara. We caretake the breeders."

Arrested by its gravitas, Thesenet paused. Then touched his hand to his brow and then his chest. "Ke eperu."

"Ke emodo," Hesa answered. "If you will both excuse me? We'd like to get the outbound wagons on their way before afternoon."

"Go ahead, pefna," I said. "And well done."

It smiled at me and then strode back into the thick of things, where it belonged.

"That eperu," Thesenet declared, "needs a ring."

I eyed him. "I hope that's not a prelude to you announcing that you'll be claiming House Asara's pefna for the empire."

"What?" Thesenet said and shook himself. "Gods, no!" He chuckled. "I'd be a fool to do that. You have a treasure there, Pathen, and you've employed its talents well, far better than I ever would. I'll leave it in your capable hands, it and all the eperu it needs to grow this enterprise... yes, and any other enterprise it dreams up as well!" His ears splayed. "No, I wouldn't take it. It belongs here."

"I'm glad we agree," I said. As he stared after it, I added quietly, "I tried to give it a ring."

Thesenet glanced at me.

"It refused," I said, meeting his eyes.

I did not have to explain why. He knew Hesa well enough by now to understand that it would never endanger the House or the eperu it managed by accepting. And I knew him well enough by now to point that out to him... so that we could both look at it and acknowledge how the empire failed itself in denying the worth of the eperu. I didn't know if he would change anything based on that acknowledgement, but I no longer feared that he would hold my suggestions against me.

The minister looked after Hesa, then swept the rest of the eperu in the warehouse with his gaze before saying, "You've done well, Pathen."

"Thank you," I said, and followed him out, respecting the silence of his busy thoughts.

All three caravans went out by afternoon. When the dust of their passage settled, there was a great pause, as if the warehouse was holding its breath.

And then there was a celebration. What else? I sent runners for food and drink, for the emodo of the House and yes, the anadi as well if they wanted to come. By sunset a platform made of spare crates had been erected and there were eperu on it playing music, and on the cold hard earth in front of the warehouse, the eperu danced. The firebowls were lit, the food was laid out, and House Asara celebrated again... and if this party was more raucous than the last one, well... it was an eperu's party. Kuli's gathering had been an intimate one, a celebration of private joys and hope for a new Ke Bakil. Hesa's was giddy with relief and spilling over with the pride of work well-done.

It was strange to realize that before the empire, such joys would have been kept to each sex. Darsi, Abadil, Ganeth... none of us would have seen either mystery. I much preferred Asara's way... and from the laughter and pleasure around me, so did everyone else. I found emodo sharing cups with eperu, and the anadi, few but precious, mingling among the throng around the musicians. And  we all danced, emodo, eperu, even the visiting anadi, and while Kuli abstained from the exertion she clapped along to the music from her perch on a crate by Darsi and laughed to see the flashing bodies by firelight. I even saw Ganeth take a set with one of the anadi... and the rest of his Claws joining the eperu.

The music written for all the sexes to dance together hadn't been played since the Stone Moon but all of us were old enough to remember it. The gentle songs meant for the anadi and emodo together, the long chained dances meant for all three sexes, twining together, passing one another from hand to hand in an expression of trust older than the Stone Moon, older than civilization. The musicians reminded us of our duties to one another and the joys of sharing them, and we all partook and in that partaking re-stated our commitment to those truths.

And then there were the songs meant for emodo and eperu, the ones that approached acrobatics, designed to showcase the strength of the emodo and the stamina and grace of the eperu. I danced those sets with Hesa, and never forgot the heat of its palm against mine and the laugh in its eyes as I swept it up and threw it. Its orange scarf fluttered like fire against the cobalt-dark sky.

The messenger found me while I was quenching my thirst on some sort of warmed wine with Darsi and Kuli. Puzzled, I accepted the box from the eperu, who said, "An imperial runner brought it, ke emodo."

I opened it and hissed at the sight of what was in it.

"Ke emodo?" Kuli asked, alarmed, but Darsi stayed her, watching my face.

"Ke eperu," I said, putting my arm around the messenger's shoulder, "I need you to go back to the House and find something for me..."

When the eperu returned, I let the musicians finish their song and then hopped onto the crates alongside them, raising my arms for the attention of my House. Almost everyone was here, save for a few who'd volunteered to watch the estate in shifts, for no doubt the eperu would carry this celebration on until long after the emodo were ready to sleep.

"As you can see," I said, sweeping my arm toward the building, "the warehouse is done."

Laughter and cheers, and then silence.

"The empire has come and found it good," I said. "Very good. You have exceeded the minister's every expectation. In het Narel, there is no reputation like the reputation of the members of House Asara... even the eperu."

One of the emodo called, "Especially the eperu!"

I saluted him and the crowd cheered while the eperu no doubt squirmed and blushed. They were none of them good at accepting gratitude... but then, we'd rarely given them cause to practice.

"We're not the only ones who think so," I said. "The minister has sent House Asara gifts. The day off you know about—" Plenty of enthusiasm there, "—but he has also sent another." I held up the box. Most of the Jokka in the crowd were too far to see what it was, but I heard gasps closer to me. For those in the back, then, I opened the box and coaxed what it held from its gods-breath fabric nest before holding it up... and the firelight shone like a star falling down the length of the piercing needle.

