Book of a Thousand Days

He mumbled agreement and relaxed again, his back against the couch. Our shoulders almost touched. The heat between us mingled.

"May I ask you something, honored khan?"

"If you call me Tegus," he said. "You helped save Batu. You earned the right to say my name."

"Tegus," I said, and the name in my mouth tasted wonderful, so in my heart I quickly asked forgiveness from Nibus, god of order. "A few weeks ago, when I sang to your deep pain, what was it? What old hurt were you carrying?

"

"Nothing I didn't deserve." His eyelids half closed and I thought he wouldn't answer, and rightly he shouldn't have--it was an impertinent question. But soon he went on. "I was in love with a lady once. I thought I didn't have the power to save her, so I didn't even try. And she came to harm because of my reluctance, my stupidity."

I didn't argue with him about the stupidity part, Ancestors forgive me. I did wonder, Why didn't you come back for us? Back for her?

But I didn't dare ask her khan that, and I couldn't ask Tegus. The song of the fire's snaps seemed a bit sadder now, as though it realized it was dying and was sorry to go.

Behind us, Batu stirred in his sleep, and at the same time Tegus and I both placed a hand on the war chief's arm. Tegus smiled at me when he saw that my instinct to comfort had been the same as his, and he didn't withdraw.

The moment made me imagine how her khan will be as a father, how he'll sit up at night and hold his wife's hand and talk to her as she rocks the baby to sleep.

Saren could only be happy with such a man. He said he was in love with her. I am her maid. I must do what I can.

Day 115

Today I managed to get my half day free during Saren's time off. We walked through the streets where folk who escaped from Titor's Garden and Goda's Second Gift pitch tents and sleep on doorsteps. Saren kept her arm in mine, leaning as if she needed the support, all that air and sky making her feel unsteady.

"I've spent some time with your khan, my lady, and I know he's a good man. He's safe." It was hard not to laugh outright as I added, "He's not plotting to kill you with arrows and knives."

She frowned but didn't argue, so I went on.

"I'm going to say something that you may not want to hear--being in the tower did you harm, made you believe things that just aren't real. I'm sorry it's so, but it's true."

"I know," she said, really quiet, but she still said it.

"So you need to trust me, my lady, when I tell you that Khan Tegus is safe. He'll take care of you.

He was very much in love with you, and still is, despite his engagement. Though it's been years, my lady, he remembers you with sighs."

"He does?" She breathed in as she asked it.

"Oh yes. He still remembers the words of your letters, and I think he holds the image of your face in his heart."

She seemed confused, or maybe she was just thinking. With my lady, both attitudes appear the same. But she wasn't arguing, which was more than I'd hoped for.

"He's engaged," I admitted, "and that's another matter. But if he still loves you, and he promised himself to you first, then Lady Vachir can have nothing to say. There is a risk, but how can we keep living in his very house and not let him know?"

She stopped walking. Her face was fully in the sun, and I noticed how pale she was, how little she must leave the kitchens, how she's still bricked up in the tower. Her eyes spoke it most of all -- dull, never looking far ahead.

But... but he didn't come back."

I had no answer for that. "I don't know why, but I do know his heart was broken, and you have the power to heal him. How can you not?"

"I can't just go to him, claiming to be Lady Saren."

"But you are

Lady Saren."

She looked at her hands. The wash water had done its damage--fingertips splitting, palms callused and bruised, skin mottled red almost as dark as my own birthmarks. Didn't I once take an oath to keep her hands beautiful? My heart turned, and if we hadn't been standing in the street, I would've knelt before her and begged forgiveness. Instead, I took her worn hands and kissed each one.

"How I've failed you, my lady. I will help you. I'll do whatever you ask to set you back in your place again."

She wrinkled her brow, thinking hard for a few moments, then said, "Pretend to be me, Dashti. Say you're me.

Find out what he'd do, how he'd react, and if it's favorable, then I'll tell all."

"My lady, it was one thing in the tower when he couldn't see my face --"

"He won't know me by sight."

"It's been years, I know, but still..." My face. My blotchy face and arm, my dull hair, my solid mucker body, my everything that isn't like my lady.

"You swore an oath," she said.

And so I had. Oath breakers will find no haven in the Ancestors' Realm where my mama waits. And besides, it's not fair to ask my lady to risk her life against Lady Vachir's wrath. I am her maid. It should be my duty to keep her from harm and face it myself. But to pretend to be Lady Saren again, and this time not hidden in a dark tower but out under the Eternal Blue Sky....

My stomach's icy cold, and I don't feel like writing anymore. I'll sketch instead.

[Image: Picture of Two People Sitted by the Side of a Man Lying on Bed.]

Day 119

I wasted three days worrying, praying for the lie I hadn't yet made, and imagining Tegus's face when I spoke the false words "I'm Lady Saren." Three days wasted, and my lady remains a scrubber indefinitely, because now her khan is gone.

His warriors marched today, sudden, like when the wind shifts from west to south. They left as soon as word came from Beloved of Ris--Khasar's armies are advancing on that realm.

Everyone thought Khasar would attack Song for Evela next because he proclaimed he'd have Tegus's title of khan for himself. It seems he isn't coming for it yet, instead striking at the weaker realm first.

We may not hear news for days and weeks. I feel set to cry and kick and curse.

There's not as much scribe work now while the khan is absent, so I volunteered to go back to the kitchens. I don't mind leaving my little room so much. Privacy begins to feel somewhat like loneliness.

Day 122

No news of her khan. It's getting cold at night. I wonder if he has enough blankets.

Day 125

Still no news. I feel dog-crazy, as if I'd like to bite someone. This kitchen smells.

Day 126

Mama would scold me. All I seem to do is mope, mope, mope. No one has enough news for me. Osol set to winking at me again, but I'm all worry with no space left to sigh for a cutter boy. I wash rags as if I held Lord Khasar's neck in my hands. I scrub pots as though the faster they're clean the sooner the war will be done. Cook declared at the rate I was going I'd soon have her position. Then she laughed. Scrubber is the lowest position in the kitchens, of course.

"I'm a scribe," I said.

She laughed again.

And while I mope, my lady scowls.

"You swore an oath," she whispered at me while we scrubbed. "And then you didn't do it."

I washed my next pot a little harder.

Day 127

I can't believe... the news is too big to write, I can't make my letters large enough to contain what I have to say.

But I must say it somehow.

He's alive! He's here, he's strong and pretty as ever he was, and purring like to shake the house down.

My Lord the cat, my beautiful cat.

He must've escaped the wolf, must've scratched that demon's eyes and run straight home. In the way he used to know when it was morning though the tower was all darkness, he must've known how to find the land of her khan again. Cats are wise like that. They have a shaman's eyes.

Today was my half day free, and I went to visit Mucker in the stable, only he was out pulling a cart. So I just wandered, because the sun was pleasant and round above me and made my shadow look strong and straight. I was thinking how you can't tell if a person's beautiful or not by her shadow when I saw a gray tail disappear into the dairy.

He was gone so quickly I couldn't be sure, so I ran after him, slipped on some spilled milk, and slid under the dairyman's legs. He hollered at me and before he could kick me out, I blurted, "Excuse me, but my cat came in here."

My Lord the cat leaped up on a stall, balancing above our heads.

"And how am I to know that he's yours?" the dairyman asked.

Khan Tegus gave him to me,

I wanted to say, but of

course I couldn't. If I'd thought of a good lie, I would've spoken it just then and let the Ancestors strike me dumb, so desperately I wanted to hold My Lord again.

I'd started to stutter something when My Lord leaped down onto my shoulder and wrapped his tail around my neck, just as he used to do in the tower. The dairyman laughed.