"Hesa Asara-emodo," I called. "Will you step up on this platform and become the first sheña named in a Jokku House since the coming of the Stone Moon?"

The crowd backed away from Hesa, who had been standing in their midst. I was aware of them but in that moment the only eyes I saw were my beloved's as it lifted its chin. How I loved those eyes… had loved them from the moment I saw them in a temple in het Kabbanil. Its clear alto rose through the waiting silence.

"I would be honored."

The cheers then didn't stop until Hesa had joined me on the platform and I opened my other hand to reveal the pale scarf touched with flame yellow... and in it, the golden ring. The musicians pulled a second crate over for Hesa to sit on and left me to my task.

The Jokka watching fell silent, so completely I could hear the snap of the fire in the breeze and Hesa's quickened breathing. "Have you done this before?" it murmured.

"No," I said. "But I know something about it." And I did, because I'd troubled myself to ask the emodo who'd sold me the ring how to award it. So I dipped the needle in the small bottle included in the box Thesenet had sent and gently spread the base of Hesa's ear until I found the hard cartilage near its skull.  "Ready?"

"Yes," it answered, closing its eyes.

It flinched when I pushed the needle through, but then we were done. I dipped the earring's post in the same bottle and then screwed it in place, lustrous yellow against dark hair. Then I stepped back and pulled the eperu up from the crate, offering it to the House for approval... and their approval was loud. Looking down among them I was suddenly back on the dais in het Kabbanil, feeling the cold rejection of a life none of us wanted to live and a ceremony none of us wanted to attend. The jubilation of the Jokka of my House washed that chill away. If we could create this here, surely we could create it elsewhere. Everywhere.

I smiled at Hesa. It smiled back and mouthed, "Vision."

I murmured, "Support."

Its mouth quirked, and then it let me hand it down to its enthusiastic subordinates. The musicians took up their instruments. If there was a rapture like the sight of joy in the people for whom you've taken responsibility, I have yet to know it.

After the event at the warehouse, the Leaf Gathering was anti-climactic. In the dark of one of the last evenings of autumn we joined the powers of the het to mingle and talk while the musicians played rather more restrained offerings than we'd danced to, two nights past. It was tradition in het Narel for all the principals of the House to attend, so I brought Darsi, Abadil, Hesa and Kuli; we were not the only ones to bring one of our anadi prizes, I saw, but Hesa was, of course, the only eperu wearing a ring. I saw that detail catch eyes as we moved among the Jokka in the great stone hall. What to think of it? An eperu with a sheña's ring!

And that was nothing to Kuli's revelation, which Abadil shared with Eduñil and Rozen. Both of them immediately came to find me.

"Is it true?" Eduñil said to me—demanded really—"have you gotten a child on your prize?"

"No one has gotten a child on anyone in House Asara," I said. "House Asara's kaña chose to have a child and requested the services of the House's emodo."

Both of them stared at me, Rozen with mouth agape. Over their shoulders I could see Abadil’s merriment clearly despite his straining to hide it. He was, as Hesa had mentioned long ago, a very bad actor.

"Would you like to ask her yourselves?" I said. "She's over there, with Darsi...."

Rozen took me by the elbow and guided me away from where we might be easily overheard. "You are telling me that on her own an anadi decided to have a baby. Not just any anadi, but one of our most recalcitrant."

"Yes," I said.

"Gods," Eduñil whispered behind him. "What have you done?"

"Apparently what all of us should have been doing," I said.

"And what's that?" Thesenet said, joining us. "Is there something amiss? You look troubled, Rozen."

Which was kindly said. Rozen could more accurately have been described as looking struck by a crazed rikka. So I said to Thesenet, "Ke Rozen is surprised that House Asara's kaña has chosen to have a child."

"She has?" Thesenet said.

"We're keeping that child," I told Thesenet.

He snorted. "You people begot her, ke emodo. I have no issue with House Asara taking on the responsibility of the infant's care and sparing the empire that expense."

"You don't?" Eduñil asked, startled.

"I have learned by now that House Asara does things in its own way," Thesenet said, sipping from his cup before finishing with a suspicious gleam in his eyes, "But they get results, so I let them."

"While you're all here," I said, "it would be a good time perhaps to discuss our allotment of children?"

Their expressions were amusing: shades of wariness, mostly.

"Go on?" Rozen said.

"We'd like our children. In particular," I said.

"The babies, you mean?" Rozen said, perplexed. "It's more usual to give Houses children old enough to take care of themselves. Otherwise it's burdensome."

"We know," I said. "But we'd rather the burden."

Thesenet was trying not to laugh at Rozen's bewildered expression. When the Head of Rabeil looked at him, the minister said, "Are you worried they'll put you out of work, Rabeil?"

"Gods no," Rozen said. "I pray for that day, Minister." And the words were so heartfelt that all of us were taken aback.

Then Thesenet touched his hand to his brow and inclined his head to him, and he flushed. "We need more Jokka like you, ke Rozen," he said. "And like House Asara’s." He smiled and wandered off.

Rozen shuddered. "That is more attention than I want from the Stone Moon. How do you handle it day after day, ke Pathen?"

"Like anything else," I said. "Practice."

We found our stride after that. Those were good times. Abadil's paper made us famous; Hesa's trade made us wealthy. We brought the luxuries of the north all the way down to het Serean... and the wood and food of the warm south all the way to het Noidla at the foot of the Birthwell mountains. And het Narel in the center prospered.  Hesa began adding caravans to our schedule and warehouses in distant cities to serve as endpoints; the truedark eperu drove the wagons and we spared some of Laisira's own to spearhead the projects in distant cities. Where we didn't have the people, we hired members of the dissidents... we couldn't risk selling them weapons, so we did the next best thing: we made them rich. Money wasn't everything, but it certainly helped. So long as Thenet wasn’t planning an armed rebellion when it returned, it would have all the assistance it needed.

In late spring Kuli was sequestered in her room with House Asara’s new jarana and its assistants. I spent that night with Darsi, who needed the distraction, but in the end his worry was unnecessary. In the hour before dawn, Hesa arrived with the jarana who'd delivered the infant: an anadi, and both she and her mother healthy and happy, and would Darsi please come see her now? After they'd gone, I said to Hesa, "That was Jushet's other spy, wasn't it? Shavi?"

"Apparently before it was a spy and a fieldhand, it was an anadi-guardian," Hesa said. "A jarana of a Great House who was assigned to the first anadi residence."

"Strange choice for a spy," I said.

"Or brilliant," Hesa said. "The anadi will do anything to escape the residence. I can't imagine it being any different for anyone else." It looked down the hall where the others had gone. "Whatever the case, it's ours now. We have given it back to the work it loved first." Then it grinned. "I hope you like babies, Pathen. Sixteen of them might not seem like a lot, but you'll never guess who'll be taking on the burden of caring for them."

"I haven't had a chance to look at the schedule," I said. "Wasn't Darsi drawing one up?"

"Of Jokka in the House with work not apt to be disrupted by an infant," Hesa said.

"Oh," I said and chuckled. "Somehow I see where this is going."

It patted my arm and said, "I'll buy you a sling."

“Eperu can’t have money,” I said.

It grinned and amended, “I’ll have you buy you a sling with my salary.”

“Fine,” I said with a laugh. “As long as I pick myself something nice.”

Ganeth served as escort for the babies arriving in the arms of Rabeil's eperu, and very bewildered he was at the noise and the commotion. So were we all, but it was a satisfied sort of confusion. We needed a few weeks to settle into the routine but none of us found it a burden. House Asara's babies went everywhere their caretakers went, wrapped onto our backs or chests: through the halls of the House, into Kuli's garden, to the shop in the Green where the emodo built them a little pen full of toys... into the het on errands and on gentler missions through the fields, peering over the shoulders of eperu as they sowed our fields. I even took my own turn, reading accounts over a sleeping baby, savoring the new smell of her and aware that the future of Ke Bakil was breathing against my heart... so quick, those tiny breaths, and so precious.

"What do you suppose the end will look like?" Hesa asked me one night, head resting on my chest.

"The end?" I said.

"The Fire in the Void's deadline," it said. "A little over a year, it said. What will happen, do you think?"

"Gods know," I said, and then paused. It chuckled unwillingly and I smiled. "I didn't mean that so exactly, but in this case it's probably true." I tucked one of its errant locks back from its eye and said, "I don't know. I presume Roika and Thenet will return from their journey."

"I wonder what they're seeing," Hesa murmured.

"I wonder," I agreed.

"Do you ever want to try it? A trip across the sea?" it asked.

I laughed. "In what time, pefna?"

It smiled up at me, all mischief. "I guess we have enough to do here, don't we."

"Enough for a lifetime," I said, leaning in to kiss it, and in doing so I caught a fleeting expression on its face, one I couldn't identify. I paused, wanting to ask... but it pulled me down and took the kiss I'd been about to offer.

When we parted, it touched my mouth and smiled. "It can wait, Pathen."

And it did. But after we'd become warm and somnolent again, I couldn't sleep, and this was strange enough that Hesa lifted its head.

"What are you thinking about?" it asked, voice soft.

"Abadil," I said. "And choosing love over fear."

It canted its head, but I could not articulate those thoughts, only that this feeling, of its body against mine, of the smell of it in my sheets, of our willingness to be here together... this was only the smallest part of what Abadil had meant, and yet like the tip of a spear it could not be separated from the rest.

The year waxed, and with it our fields. We'd planted half of them to support the paper industry and the other half to pay into the common food store. I found myself working through the very laws I'd once shepherded het Kabbanil's Heads of Household through, applying for subsidies to offset the tax we'd pay on the half of the food we wouldn't be contributing this year. It was strange to be on the other side of the table. Not bad, but strange.

Darsi came to me with a bottle in midsummer and plunked it onto my antechamber table before pointing at it.

"Why yes," I said from my office door. "You absolutely aren't interrupting anything."