"Looks like he's yours, right enough. Get him out of here, then."

He remembers me. Don't these letters I'm writing fairly dance off the page? He's alive, and he remembers me!

These past days, it seemed I could scarcely draw breath for feeling so gray, and then today... well, the change makes me think about the sky over the steppes, cloudy one moment and Eternal Blue Sky the next. There's never a day that we don't see some blue sky. That's the way with a mucker's emotions, too. My mama used to say, "Are you sad?

Then just wait a minute."

Day 128

My Lord the cat slept beside me last night. I didn't wake up once.

Day 129

All the girls are utterly smitten with My Lord, of course. He sits on my shoulders, and they gather around and coo. Qacha can't help petting him whenever she passes by, even when her hands are sudsy. A wet coat puts My Lord in grumpy spirits, but he never shirks the attention. Cook complained about him at first, but soon she was saying things like, "That cat's prettier than a man," and "I'd eat my own toenails before I'd cook that one up."

Day 131

I love My Lord the cat! I love him, I love him. He sleeps again in the curve of my belly, he purrs when I wake in the night for wondering about the war and her khan and the lie I must tell. His rumbling song soothes me back to sleep. He is even better than windows.

Day 133

Last night as I lay down by the kitchen hearth, My Lord loped in from somewhere and took his place against my side. Snores already surrounded us. As I settled in, I noticed that my lady was awake, watching me. Watching us.

She whispered, "Why is he your cat? Didn't Khan Tegus give him to me?"

"Well, he gave him to me --"

"After you told him you were Lady Saren."

I didn't answer. My heart felt like a furnace spitting fire.

"I think he should be mine." She reached out and grabbed him from my arms and pulled him to her own side.

He writhed free and came back. Again she grabbed him, and this time in the struggle he clawed her arm and made an angry "rawr!" that provoked Gal to snort in her sleep.

"I'm sorry, my lady," I said, though I wasn't. I liked very much that My Lord preferred me. I rather felt like clawing her myself.

I hadn't even realized until that moment how over these past weeks, I'd begun to bubble with dark things, and my heart was boiled hard like tough mutton. I don't think I've ever truly hated a thing in my life like I hated Saren then. Hated everything about her--the whine her voice took as though she thought herself a child of six, her perfect face and shiny black hair, her honored father, her smell, her shaking hands when she stood under the sky. Her cowardice, her slowness. Her everything. I hated her.

I curled back up with My Lord alongside my body and pretended to be asleep. After a time, I heard sniffling.

There's nothing more aggravating in the world than the midnight sniffling of the person you've decided to hate.

Finally I sat up, and My Lord the cat, annoyed with all the talking and wiggling, sprang away to the door and set to cleaning his paws.

"What's wrong now, my lady?" I asked, and not very nicely.

She started to cry. Of course. "I order you to do one more thing for me."

She wants the cat, I thought. Let her try and take him.

"I want," she said, sniffling and sobbing, "I want you to kill me."

My lady never plays games with words. She means everything fully, she drinks down the world whole and spits nothing out. I knew she meant what she said, and it set me spinning.

"No," I whispered, my throat dry as salt meat.

"I order you to --"

"Order until you're out of breath," I said, glancing at Gal and Qacha, who were still dead asleep. "If I did such a thing, there d be no place for me in the Ancestors' Realm, nor for you either. We'd wander in the gray beyond the borders forever, with nowhere to sit and no milk to drink, and I'd never see my mama again. Punishment for disobeying your order can't be worse than that."

Saren turned on her side, her back to me, and set to sobbing so violently I thought she'd vomit.

"I don't want to live anymore," she said, the words almost lost with each wet sob. "Every night I think the sun's gone forever, but when it rises in the morning anyway I wish it wouldn't. Because then I spend all day scrubbing. And my chest hurts like it's stuffed with rocks. And everyone's dead in my father's city. Because of me. All those bodies, because of me. Because I wouldn't marry Khasar. It's my fault and it's too much and I can't carry it anymore. And Khasar s still coming for me anyway. He'll find the tower empty and come looking. And Khan Tegus will never love me because I'm not clever and I smell like dirty pots and I want to die, Dashti. Please, I can't do it myself, I've tried.

I'm too afraid and I'll do it wrong. You have to do it for me. Please, Dashti."

I didn't move all the while she pleaded. I felt buried by her sobs and words.

I turned toward My Lord and very quietly sang the cat song, the slow, sliding song that goes, "Twitch and itch, the world is meat, the world is mine." He put his nose out as if he could smell the song, then he padded to me and pressed his head against mine. I felt a jab in my heart as though someone had just told me that he was dead after all and never coming home.

Then I sat behind my lady, sang the cat song, wrapped my arms around her shoulders, and placed the cat onto her lap.

"Now you sing," I said.

At first she was timid and still sobbing too hard for the cat to hear any tune, but she calmed and her voice found the song.

"Temple to tail, purr zipping through." Her voice was softer than mine, but sweeter too. Whereas my singing's a hot, hearty meal, hers is a drink of sugared milk.

I didn't know if My Lord would accept her song or if he'd scorn her still--it's always the hearer's choice to heed a calling song, and cats are more stubborn than most. But he is a friendly cat, a happy soul. He curled up inside her crossed legs. After a time, he purred. She's no mucker, but that song she sang as well as my own mama.

She kept on singing and stroked his fur, but she stayed rigidly still as if afraid to spook him.

"It's all right. You can lie down," I said. "I think he'll stay with you."

Very slowly, very carefully, she eased herself down on her side. My Lord curled up beside her with a pleased rumble.

It was a long time before I slept that night, and I slept fitfully. When I sat up again, the fire was lower, and everyone was still snoozing except for Saren, who kept whisper-singing all night long and stroking his fur. My Lord the cat lay asleep, nestled in the curve of her body.

Except for singing my mama into the Ancestors' Realm, giving My Lord to Saren was the hardest thing I've ever done. And I felt emptied, a well dug out of my chest, and as pathetic as a three-legged cricket. But, strangely, as I rolled over to find sleep again, I realized that I didn't hate her anymore.

Day 134

When My Lord the cat came in from his morning prowl, Saren sang the song for cats, and he jumped onto her shoulder, curling his tail around her neck.

Qacha touched my elbow. "Dashti, Sar is --"

"I know," I said. It's a gross sin among muckers to sing a calling song to another person's animal, so I explained, "I gave her permission. He's her cat now. He was all along, actually. I was the one who first took him from her."

Qacha shook her head as though she didn't believe me. She doesn't think so highly of Saren. Not knowing that she's an honored lady, how can she be expected to be patient with this girl who doesn't do her share of work, who won't talk to anyone but me, who fusses like a small child when I'm not around? I understand Qacha's glares, but then I see Saren smiling at the cat as he extends his nose to hers, and my heart does a little flip. A happy flip, I think.

Still no news from her khan's army.

Day 136

Something has happened, and I thought I needed to write it down so my nerves can quiet, but now I hesitate.

There was a tribunal today and... Ancestors, how my stomach hurts! Let me distract myself with other thoughts first.

I never realized before that every city in the Eight Realms has eight chiefs as well as a lord or lady--nine rulers to mirror the sacred nine, the eight Ancestors plus the Eternal Blue Sky. Each chief serves one of the Ancestors and is always of the opposite gender. For instance, Batu, the war chief, serves Carthen, goddess of strength. I like to see things ordered, and right now I need a bit of calming, so I'll jot it down here: Khan Tegus (lord of the city)--serves the Eternal Blue Sky, and so is over all.