"Pathen," he growled.

I walked over then, opened the bottle for him. "What, then?"

"Kuli wants my child now," Darsi said.

"Yours in particular," I said.

"Yes," he said. "And Void take it, Pathen... how many times can I watch her do this? I don't know how I can live through another one of her pregnancies. Three times she's done it and come out unscathed. Isn't doing it again inviting disaster? How long can she stay this lucky?"

I poured for him as he paced, agitated. When he'd run out of words, I handed him the cup and said, "Sit."

"Now you're going to tell me it's her choice and I need to support her—" he began.

"No," I said. "Now I'm going to tell you it's her choice and yours and you need to discuss it together. This is different from Kuli asking the House to stand stud duty for her. This is an anadi who loves an emodo wanting to raise a child with him."

"Is that what it is?" he said, trembling.

"Isn't it?" I said, sitting across from him.

"Gods, that's even more terrifying.” He drank off his cup as I watched. "Pathen! What do I do?"

"I don't know," I said. "That's what you and Kuli have to decide."

He glanced at me. "You could tell me, you know. You could say 'it is the duty of the anadi to bear children, and if she's willing to do so because you'll sire them, then it is your obligation to serve.'"

"I could," I said. "But I won't. Darsi... you should know better by now."

"I do," he said, sighing. "But maybe I was hoping you'd take the choice away from me. From us."

I said nothing. He poured a cup for me. "But you were never like that. We should have seen that from the start."

"Maybe you did," I said. "And thought it prudent not to trust without evidence."

He looked up at me sharply as I took a sip. We nurtured the silence and savored the forgiveness in it.

As his friend, I asked, "What do you think you'll do?"

He toyed with the cup. "I don't know, Pathen." And then, resigned. "Babies really are wonderful, aren't they."

"When they're not coughing up milk on your tunic," I said, amused.

"It's funny when they cough up milk on your tunic," Darsi said.

I snorted and finished off my cup. "I'll remember that when your child throws up on you."

I found Hesa in my antechamber a few weeks later, far earlier than I expected and on the wrong night. I paused at the sight of it and said, "Darsi's with Kuli, isn't he?"

"He is," Hesa said. "But I'm only here for one kiss."

"One kiss," I repeated. "What's the occasion?"

"It's the end of summer," it said. And as suddenly as that I was back in one of House Laisira's wagons, warm blood racing down my chest and all of my life changing in a moment. I could smell the burning oil from the firebowls, the scent of my own sweat... and the perfume of an eperu's copper hair as it shrouded me, honey and sunlight.

"One kiss," I said, and leaned over the table to share it with the Jokkad who had given me back a life worth living. It left its brow pressed against mine and shared breath with me, shared a great calm.

"I'm glad you came with us," it said.

"I'm glad you asked."

I don't know what I'd expected the end of Keshul's year to look like; the return of the emperor to het Kabbanil? The arrival of a stern eperu ready to make war on the empire? Most likely nothing at all as House Asara went about its business?

What I did not expect was the Stone Moon sweeping into the House and cornering us in the common room. I had been sitting there having tea with the principals of the House in a rare morning meeting when Ganeth entered, followed by two more squads of Claws. The captain's face was set but his eyes looked everywhere but at me, and so I rose as I looked toward the door.

Jushet entered next, hands folded behind his back. The Head of all the Claws in the empire looked much as he had a little over a year ago when he'd congratulated me in his office, save that now he was wearing no expression I could read. Behind him came Suker, who met my gaze very briefly before looking away, and I wondered how great a disaster that signified. Finally, at their heels, a Jokkad in a cloak and the minister of het Narel. Thesenet looked agitated; they hadn't told him why they were here, then.

"Have the entrances blocked," Jushet said to Ganeth. "Everyone we need is here and I don't want any interruptions."

"Yes sir," Ganeth said, shoulders rigid, and backed away to give hushed orders to the Claws who had been our defenders and now were... what? Our jailors?

"So, ke Pathen," Jushet said.

"Ke Jushet," I said. "I did extend an invitation to visit."

"I wish I was here for pleasure," he said. "But I'm afraid there's more important business to take care of first. May I?" He indicated a chair at one of the tables on the other side of the aisle.

"By all means," I said.

When he sat, Suker did also. The Claws remained at both doors, with Ganeth and two of his emodo inside the room, looking so unhappy I pitied them while wishing they were better at hiding their discomfort. My own council had remained frozen behind me, Abadil and Darsi on one side of the table and Hesa on the other. I could feel their fear and I hated the empire for it, for bringing fear into my House.

"So," Jushet said. "I have reports of your House, ke Pathen."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Very interesting reports," he said. "I hear, for instance, that your eperu have property."

"House Asara has property," I said. "Which the eperu use while they live here."

"Mmm," Jushet said. "I also hear that rather than settling on a single anadi prize you insist on having dozens."

"House Asara has a single anadi prize," I said, "and hosts two of the anadi from the residence each month as a courtesy to them, with permission from House Rabeil and the minister of het Narel."

Jushet eyed me. "Why do you do that?"

I frowned at his tone. "Ke Jushet," I said. "The House is up for breeding duty again in two weeks. We have had forty volunteers, all requesting the anadi they've met through the visits."

"Forty?" he said, brows lifting.

"A little less than I anticipated," I said. "I expect next year there will be more."

He cleared his throat. "Yes, and on the matter of children. I hear you've been making extras and not remanding them to the residences to be raised."

"We are sparing the empire the expense," I said, "while adding to the population."

"You're keeping babies," Jushet said.

"The emodo of House Asara feel responsible for the children they've sired," I said. "And thought it their duty to help care for them."

Jushet leaned back, threading his fingers together. "Perhaps you have a glib answer to why House Asara has taken in members of a House declared treasonous in het Kabbanil."

"And what House is that?" I asked.

"Laisira," Jushet said. "The House you were tasked with investigating. You did a very, very good job of hiding it, ke emodo. We would never have found it without information from inside Asara."

Who had talked? Not any of the imperial spies, I would swear to that. Who had betrayed us? And how could I get the others out safely? How could I warn the House?

"No denial?" Jushet asked.

"No," I said. "They needed a place to go. Who would have hired them? So I did." I smiled without humor. "I had cause to know they were good workers."

"So you are contending that you hired members of House Laisira because... they needed work?" Jushet asked carefully.

"It seemed a shame to waste their productivity," I said.

Suker coughed but the silence was otherwise complete. Jushet studied me. I permitted it. I almost thought I'd persuaded him.

"Perhaps you can also come up with a good reason for your carnal relationship with an eperu," Jushet said. He glanced behind me and said, "Hesa Laisira-emodo, isn't it? The dye is quite convincing."

I took one step forward, all my claws out. Jushet didn't move.

"House Asara's other... irregularities... could be ignored," Jushet went on. "But perversion is a capital crime. Still, my information comes from a very great distance, and second-hand at that. Maybe I'm wrong. Tell me, ke Pathen. Are you in bed with your pefna?"

I could hear Hesa's chair scrape back as it rose, so slowly. I could hear its whisper echoing in my head, in my heart.

When the day comes, deny me.

I stared at my adversary and could not see past my rage and my fears to judge him. Had I taken his measure correctly in those first meetings in het Kabbanil? Or was he truly what his uniform said him to be?

In the end, did it matter?

"Yes," I said. "And you'll have to kill me—and everyone else in the House—to take it from us."

"Pathen, no!" Hesa cried.

The anguish in its voice stilled the entire room and for a moment no one moved. Then Jushet began to stand. I raised my hands—

—but Ganeth and three of his Claws moved first, positioning themselves between us and their superior with great deliberation. Startled, Jushet said, "What's this?"

"Forgive us, sir," Ganeth said. "But we can't allow any harm to come to the Head of Asara."

"Is that so?" Jushet asked, brows up. "How did he get to you?"

Ganeth's ears flicked back. "This is a good House, ke emodo. Everything the empire says it wants can be found here. The people are happy, productive and fruitful. They look out for one another. They care about one another. There are babies..." He trailed off, then lifted his chin. "One of their anadi guests asked me to sire her child for her. Asked me." He glanced over at us and said, "In the het they call it Kuli's Choice, now. When an anadi decides to ask an emodo to sire her children."

"Kuli's Choice," I said, liking the name. I couldn't help it... I smiled. "She'll laugh."

"Or blush," Darsi muttered.

"Probably both," Abadil said, and though his voice shook he managed a touch of his usual liveliness.

"So I should be adding 'suborning Claws' to the list of House Asara's sins," Jushet said. And sighed, startling us all. He looked over at the hooded Jokkad and said, "What do you think?"

"I think he'll do," said the Jokkad and joined him at the table. He shook back his hood, revealing a face lined with the years his eyes revealed had been long. He had a calm confidence and an ease with command, though, and not all the experiences of the year that had passed could erase the memory of my one encounter with him. "You may remember me from the ceremony that gave you this House, Pathen Asara-emodo. I am Minister Iren."

Minister Iren... Roika's most trusted hand, the one who had helped him manage the empire from its inception in het Kabbanil, who was running it now in his absence. And he was here?

"Minister," I said warily. "You have come a long way to oversee the arrest of an errant Head of Household."

"I am not here to arrest an errant Head of Household," Iren said. "I am here to find an heir to the Stone Moon seat. And we have chosen you."

My heart tripped. "W-what?"

"The emperor has been gone over a year," Iren said. "When he left on this voyage he was a very sick man. He may have already died on the trip. If he hasn't, he won't live for very long after his return. Roika named no heir and left no instructions for selecting one. So we have been seeking one on our own recognizance."

"When Suker brought you to my attention I thought you a likely candidate," Jushet said. "So I sent some people to gather information on you once you arrived… and you turned them all!" He chuckled. "And quickly too. I had to resort to other means to get what I needed, and even that only won me information for a while." At my narrowed gaze, he said, "You made one accidental enemy here by becoming such friends with Rabeil, ke emodo."

Behind me, Abadil breathed, "Kathara."