Chief of war (commands the warriors)--serves Carthen, goddess of strength.

Chief of city (maintains walls, structures, and trade routes) --serves Ris, god of roads and towns.

Chief of animals (keeps livestock, dairies, monitors hunting in the woods) --serves Titor, god of animals.

Chief of food (supervises the farms that feed the city and the market, and keeps the town's food supply)--serves Vera, goddess of farms and food.

Chief of order (sits in judgment)--serves Nibus, god of order.

Chief of night (leads the night watch, keeps the peace)--serves Goda, goddess of sleep.

Chief of light (hosts festivals and directs the shamans)--serves Evela, goddess of sunlight.

Once I learned all this, I wanted to know, what about the eighth chief? The one who would serve Under, god of tricks? Koke explained that she's the invisible chief, and there's always an empty chair for her at counsels. That thought scattered skin prickles down my back.

So I'm going to record now what's happened, though my stomach squeezes just to think of it. But it pesters my mind, so I will. The tribunal today was for Osol, the boy who used to wink at me, who once gave me a wildflower.

Word in the kitchens is that he and a girl were having loud words in the dairy, and the chief of animals was passing through. When she heard the ruckus, she commanded them to silence, but Osol was in a rage and pushed the chief, and when she fell, he kicked her.

For minor offenses, the chief of order would decide punishment, but this is not minor. The chief of animals is one of the khan's cousins, so she's gentry. Without Khan Tegus and Batu, there are still six chiefs in the city (plus the empty chair), and it only takes four of the nine to pass judgment. So they met together and they decided--Osol will hang tonight on the south wall.

I know this is the punishment for such an offense. I know I shouldn't be stunned, but I never knew a person who was hanged. I've glimpsed the bodies sometimes, hanging there, but I never knew. It changes it all. It makes me cry to miss seeing his smile, it makes me wince at the memory of his winking, it makes me shudder to imagine how he's feeling tonight. It makes me feel as if I'm the one who will hang.

He shouldn't have struck gentry, no, but Ancestors, does he really deserve death? Sometimes I wonder if that eighth chief, the absent one who serves Under, isn't getting more of a voice in things than we suspect.

Day 137

Osol died last night. I won't go see his body.

Day 140

I haven't had time to pick up the brush and ink these past days because I've been working my fingers to the marrow, but here's my news--so has my lady! She scrubs and mops and hauls water, and she hums all the while. And when Cook says, "Hurry with that pot, girl," my lady smiles, dimples and all. Under strike me silly if I lie.

She has her willow tree moments, she has her mopes, and she still startles at sudden sounds like a dropped pot or slammed door. But other times, in the in-between easy moments, she's calmer than pond water. Sometimes, she even seems happy.

I keep kissing her cheek and once I tickled her side, and hear this--she laughed! She says such things as, "Look at how clean that rag is," and "That's a pot I'd eat out of, sure enough." After she worked through her stack of pots today, Cook let her take over the stirring of the soup kettle, and I thought Saren would burst from joy. It's that cat's doing, no doubt in me. The creature loves her true as true, and she knows it. It's the knowing that's made the difference, I think. He wraps around her ankles or neck, even when she isn't singing to him. He finds her at night and purrs into her belly. A cat can make you feel well rested when you're tired or turn a rage into a calm just by sitting on your lap.

His very nearness is a healing song.

We've all been worked to bruising lately because now we cook for Lady Vachir and a large entourage from Beloved of Ris. They fled the war and a feared winter siege. I wish they'd brought more news with them. So far, I've learned little about our khan's warriors and how they fare, but surely the Ancestors will protect them.

When her khan returns, I don't rightly know how I'll tell him I'm Lady Saren. Having his current betrothed sleeping in his house does add a complication to this already thorny situation. Thank the Ancestors I hadn't made the claim before. With Khan Tegus gone, there d be no one to prevent Lady Vachir from deeming me a threat to her betrothal and taking my life. That's how the law's written, that's how Nibus, god of order, made the world. And Osol's death has reminded me that the chiefs wouldn't hesitate to carry out that law.

Day 145

Last week, Cook was so impressed with my lady's new devotion to working, she moved Saren out of the scrubbing kitchen and into the presenting kitchen, where she arranges food on the platters before they're taken up. It's one step below server and one of the highest duties any kitchen worker achieves. Saren fairly glowed at the news. My Lord entwines himself in her ankles, and she hums as she works, her cheeks bright and pink as though she were a healthy mucker girl living under the sun.

"Cook only chose her because she's pretty," said Gal, "in case she moves up to server. It's not fair. You're the fastest worker in the kitchens. It should've been you."

"It doesn't matter. I'm a scribe," I said, though I don't know if I'll ever be again.

Today was my free half day, and I sprang outdoors and into the city. I was anxious to see if I could find any news about the khan's army, but all the talk was the same--Khasar invincible, bloodshed imminent--enough dismay and fear to please Under, god of tricks, for years to come.

I passed the jobbers market where refugees stand in long rows hoping for employment, all holding the symbols of their trade: jewelers with magnifying glasses, goldsmiths with tiny mallets, teachers with books, merchants with scales, smiths with hammers, carpenters with saws, and scribes with brushes and ink. I felt kind of funny when I saw those scribes, wondering if I'd join them there after my lady marries.

Day 150

We've all been in such a flurry only now am I able to write. Khan Tegus is back, wounded, a tenth of his warriors dead. They rode hard into Song for Evela, bringing in villagers and shutting the city gates behind them.

I spent an entire helpless day scrubbing so hard I feared I'd make holes in the pots, until at last Shria came for me. Since then I haven't spent much time here in my quiet little room. I only came now to get some sleep because I was so tired I was beginning to see frogs leaping about in the corner of my eye. It'd make me laugh if times weren't so scary.

Three days I've spent with the shaman healers in Khan Tegus's room, singing until my throat's fair scalded with songs. He bears an arrow wound through his side and it's turned to fever. His breath wheezes while he sleeps, a sound that makes my own skin hurt as if a thousand red ants bit me at once.

The shamans change his bandages, give him drinks, dance with their drums, pray toward the Sacred Mountain, burn incense, and read the cracks in fire-heated sheep bones for any signs of hope. I hold Tegus's warm hand and sing and sing. My lord, my poor lord. It's too much like my mama's end. Times there are these past days when I lay my head on his couch and begin to dream as soon as my eyes shut, and my dreams are always the blackness of the tower falling over all the world, an endless city of corpses, and my lord's body there, too, cast on the ground.

I need to try and rest so I can return to him and sing some more.

Day 151

The shaman healers dismissed me. Tegus isn't improving. My singing does nothing. So they said. And I was lying here on my horsehair blanket and believing them. But then I remembered how Tegus asked me to help Batu, how he said please. Please, Dashti. And I did. And he got better.

Then I got to wake-dreaming about a time when I was ten and I fell into a thorn bush and scraped my arm, and it swelled and swelled, my arm on fire, my whole body trembling with heat. Mama and I were alone on the edge of a great forest, with no one around to help for miles, but I remember how calm she was, how cool her hands on my face.

And while I thrashed and sweated on my bed, she never stopped singing. On the third night, I woke from death dreams and looked up into her eyes, and I remember how I could see her confidence. She knew I could heal. So I curled up on her lap and felt her song move inside me until my skin cooled and I could sleep a healing sleep.

I'm going to go back to the khan's chamber now. I'm going to keep singing.

Day 153

It's still dark, the autumn morning too tired to rise, and I'm writing by firelight. The shaman healers feared that the khan's fever was the kind that comes with an open wound and stays and stays until it takes a warrior down days after battle. But at midnight his fever broke. They said it was a miracle, mumbled prayers to the north, then left or curled up to sleep on pallets on the floor.