Jushet inclined his head. "Just so. They held the breeding contract for het Narel originally and have never forgiven Rabeil for taking it. Several of the jarana in the anadi residence used to be Kathara employees, so through them I tapped the anadi to be my spies." He lifted a brow. "In that, your guest program was very helpful, until it stopped working. My offers of amnesty to the anadi were no longer so enticing once they grew accustomed to how well you were treating them."

Iren said, "All of which is not relevant to the discussion at hand." He considered me. "Ke Pathen. From Thesenet's reports we know that you can manage a Household, run a trade network, innovate, manage relationships and balance political considerations against personal ones. You obviously feel a duty to your fellow Jokka and you bring out the best in them. Your anadi are happy and want to breed despite no longer being in the residence. And you have a way of finding talent and putting it to good use. The Stone Moon needs these qualities in its ruler. You have already served the empire as a Claw. The empire needs you again."

"Being emperor is not comparable to being a Claw!" I exclaimed.

"Of course not," Suker said. "But you were wasted as a Claw."

I scowled at him. "You had a hand in this."

"Of course," Suker said. "It's entirely your fault. You didn't send for me soon enough. I got bored."

Jushet coughed.

Thesenet stammered, "You are truly going to lift up one of my Heads of Household to the empire's throne?"

"If he acquiesces," Iren said. "Which he has not yet."

"Say you will, Pathen," Suker said. "You're the one for the job."

"It would be a pity to waste your talents," Jushet said.

"All the irregularities of House Asara," I said. "I regret none of them. And I would do my best to recreate them."

"They seem to have worked," Jushet said.

"I am not Roika," I said.

"We're not seeking another Roika," Iren said. "No one can replace the first Stone Moon emperor. But we are hoping for someone to... refine his intent."

"Refine his intent," I said. "Ke Iren, forgive me for being blunt. But I have committed several capital crimes, and I renounce none of them."

Iren glanced at Hesa, then said to me, "The emperor makes the law."

That time I let the silence bloom while my heart pounded so hard I felt it shaking my chest. My enemies had surely not come to me to offer me the empire. After all the years I'd spent resenting my work as a Claw, after turning fugitive and then rebel, after all I'd done to subvert and resist the Stone Moon, they wanted to give it... to me?

"This is... not a decision I can make without consideration," I said.

Iren looked satisfied. "I'm glad you are taking it so seriously, ke emodo." He drew his hood back up. "I will be staying with Minister Thesenet at het Narel's seat when you're ready to share your decision." He lifted a brow. "Don't take too long, though, ke emodo. There is a great deal to be done."

"A great deal for you to do," Jushet said. "If you're willing."

"I'll have my decision to you tomorrow," I said.

"Very good," Iren said. "Tomorrow, then." And left, taking Thesenet with him. As the Claws followed, Jushet paused beside me.

"I had to work hard to get someone to tell tales about you, ke Pathen," he said. "You inspire loyalty. That's a fine quality in an emperor." My expression made him smile and... damn him, there was a lightness in his eyes, in his gait, that I didn't remember from the weary, resigned emodo who'd been so glad of the chance to do something pleasant for someone for once.

Suker, though, I stopped myself. "Did you give them this idea?"

"Me?" Suker said with a chuckle. "Not at all. Jushet came up with it. I didn't know until he and Iren descended on me to demand an accounting of your career as a Claw."

"And you told them I'd make a fine emperor," I said, exasperated.

"I told them the truth and let them draw their own conclusions," he said, amused. He lifted his brows. "I packed some keddif on my rikka. That is, if you have a guest room here for an old friend."

I sighed and shook my head. "Darsi... will you see ke Suker to a room?"

"At once," Darsi said. The speculative look he awarded me as he passed made me growl, "I haven't made any decisions yet."

"Of course not," he said, grinning, and escorted Suker out.

"Well!" Abadil said, standing. "If you'll excuse me, ke Pathen?" He squared his shoulders, eyes bright. "I have some writing to do."

"Writing," I repeated.

"I'm a historian," he said. "And I want this all down on paper before I forget the particulars." He clasped his hands together gleefully. "Ke Keshul exhorted me once to be a true historian for the Jokka. I must not disappoint him."

"I haven't—"

"Of course you haven't," Abadil said. "And don't decide without me. That's definitely a moment I want on paper. Our paper!" And, greatly pleased with himself, he left.

The room had emptied of everyone but Hesa and Ganeth's squad. The guilt in their bodies... the apologies in their eyes... I didn't wait for Ganeth to begin. I held up a hand to still him.

"Whatever you might feel about failing to warn us, about being ordered here to corner me... it doesn't matter. You stood between us and the head of the Claws. Had they really been here to arrest me, you would have died to defend two perverts."

"I would have died to defend two Jokka," Ganeth said, firm. "Whom I have come to respect very highly."

I studied him and liked the directness of his manner, just as I'd liked his courage in defying Jushet and the gentleness of manner that had inspired an anadi to ask for him. "Perhaps you and your emodo should consider formal employment in Asara," I said.

"To Asara or to the seat of empire," Ganeth said. "We'll follow you, ke emodo." He touched his palm to his brow and made a formal obeisance, and the rest of his Claws followed suit.

And then the room was empty, save for the eperu I could hear breathing behind me, still too fast and too ragged. I closed my eyes, composing myself, then turned. "Don't ask me to apologize. I told you there was nothing in me that could repudiate you. I meant it."

It was standing in front of the fire, the flicker of the light on its side making it difficult to see its body trembling. "Pathen," it whispered.

"Setasha," I said. "Hesa. I won't live in a world without you."

"And now you don't have to," it said, low.

I grimaced.

"You'll take it," Hesa said. "You know you will." When I paused, it said, "Pathen... pefna, support—"

"This is a little more vision than being Head of Household!" I said dryly.

"Is it?" it replied, challenging. "What have we been doing in Asara if not remaking the empire? Building the world we want to live in? You wanted a bloodless revolution, Pathen. This is our chance!"

"This is Thenet's chance," I said. "We came here to create a network it could use! We've been making the dissidents rich in preparation for its return... you expect them to back a new Stone Moon emperor instead?"

"Yes," Hesa said. "Because they're not waiting for orders from Thenet."

I looked up at it sharply. "You didn't—"

"I told them you were the leader of the truedark rebellion," Hesa said, chin lifted. "They're all waiting for word from you."

"You did what?" I breathed. "Hesa! Why?"

"Because it's true," it said. "It's been true since the settlement was razed. You weren't even one of us yet, Pathen. But when you found us in disorder, you took responsibility for a situation not of your making and for people you didn't even know. Without real leadership, the rebellion would have ended that day. But you carried it forward."

"You built the trade network," I said.

"And it worked because of who you are and what you'd done with Asara," Hesa said. It took a step forward. "All the things Minister Iren said about you are true, Pathen. If you take the seat, all the empire will follow you... and all the rebels too. And you will make a better Ke Bakil for all of us."

I cleared my throat and said, "Not alone."

It paused, ears splaying. "No... I... imagine not."

And then finally it began to seem funny, like something normal again. "Not ready for that much responsibility, ke eperu? To be pefna for a world?"

It glanced at me, then grinned. "I'm up for anything, ke emodo, as long as you're with me."

I caught its hands. One of them was fire-warm, the other cool. I kissed its fingers. "We'll have to have an anadi to complete the trinity. Not Kuli... I wouldn't want to pull her away from Darsi."

"We'll find someone," Hesa said. "So... you'll say yes?"

"Tomorrow," I said. "I want one last night as the Head of House Asara. We'll probably have to leave it."

"For het Kabbanil," Hesa agreed. And exhaled.

I pushed some of its hair away from its face and smiled. "Tension eased?"

"Yes," it said, fervent. "Yes. Not just mine, but... I feel the World sighing out. To be free. To be whole." It shuddered. "We have been waiting too long."

I pulled it into my arms, gentle, and rested my chin against its hair. It was the first time I'd ever risked such a thing in public... not because I'd cared what other people thought, but because I'd feared for Hesa's safety did they take issue with what they saw. And I... I had created this. Had made my world into a world where I could hold an eperu without fear of reprisal.

I had made a home without fear. Surely we could find a way to make a civilization without one also.

"Come," I said. "Let's talk to the rest of the House."

The following morning I sat in my office, my small quiet office. I studied the stacks of accounts yet to be approved, the contracts, the invitations. I looked at the desk where I'd stolen time with my beloved, the chairs where I'd entertained people who'd become friends. There was a discarded cloth doll on one of them, missing an ear.

I took up a piece of Asara's paper and smoothed it on my desk. Then I opened the ink pot and wrote two words.

 

I accept.

 

I closed the office door gently and rested a palm on it. The slim note in my hand felt as heavy as a stone tablet and as fragile as a breath, and on it was a new life... for all of us. And yet, I had loved and grown so much here.

I turned my back on my office and walked away. I didn't look back, but this time, I wanted to.

Walking down the ramp to the first floor I almost ran into the messenger, who was confused  at the paper I offered it, too distracted by the news it had apparently been bringing me. "Ke Pathen! There are people here to see you! They're in the common room!"

And who, I wondered, could possibly incite such agitation after we'd received the highest level officials in the empire? "That is for Minister Iren at the seat," I said. "Take it to him, please."

"Yes, ke emodo," it replied.

I left it then and threaded my way through the crowd of nervous Jokka in the halls to the common room. I stopped in the door.

"Pathen," Keshul said. "It's been a little over a year, I think?"

"Your timing is impeccable," I said.

The avatar of the Void had seemed uncanny outside beneath the stars; inside a room, he looked positively unnatural. His hair still moved of its own accord, though only out of the corner of the eye. And he... glowed. Not brightly, but enough for the tea in the cup beside him to gather a dim white reflection. Bilil was tucked under one of his arms, leaning on him easily... and Dekashin was sitting across from them, warming its hands on the cup.

Abadil joined me with Hesa just behind. "They've come!"

"We've come," Keshul said. "We heard het Narel was a safer place for us to walk these days."

"You knew," I said. "Even then. You were deciding about me. Did you put the idea in Jushet's head?"