I stayed by my lord's couch. It was the same couch where Batu had lain ill, where Tegus and I had leaned back together and stared at the fire, touching Batu's arm. This time, I touched the khan's arm and watched his chest rise and fall.

Over the past six days, I'd sung all the healing songs I knew, I'd stitched each one with my memories of sunlight, I'd poured any blue sky from my soul into the sounds. Now I was a snail's shell. There was nothing left for me to give.

So I sang him the nonsense song he'd given me in the tower. My voice was a horse's bray, I'm sure, raw with little sleep and so much singing. But I didn't want him to feel alone without any music to keep him company. "The piglet rolled while squealing, moving by snout and by jaw, happily snuffling for treats without use of hoof or paw." I sang it wrong. It needs a happy voice, the words jigging and the tune lilting up. All I could manage was a slow whisper, but I think it served.

I kept one hand on his arm and smoothed the hair back from his brow with the other. I sang. His eyes opened, and I should've withdrawn my hands. Really, I should've scuttled under the couch and hidden for shame. But I kept singing. And I kept one hand on his arm and the other on his forehead. And I stroked his hair back.

He watched me while I sang. He looked at my eyes. My heart felt so big, it hurt against my ribs. At last I felt some shame and started to pull away, but he put his hand over mine on his chest to hold me there longer. He knew I was just the mucker girl, the scrubber, and still he wanted to keep me close. I don't think I breathed for a long, long while.

I remembered in the tower before he came to visit, wondering if he'd been formed by Evela, goddess of sunlight. I think it might be true after all, because I began to squint wretchedly and couldn't look at his face.

When he slept again, I left him with the healers. I think I'll curl up in my horsehair blanket until the shivering in my limbs stops.

Day 155

This morning when I entered her khan's chamber, he was sitting up, his face not so pale. The icy fear that had lodged in my belly this last week at last began to melt. He was speaking with one of his chiefs, his face troubled, but when he saw me, he broke out in a grin so wide I have to believe it came right from his soul. Then he held his arms out before him, palms down, inviting me to clasp forearms as though we were of a clan, meeting again after a long absence.

"A warm greeting, Dashti," he spoke in the formal manner, though the cheerfulness in his smile made me think he wanted to laugh.

"A warm greeting, my lord," I replied, kneeling beside his bed and grasping his forearms with my palms up.

Then he did what I didn't expect from gentry to commoner --as we gripped arms, he pulled me closer, resting his cheek against mine, and inhaled through his nose, taking in the breath of my soul. I was too terrified to breathe. I hope he didn't notice that I didn't sniff as well, because refusing would mean insult, but I couldn't help but think, Did he keep my shirt from the tower? Does he remember the scent?

When he released me, he said, "So, just come from milking the sheep, have you?" which made me snort in laughter. It's a common mucker tease after a cheek greeting and means, of course, that I smell like a ewe, which I know I don't because I've been indoors for two weeks and bathed two days ago. His sly half smile made me think he'd actually sought out some other mucker and asked for something right silly to say to me.

So I answered, "I have, in fact. They send greeting to their brother Tegus."

Day 156

This morning, Tegus welcomed me again with an arm clasp and cheek touch. I wasn't startled this time, and I breathed in at his neck. How can I describe the scent of his skin? He smells something like cinnamon--brown and dry and sweet and warm. Ancestors, is it wrong for me to know that? To write it? Is it wrong for me to imagine laying my head on his chest and closing my eyes and breathing in his smell?

Yes, it is wrong. I won't think it again.

He told me he likes me close by, says my singing eases the pain. Even though I don't always sing. Mostly we talk. Often we laugh, at least until his arrow wound pierces him and the shaman healers shoo me away. But I always return before long, and they always let me back in. And I sing and we laugh.

I haven't touched him again, as I did when he first woke from the fever sleep. I wonder if he remembers or if he thinks it was a dream.

[Image of a Man Lying On a Bed)

Day 157

I've seen Lady Vachir at last, and she dresses in all the splendor I would imagine for a lady of a realm. Indigo powder colors her eyelids, sandlewood perfume wafts from her skin, and when she moves, the dangling pearls in her hair click against her tortoise-shell combs. One would imagine such finery could make a lady happy. Not so. I find it easier to imagine a snake smiling than our Lady Vachir. Her mouth is stern, her eyes are sad, her hands lie in her lap like frozen things. For the past two days, she's been attending Tegus in his resting chamber. They brought in a second couch for her and her three lady's maids, and they sit with their backs straight, look at us, and whisper. Khan Tegus and I don't laugh much anymore.

When he's awake, I rest my hands on his belly wound and sing to his bones and skin, his muscles and blood.

When he sleeps, I sit in the corner and do scribe work. To tell the truth, the scribbling has become about as much fun as picking lice out of a goat's hair. While I write, I can feel Lady Vachir's gaze prickling me. I don't like it much.

Today when the khan was asleep, Lady Vachir said, "My back pains me. What is that girl's name, the commoner there?"

Batu the war chief was present, and he answered, "Dashti, my lady."

"I want her to use her healing songs on me. Tell her to come to my chamber."

She and her ladies rose and left, and I supposed she meant me to follow, so I did. Halfway there, she claimed that her own chamber was being cleaned and I should take her to mine. So I led her to my little room and lay her on my horsehair blanket. Her three lady's maids stood around me like so many vultures waiting for something meaty to die. I placed my hands on the lady's back and sang the tune with the lilting high parts that says, "Tell me again, how does it go?"

When I finished, she stood and said, "I don't know why they let you hang about. Your song didn't make a drop of difference."

Well, that put some fire in my lungs, sure enough, so I said, "A song can only work if the hearer wills it. Do you perhaps enjoy the back pain? Or maybe your back didn't pain you to begin with?"

She slapped my mouth. What is it about gentry that they're always slapping people? It made me giggle, which made her glare. What's come over me to speak casually and laugh at an honored lady? As she swept out of the room, I noticed her gaze fall on this book, lying in the corner.

From now on, I'll keep it with me. Lady Vachir is the last person in the Eight Realms I'd want to see these words.

I like that woman about as much as I like skin rot in the summer. Maybe she rankles me so because she's standing between my lady and her beloved. Or maybe the woman is just plain unpleasant. I shouldn't be so hard, but there it is. I look at Lady Vachir and I see someone who loves nothing much, who's seen a great deal of death in a short amount of time, and rather than feel sorrow, has decided to turn into stone.

[Image of Woman in a Kimono]

Day 159

These past days in my lord's chamber, all the talk is on Khasar. I try to ignore it and focus on what I'm copying on parchment, because there's nothing more frustrating than hearing of a problem you can't do anything to fix. But I can't help hearing some, and my mind keeps working over the trouble, like chewing on tough meat till my jaw's sore.

I don't like Khasar. I guess I've never been so terrified in my life as the time he flicked burning wood chips into our tower. His voice, even in memory, makes my bones shiver. The sounds of the healing songs remind the body of how it should be, but the sound of his voice had the opposite effect on me. Whatever he uttered, his laugh, his snarl, his words, seemed a song of ill. Just the memory of that sound greases my dreams some nights like fatty pot scrapings smeared on my hands.

The news today was that Khasar's warriors have rested and regrouped from their assault on Lady Vachir s land and are on the march again.

"He'd been laying siege on Beloved of Ris, my lord," said Batu, the war chief, who was healed and standing, strong as a yak after a good summer. "We thought he'd continue his siege through the winter, but he's moving again.

Coming this way."

Khan Tegus winced as he sat upright. "I'd hoped to lead our army against him before the bitter cold comes, drive him away from Beloved of Ris. We can't risk the defeat of that realm and the warriors Khasar would add to his own."

"Is he marching to attack Song for Evela?" asked the chief of night, an old man whose fading brown eyes always seemed kindly to me. "Or is he returning to Thoughts of Under for winter?"

"There is no more Thoughts of Under," said Batu. "He's changed the name of his realm to Carthen's Glory."

That silenced everyone. Changed the name of his realm! I'd never heard of, never imagined such a thing. He must mean the change as a mighty prayer to Carthen, goddess of strength.

"Ancestors spare us," someone whispered.

They kept talking about strategy, numbers versus numbers, tactics if he marches on our khan's city and such, but my thoughts were running through a different forest. And though now I should be curled up in my horsehair blanket and long ago asleep, I had to write these thoughts first. They gnaw at me, like to chew me to bits before morning.

Khasar has betrayed Under, god of tricks, by abandoning his name, and pledged himself to Car-then. That makes me think the means to defeat him will be through trickery, not strength. He destroyed the realm of Titor, god of animals, and overthrew the land named for Goda, goddess of sleep. Animals, sleep, and trickery will not be his friends.

These thoughts feel true, but they also seem like the bones of some animal all in a jumble, and I can't see how they fit together and what they form. Maybe the Ancestors are trying to help me, if I could only see.

Day 161

Khasar s warriors are coming closer. It doesn't seem they mean to pass us by. I spend all my time in my lord's chamber now with his chiefs, Lady Vachir, and her whispering maids. When Tegus hurts too much to continue, I'm there to sing. But I miss the laughing parts.

Outside, the world is starting to crack with cold.

Day 162

Many were gathered in the khan's chamber today, the mood stiffer than winter laundry.

"His army is setting up camp outside our walls," said Batu. "They're well equipped with ghers and supplies.

They can hunt our woods all winter and get on well."

"But we won't," said the town chief. She has gray and black hair, thick and tangled in braids all over her head.

To me, her eyes look as dark as deep wells.

"We were prepared for a siege before," said the food chief, "but now with all the people we've taken in from Titor's Garden, Beloved of Ris, and Goda's Second Gift, not to mention our own villagers who have sought refuge inside the city walls, our stored food won't last two months."

"Longer if we eat the livestock," said the chief of animals. "But that choice is death still, just a slower death, if we have no animals next year."

"And there's the matter of the terror Khasar inspires," said the chief of light. He was resting his forehead on his templed fingers and just then didn't look much as if he were filled with sunshine. "Your warriors brought back tales of Khasar in battle, his ferocity, his eerie strength. And other rumors fill the barracks--the midnight killings in Beloved of Ris, how sentries and warriors disappeared from their posts and their bodies were found with their throats and organs eaten away. These stories will spread throughout the city and cause panic when Khasar attacks. Panic can defeat us as surely as lack of food."

"Worse news," said Batu. "The strange killings have already begun here. This morning, two men were found outside the city gates, ravaged as if by a wild beast."

Did Khasar have some dark alliance with predatory animals? How could he make a wild wolf attack on his command? My thoughts took me back to the tower, and I was hearing in memory the screams that night when a wolf howled. The screams of our guards who never appeared again. It was not a comfortable memory and it made me want to curl up somewhere with a wall at my back.

The chiefs had gone quiet and Khan Tegus was staring at the fire. At length he said, "Batu, what do you recommend?"

"We must attack. Now, before full winter. There's no choice."

"Holy one?" Tegus spoke to a shaman crouched before the fire.

The shaman was removing sheep anklebones from the embers and spreading them out on the floor. He hopped around, squinting at the cracks in the bones, humming sometimes and moaning others. We all waited.

"Foretelling is never exact, my khan," said the shaman. He peered up through his hat tassels. "But your victory won't come from strength, so I see in the bones."

"But it's not exact," said the town chief, "and if we have no other way --"

"Strength can't be your friend," said the shaman, "not since Khasar pledged himself to the goddess Carthen."

"That's right!" I said. I did shout out those words just like that, with all those people present. The shaman spoke the thoughts I'd been thinking, and now in my mind the jumble of bones was beginning to click together. "He'll have Carthen on his side, but he betrayed Under, god of tricks. My lord, I think that might be the way to defeat him."

Some scowled at my outburst, but Tegus asked me, ' What hope do you see, Dashti?"

"With no offense to the holy one or to Dashti," said Batu, "this isn't the time to bet our lives, our entire realm, on uncertain foretelling or mucker faith. We can't hesitate with this monster, my lord. His assault is terrible. His warriors attack night and day. All say it's as though he never sleeps. We must hit Khasar from the front with every warrior we have."

The khan nodded. "First, Dashti, tell me your thoughts."

I smiled at him. I couldn't help it. He makes me smile. "In battle, we'd have no chance. As the holy one said, with Carthen as his ally, no one can defeat him by means of arms. But Under is bound to be angered by the betrayal.

With Under s blessing, I think you can trick Khasar."

"How do you propose we trick him?"

I didn't know, to be honest. I still don't. I just felt coolness and motion inside, like underground rivers running through me, and a sureness that it could be done. Something to do with Under, some trickery involving animals.

Perhaps the very wolf Lord Khasar uses to kill warriors at night would turn on him. And somehow, we could make that happen. And then I remembered what Saren once said about Khasar, how he ripped out the throat of a goat. I'd thought she was just tower-addled at the time, but I begin to wonder what she may know.

"Well?" said the town chief. "We're waiting for your cunning plan."

I looked at the shaman for help, but he shrugged. Apparently the sheep bones didn't tell him anything more.

I cleared my throat. "Let me think about it. I --" One of the chiefs laughed. The chief of animals, I think it was.

The chief of camel dung and jackasses. I'm sitting in my room under the horsehair blanket, and I feel that laugh still crawling all over me.

Later

After last I wrote, I begged Cook for a moment with Saren. I took her into the sugar closet, where I feel suffocated but she seems to calm. Cook used to keep it locked, the sugar safe from prying fingers, but this one's empty now, what with traders from the south avoiding the Eight Realms since Khasar began his warring. I took Saren's hands.

I met her eyes. She's more relaxed of late, but she set to blinking when she heard me mention Khasar's name.

"My lady, once you told me that Khasar is a beast, that you saw him tear a goat's throat with his teeth. I need to know what you meant. Please tell me."

Her eyes went so wide I thought she'd never blink again, and she shook her head.

"He's here, my lady. His armies are camped outside the wall. They'll do here what they did to Titor's Garden if we don't --"

That was stupidity on my part. I should've kept that news silent, because then she set to shaking and moaning.

"He's here, he's coming in for me, I knew he would, he won't let me be, I'd rather be dead --"

"Please, my lady, help me stop him. You know something about Khasar that no one else knows, don't you?

What is it?"

"I can't remember," she said.

I was cruel then. I should've spared her the memory, but I pressed. I reminded her of how I've cared for her, how I stayed with her when all others left. I took her shoulders and held her, and I demanded, I ordered her as she would order me.

"By the Ancestors, Saren, tell me!"

"I'm trying, Dashti! I am. I'm trying. I try to think but my thoughts slip out of my hands and everything's darkness and..."

She started to cry, which made me realize I hadn't seen her cry in weeks. My poor lady, who is just chaff in the breeze. I held her as I used to do when she was tower-addled; I rocked her and sang the calming song, "Oh, moth on a wind, oh, leaf on a stream." Patience, I told myself, though the knowledge of Khasar's nearness pressed on me, like being out in the heaviest of cold.