"Me?" Keshul said and chuckled. "No. I might have nudged Iren, though, once I heard about Jushet's interest."

I glanced at Dekashin and my eyes snagged on it, remembering the intense conversation it had been having with Hesa, the one it had thanked me for not asking about. "And you... you told Hesa."

Dekashin held up its hands. "Ah, no, ke emodo. I warned ke Hesa that the emperor was dying. The rest it decided for itself." It smiled. "Though I admit, I was hoping it would come to the conclusions it did."

"And you?" I said to Bilil. "What part have you played in this?"

Her smile held all the enigma of the anadi. "My part is almost done, and yet to come."

Keshul said, "I take it Jushet and Iren offered you the position and you said yes?"

"Yes," I said.

"Good," Keshul said, standing. "Then there's only one thing left to do." He smiled. "Abadil, I hope you're ready to serve the Jokka."

"I'll bring my paper!" Abadil exclaimed, and pushed past the Jokka peeking in the room to vanish into the hall.

"What is this thing, then, Fire in the Void?" I said, for his demeanor had changed. He stood poised, the long ropes of his mane hanging in front of his scarred chest and an aura of chill power easing from him, dimming the fire.

"We are riding east," Keshul said. "There to meet the ship that will be arriving shortly." He drew in a long breath and said, "It's time."

"I'm ready," I said, and it was true.

"Then go and prepare for the journey," Keshul said. "And at the end of it, we will crown a new emperor."

"Steward," I said. Keshul paused and I said, more firmly, "The new steward of Ke Bakil. One of three."

Keshul glanced at Hesa and a smile grew on his mouth. "Yes... of course." He gestured toward the door. "Ke Jokka. We should leave before dark."

"Don't get too comfortable up there in het Kabbanil," Darsi said, throwing the packs over the back of my rikka. "The moment Kuli and I can travel we'll be following you."

"Then who will care for House Asara?" I asked.

He snorted. "Abadil, of course. He's a native and he doesn't want to leave Eduñil. But expect him to visit frequently... he's got an itchy brush and he won't want to miss everything."

"Of course not," I said.

"There," Darsi said, giving a sharp tug to the cinch to make sure it was holding. "That should do." He turned to me. "Pathen—"

"Darsi," I said, and embraced him. "Don't be too long."

"Look for us in spring," he said. "With the babies, gods willing."

"Gods willing," I said and let him go.

The courtyard was a confusion of people and beasts: Iren, Jushet, Suker and the Claws were already there and mounted. Some of them would be accompanying us to the shore to await Roika's ship, sighted by the distant look-outs posted on the eastern cliffs. The rest of them would be continuing on to het Kabbanil to prepare for our arrival. Most of House Asara had turned out to see us go, and while it crowded the courtyard I didn't mind. I pulled myself into the saddle and settled in to wait for the rest of our party. Before us, the avatars of the gods were finishing their own preparations. As we watched, Keshul mounted and helped Bilil up behind him. Dekashin went up on the second beast, saying something to them that made the anadi laugh. Keshul just shook his head and offered his hand.... and Dekashin nudged its mount over until it could clasp it. They shared a pause filled with words unsaid, that needed no saying.

I turned my gaze up to the early autumn sky. It seemed so long ago that I'd watched het Kabbanil recede from the back of a caravan and promised myself I'd return. It had been sunset then, a violescent sky shading to dark blue. This sky was pale and perfect as an opal, unblemished save for a single mark.

Hesa nudged its mount up alongside mine and followed my gaze. "The stone moon," it said.

"Just the moon now," I said. The rikka shifted beneath me and I calmed it with a gentle hand on the reins. I glanced toward the avatars of the gods, at Keshul's hand clasped in his beloved's. "I understand Abadil at last, you know."

Knowing me as well as it did, the eperu divined my meaning immediately. "Then at last you understand how a society based on love could function?"

"Yes," I said and glanced at it. "On trust. Because one does not love without trust. And a society can either be driven by a master with a sickle-knife, and produce people who obey the law and do what is necessary out of fear of reprisal... or a society can be based on trust. Trust that we will all work together. That we'll keep our promises to one another. That we'll choose to live together rather than die apart. We loved one another, Hesa, and through their trust in you, the truedark Jokka will follow me... and through their trust in me, the empire's Jokka will follow you. We have been making this web of trust since the moment we fled het Kabbanil. Since before it, when we met on Laisira’s fields." I looked up again at the moon and thought of the day I'd painted House Asara's stone. "There it is. The moon in daylight, sharing the sky with the sun."

Hesa lifted its head, considering the sight for a long moment. The pale autumn light shimmered on its copper roots.

Then it glanced toward me with a quirk of its mouth. "Emodo. Vision."

I smiled.  "Eperu. Support."

Before us, Keshul let Dekashin's hand drop and looked over his shoulder at us. I inclined my head and he guided his rikka out of the courtyard.

I looked back at Hesa. "Ke eperu."

"Ke emodo," it said, eyes flashing, head high.

"With me?" I said.

It smiled. "Always."

Together we rode out of House Asara, and on to our future.