I placed my hand on her forehead, and I wove the calming song into the tune for Goda's prayer. The goddess of sleep knows the mind.

After a time, Saren shuddered but stopped crying. Her eyes closed, and she leaned against me as if too tired to sit. While I was singing, My Lord the cat nosed the door ajar and leaped onto her lap, purring under her hand.

She took a deep breath, leaned into me more fully, and told the story she'd been keeping for seven years. "I was twelve years old and was visiting Lord Khasar with my father. His house was vast and cold, like my father's but darker, heavier. We ate a huge feast. I knew my father had hopes of betrothing me to Khasar, but I didn't pay any mind. It seemed as though it had nothing really to do with me. They talked and I ate and played with a little dog that begged under the table. Sometimes I felt Khasar watching me.

"I had a room to myself while we stayed in his house. I thought it was such fun at first. I'd never been alone before, and I could run around the room and climb on the furniture and not worry about my maids and my father and what they thought of me. But at sundown, one of Khasar's men came to my door. His name was Chinua. He was Khasar's war chief and had constantly been at his side. He said my father and Khasar sent him to fetch me."

Her forehead furrowed, but she didn't open her eyes. "I was afraid," she stated simply. "I thought my father would have me do something humiliating before Khasar, like make me dance while they laughed. Or he might slap me, just for show. He never slapped me when we were alone, only in front of people. While I didn't dare refuse my father's call, I did wonder why Chinua seemed full of some secret joke.

"He took me to a courtyard outside Lord Khasar's house, hidden from the eyes of windows. My father wasn't there. Lord Khasar was. He called me Saren. He said, 'Fitting that a girl named for moonlight should see me as only the moon knows me. What do you say, Chinua, is it time to show myself to this moon?' He smiled as the sun finished setting, then he took off all his clothes until he was naked."

"Naked?" This part surprised me. To be naked outside is utter submission, and to be unclothed before anyone besides family is humiliation. "That doesn't sound like Khasar. Why would he willingly debase himself?"

Saren shook her head. "It was different with him. It was as though he was naked to embarrass me. It was so strange how Khasar just stood there and laughed at my discomfort. So strange, and I was too afraid to do anything, even to look away. Then the last of the sunlight faded, and I realized why he'd taken off his clothes. It was so they wouldn't rip." She shook. "In the darkness he changed, Dashti. Right in front of me, Khasar changed from a man into a beast. A wolf."

She was quiet for a time and I was glad she was. I had to make sense of this in my own head. In one way it seemed impossible, and in another I felt as if I'd known this all along.

"At first I thought he meant to kill me," Saren continued. "But then I noticed a goat on a tether, and so did Khasar the wolf. Chinua held my head and made me watch while the wolf devoured the animal. I was sure I'd be next, but after the goat was a wrecked carcass, Chinua moved us behind a fire. The wolf ignored us, sniffed the air, and ran off into the woods.

"Chinua laughed and laughed, and while he laughed he told me things. That his lord had gone off to hunt in the woods until sunup. That his lord had made quite a bargain with the desert shamans and now was the greatest hunter in all the realms. He said, weren't we lucky to be the only ones alive to know Lord Khasar's secret? Once his lord had allowed another girl to witness his transformation, but she'd told a boy. Afterward, both were found in a pile of their own innards, and if I ever told a soul, I'd be the next goat."

Saren's eyes fluttered, then she closed them again. "I saw Lord Khasar the next morning, and he smiled at me and touched my braids and told me I was beautiful. He'd eaten that goat and hunted other things in the woods as well, and yet when I looked in his eyes, I knew he's never full."

"He killed our tower guards," I said, realizing it as I spoke. "As a wolf, he attacked them, and all those guards with their weapons couldn't kill him. You knew all along and yet you didn't dare tell me."

She sat up and opened her eyes, speaking straight at me with no fear. "I'm telling you now. Khasar becomes a beast at night. In the dark, he's a wolf. I want you to know. I guess he'll kill me like the goat now that I've told, but I don't care anymore. Even if I have to die, I want it to be over. I'm tired of being afraid."

"I'll find a way to end it," I told her.

She rested her head on my shoulder again and didn't cry. I thanked her and I sang to her, and she sighed like a traveler who can rest at last. My poor lady. All she's been for years is a frightened little girl. I've promised her I'll make it better, and I will. I must. So, how does one trick a wolf?

Day 163

I'm alone in a room, though not the small clean room, not the kitchen, and not my lord's resting chamber. There are windows, but these look out on the city, these are high up. It's not a tower, not quite, though it seems as much like a prison. Just now, I understand my lady's plea that she wanted to die. My stomach feels like the winter sky.

After Saren remembered Khasar's horror, I passed the night drowsing between ideas, then waking again with thoughts of what to do. What to do? Could I trick him into becoming a wolf by daylight? Is there a way to sing him into that shape? What would happen if he did become a wolf under the sun? And how could I get close enough to make it happen?

As soon as it was light enough, I went to Khan Tegus's chamber to share what I knew, but it was filled with chiefs and shamans, and of course Lady Vachir and her vulture maids sitting on their perch.

As I entered, the war chief was saying, "He's declaring lie won't attack Song for Evela if we give him Lady Saren."

I stood in the threshold, though I know it's bad luck. I couldn't move, not forward or back. My mama said I'm as brave as the lead gazelle with hunters on her tail, but I wasn't then. Since coming to Song for Evela, too many times I've put my mama to shame.

"Lady Saren?" The khan rubbed his forehead. "Is Khasar truly insane? He has Lady Saren already, if he hasn't killed her yet."

"What do you mean Khasar has Lady Saren?" I asked. I just couldn't keep quiet.

Some of the chiefs glared at me for interrupting, but her khan answered.

"Dashti, I didn't see you. Have you heard of the lady in the tower? I knew her." He glanced at Lady Vachir before continuing. "I visited her one autumn. When I returned to Titor's Garden in the spring, Khasar was at the tower before me, and two hundred of his men camped with him. I'd only thirty men and couldn't risk attacking."

He came back! I smiled at him. I wanted him to know how wonderful he was, but he was looking out the window.

"Surely Khasar was there to break her out," he said, "take her back to his own realm."

"But now he's asking for her," said the town chief.

"Maybe he didn't take her." Tegus drummed the pane with his fingers. "But if he didn't, where is she?"

There was silence for a few moments, and my soul rumbled inside of me, rolling around like a ball in a box, shaking my bones.

I'd sworn to protect my lady. I'd said I'd claim her name and title and see if the khan would welcome her. I knew I should speak up now, the Ancestors designed this very moment to allow me to do my duty. But instead, I quaked and stared at my feet. And the moment passed.

"He claims he has one hundred villagers on neck ropes," said Batu, "ones too slow to flee before his army's advance. He's shouting that he'll catapult them into our city if we don't turn over the lady. Scouts confirm the hostages."

"Ancestors," sighed an old chief, rubbing his back as if the news made him ache.

The khan stared hard at Batu and finally asked, "And what's the part that you aren't telling me?"

Batu sighed. "He said he wanted Lady Saren, but he'd accept you, my lord. He goaded, said a true khan would give his own life to protect his people."

"A true khan...," said Tegus.

Silence. The fire in the hearth shivered.

"I don't advise believing anything Khasar says, my lord," said Batu. "He still believes if he kills you and conquers Song for Evela, he can take the title of khan, and after that I doubt he'd stop until he seizes all the Eight Realms and declares himself Great Khan. Even if we had Lady Saren to release to him, I can't believe he'd give up his war."

"But those hundred villagers..." Tegus covered his face with a hand, shaking his head. "And where is she?

Where's Saren all this time?"

"Here." I couldn't believe I'd spoken it even as I did, and my stomach ached and my blood stopped running in my veins. "Here," I said again, just to make sure I really had. I swore an oath to my lady, and I have to believe that if I do the right thing, the Ancestors will take care of the rest.

Everyone was staring at me. At least, I felt like they were, but I was only watching Tegus. I'd grown used to his amused expression when he looked at me. Now the confusion on his face felt as unpleasant as a slap.

"Dashti?" he said. "What are --"

"I'm Lady Saren." I was amazed how sure I sounded as I spoke. "Dashti is my maid's name."

He took a step forward, stopped. Everyone still stared. I was waiting for laughter, or maybe to be tied up with their sashes like the assassin who'd stabbed Batu. Tegus took another step forward. I would've accused him of dancing if I hadn't been shaking with the fear that he'd frown at me and demand I be strung up on the south wall.

"Khasar didn't take us from the tower," I explained. "He just came to mock us. We wouldn't go with him willingly, so he left us to rot. When we ran out of food, we broke our way out. Titor's Garden was razed, so we came here, but I wasn't sure if... you were engaged to Lady Vachir, and I didn't know if..."

My throat burned with the lies. Tegus still just stared.

Lady Vachir stood up from her couch with a not very nice expression. I guess she wasn't feeling much fondness for me. I guess she was imagining me on a spit, slowly turning over a fire. Truth be told, that's pretty much how I felt.

"You broke out?" asked Tegus. He took another step closer.

Why wasn't he calling me a liar? I look nothing like Lady Saren, and surely at a glance anyone can see I'm not gentry.

"It was the rats, my lord," I said. "They ate our food, but they also dug a way through the bricks. Funny how the thing I thought would kill us actually saved us in the end, isn't it? The cat you gave me was a brilliant rat hunter!

But he was chased off when Khasar came back, and in his absence the rats took over. I was sorry to leave the pine bough behind in the tower. I kept it those three years."

"The pine bough." He stepped even closer. He took my hands, lifted them to his face, and breathed in through his nose, the formal greeting between gentry. Despite it all, a thrill tickled me.

"Lady Saren? After all these years to see you for the first time with Lord Khasar at the city walls.

"My lord?"

"Hearing your voice in the tower, I'd imagined meeting you so many times. And now you're Dashti... I... my lady." He shook his head and winced and smiled all at once. "I'm not sure if I'm standing on my feet or on my head."

So. That jumble of animal bones was beginning to come together. He'd never seen Lady Saren before. He'd never seen her! They'd never met when they began to communicate through letters. The only time he'd spoken with Lady Saren was in the tower. But it had been me. Ancestors, what a thought.

"I should've come forward before," I said, "but I was afraid. I'm sorry, my lord. Please forgive --"

"Don't you dare ask my forgiveness! After abandoning you, leaving you to Khasar and rats and darkness and starvation, all because I was too afraid. I'm unforgivable, Dashti... my lady. But will you

?" He knelt at my feet, he held my hands against his face as he bowed before me. His voice broke. "Can you forgive me?"

Everyone began talking at once, which was just as well, since my breath had frozen solid inside me and I couldn't make a sound above a croak. Lady Vachir wanted to know who I was to threaten her betrothal, and Batu proposed that all questions of betrothal be set aside until Khasar was vanquished, and all the chiefs who didn't know the story of Lady Saren were clamoring for explanations, so others began to explain.

And all the while, Tegus held my hands to his face. I didn't mean to stroke his cheek--my thumb moved of its own accord, I swear. He smiled up at me, and my face felt hot.

I tugged him to his feet, saying, "Please, my lord, please don't kneel to me."

He arose and clasped my hands inside his. We were standing so close.

"I'm sorry," he whispered beneath the clamor around us. "My lady, I am so sorry." Then he grinned. "But even more, I'm happy. You're Lady Saren. And you're alive and well and here. Thank the Ancestors, you're here."

I felt ready to fall apart with all the elation and frustration and fear. The lie was heaps of cold mud on top of me, fit to suffocate me dead. Shria began talking about getting me into garments befitting my position and letting me rest in a proper chamber and chiefs were begging they return to the matter of war when I remembered my purpose.

"He's a wolf." I spoke quickly before they could interrupt, my voice tumbling over the noise. "Khasar never sleeps, he fights by day and hunts by night. He's a skinwalker, empowered by a desert shaman ritual to add the strength of a wolf to his own. That's why he's so fierce in battle. And at night, he takes wolf form, killing by stealth and spreading fear. But this might be the means to trick him. Send me down to him, send him Lady Saren, and let me-

-"

It was as much as I could explain before Tegus refused to let me anywhere near that butcher and Lady Vachir objected to my presence and the chiefs were in an uproar about the battle plan, that they must attack Khasar, that his deadline was for tomorrow noon and the warriors were preparing and needed the khan's attention now.

Sometimes I think they're all ridiculous. There I was, a sensible person with thoughts in my head, offering a solution. And they wouldn't listen. What aggravation, to believe I can help and yet not be allowed.

Shria took me by the shoulders and rushed me away, saying, "We'd no idea, my lady, if we'd known, my lady..." As I left, I caught sight of Batu, who seemed to be considering me seriously.

And here I am, in a different room, this one with a low couch and a silk coverlet, a lacquered table and a porcelain bowl filled with nuts for cracking. It's higher up in the khan's house, its window larger. At my request, Shria brought me my things--the horsehair blanket, my wool cloak and my boots, and my ink and brushes.

"Here's Sar, my lady, who I realize now must be your maid," and Shria ushered Saren into the room, still wearing her apron and smelling of kitchen smoke.

It was rather awkward while Shria remained with Saren pretending to be a lady's maid but mostly standing there staring at me like some baby animal. When the white-haired woman finally left, Saren collapsed on my pallet.

"I did it, my lady," I said.

She stared at the ceiling. "Thank you."

We were quiet.

"Would you like some nuts?"

"No," she said. Then, "Cook was having me decorate a serving platter for dinner. I'd like to go back to it. And make sure My Lord the cat gets his meat shavings."

"Of course."

So she left. And I'm relieved because I have enough thoughts and fear quakings to make me happy to be alone.

It's night now, and even from here I can detect the bleary lights beyond the city walls. Khasar's men and their fires, their numbers rivaling the stars, laughing back at the eternal blackness of the night sky.

I'm afraid to put down my brush and ink. I'm afraid I'll be chilled by the quiet that comes after my brush ceases stroking parchment, that the silence will lower me into the night like into a grave. Now I'm being dramatic, I guess. I should say that I'm just plain afraid. I've got to do something and I don't know if I can.

Day 164

Or is it still yesterday? I write by firelight. I write because I want these ink strokes to give me courage, as I seem to be lacking it. My veins feel dry and dusty of blood. Not much of a mucker, am I, to be so terrified? I've tried laughing at myself, but it hasn't helped yet.

An hour ago, I went in search of Batu, the war chief. I woke Shria, and she told me where to find his room. She thinks me gentry, she'll do what I ask. What an unhappy laugh that gives me.

Batu didn't seem surprised to see me at his door in the middle of the night. He stepped into the hall so neither of us would invoke the bad luck of the threshold.

"Did you promise the khan anything regarding me?" I asked before revealing my plan. "No, I didn't."

"Then I'll tell you that I'm going down to Lord Khasar. I've been praying to Under all night. He hasn't answered me, but when does the god of tricks offer signs to his petitioners?"

"Indeed."

I cleared my throat. My voice was sounding an awful lot like a rat's squeak, and I've had enough of that noise for a lifetime. "I'm going of my own will, as Lady Saren. Would it be against your oath to Khan Tegus to help me?"

Batu frowned at me a good long while. Then he shook his head. "No, it would not. But what do you plan to do?"

"Get close enough to Khasar to sing. A song can't force Khasar to do anything, but if I sing to the wolf inside him, maybe the wolf will choose to come out."

"And then what will happen?"

"Something," I said with much conviction to hide the feeble answer. "None of his men know he's a skinwalker, except his war chief. At least, that was true a few years ago, and I think it must still be so. And if they find out --"

"Who knows," said Batu, "it might cause them to revere Khasar all the more."

"Would your warriors follow you if they believed you'd traded the life of your soul to desert shamans?"

Batu considered. "Their loyalty would be dented, no question, and after a time I believe they would abandon me. But in the midst of a war, they might follow me into battle all the same."

"Yes, but..." I didn't know how to form my impressions into words. "But if they actually saw him. I mean, how would you react if you saw someone change into a wolf? He's never a wolf by day, so he'd be confused and they'd be confused and... and..."

What would happen then? Would he attack his own men? Would they fight back? I don't know. But I have these ideas, and I have a strong body to carry them out, and a reason to do it. How can I not?

"My lady, I don't think you should throw away your life, and I don't think I should take your hand and lead you to your end."

He put a hand on my shoulder as if to usher me back to my room, but I grabbed the doorpost.

"Did you see Khan Tegus today, when you told him Khasar would take his life instead of Saren's? Is there any chance that Tegus will offer himself to save those hundred villagers? For the war, for this realm, isn't Tegus more important than any risk I might take?"

Batu shut his eyes. He was tired, I could see that now. We all are lately, I guess. At least he didn't argue with me again.

We agreed to meet at the kitchen door at dawn. He'll lead me to the east city gate and tell the guards to let me pass. From there, I'll go alone. I'll walk toward Khasar's camp from the east, so the sun will rise behind me, granting me a shadow on my face. I'll wear my hair down and loose, so he won't see me well enough to know the lie. Unlike Tegus, Khasar has seen Saren. I'll go barefoot so he'll see my naked ankles beneath my cloak and know I am a girl and not a warrior, and so perhaps let me get close enough to sing. I'll go alone.

Carthen, goddess of strength, I need your smile more than Khasar does. Evela, give me a bright sun and a dark shadow, and grant me a powerful song. Under, I plead the honor of being the dagger of your revenge.

[Image: A Woman Walking Towards A Village]

Later

Is it still the same day? It feels years later. I can't sleep tonight in this strange place, in yet another new room. I managed to keep my book, and I have a new brush and ink and nothing to do but fret and write, so I'll tell you all that's happened. Ancestors have mercy.

When I met Batu at the kitchen door, I brought Mucker with me. His exhales were billows of white, and he leaned his head against me like an enormous cat. Titor, but I love that beast.

"I'll ride the yak to the gate," I said.

I didn't say that I hoped riding a yak, Titor s favorite animal, might grant me a kind glance from him, because Batu didn't seem to believe in "mucker faith."

And I didn't say that I wanted to put my fingers on an animal's neck to feel some steady comfort or I was likely to break down and sob like a newborn. I certainly didn't say that.

Batu led the yak through the streets. The ways were narrow, clogged with the ghers of refugees, and by the time we reached the east city gate, the sun had cleared the horizon. I couldn't feel its heat. The air was ice that seemed ready to break under my fist. My hands were shaking like to come off my arms, though I don't think I can blame the shaking on just the cold.

Batu spoke to the gate guards, and they inched the gates open. Two arrow shots away, Khasar's warriors camped. They resembled ants in an anthill, for all that I could ever hope to count their number.

Batu put his hand on Mucker's neck. "Are you certain, my lady? There's little chance Khasar will keep his word once he has you."

"I'm wagering on the god of tricks today," I said.

"That's a poor wager," one of the gate guards muttered.

I slipped off my boots then slid off Mucker's back, and the moment my bare feet touched earth, they went numb with cold. I patted Mucker's nose once before beginning the walk across the empty field toward Khasar.

How can I say what it was like? Cold. Long. Lonely as ghosts. I guess it was about the worst moment of my life, almost as hard as singing my mama into the next Realm --and much colder. Khasar and his men were so far off it felt like forever to get there, and even though I wasn't eager to arrive, the journey itself was misery. Does fright hurt?

It did then, it did for me, in my stomach and in my limbs. And it didn't help that my feet were so frozen I couldn't sense where they ended and the ground began, twice causing me to trip. I'd really rather not have fallen on my face in front of thousands of warriors who were waiting to kill me. Under seemed to be playing tricks on me, and I began to doubt that I'd any hope. But by then I was already there.

"Lord Khasar!" I shouted. At least that part of my plan worked. I'd intended to shout his name and it actually came right out.

"Khan Khasar, you meant to say." He stepped out of his gher but stayed so far back, I couldn't make out his face. I knew his voice, of course. It was turning my bones to soup. "I'm letting you live for the moment because I'm curious about this girl who crosses my battlefield. Just what are you offering? I won't pay."

His men laughed roughly. Khasar lifted his sword, making some call I didn't understand, and two dozen of his men moved into a half circle between me and Khasar, fully armored, bows pulled back, swords bare.

"Take another step and I'll show the Eternal Blue Sky the color of your liver. If Tegus thinks to use an assassin, he'll not fool me by sending a woman with a poisoned dagger."

I stopped walking, gripping my cloak tighter. The cold was slithering up my bare legs.

"Chinua, check her," said Khasar.

"Show me your hands," said a man to Khasar s right, a tall, thin man. I figured this was Khasar's war chief, the one who'd taken Saren to watch Khasar become a wolf.

I raised my hands and for some wild reason, I found myself remembering how Tegus had once called them beautiful. Spared from the scrubbing waters of late, they've softened, though if Khasar looked too closely, he'd see the scars and calluses.

"Now deliver your message before I gut --"

"My lord, it's me, Lady Saren." My voice went soft. I was ashamed to tell a lie right beneath the Eternal Blue Sky. Lies are for dark holes and rooms without candles.

"Speak up!"

"I'm Lady Saren," I said, louder.

"Lady Saren." He snarled a laugh. "I knew that khan wouldn't be able to resist breaking you out. Take off your hood, I want to see your scared cow eyes."

I pulled my hood back. My hair hung down, the sun was behind me, and I hoped he was still too far back to see. I thought I should say something quickly to prove I was Lady Saren, something true, before he could see in my face who I was not.

"The day you threw flames into the tower," I said, "the day you tried to smoke me like winter meat, I guess I've never been so scared in my life."

He laughed. I hate his laugh.

"All you are is fear," he said.

"I believe that was also the day you bathed in my waste," I couldn't help adding.

I was happy to see him flinch. I guess he didn't much like my mentioning that in front of his men.

"You told me you'd only take me if I came willingly," I said. "And here I am."

I started toward him, but three of his men moved to block my way.

Though he thought me the frail Lady Saren, he still wouldn't let me near. He was too clever to risk the chance I might have a hidden weapon. This morning before going out, that possibility had haunted me, so I'd disrobed completely under my cloak. I'd been praying since that I wouldn't have to take it off, but that ultimate submission seemed to be the only way he'd think me harmless, the only way to get near enough to sing.

I shut my eyes as I unhooked the neck clasp and let the warmth fall to the ground. Winter blasted my skin, and the cold shot up from my feet through my entire body.

Khasar stared, suddenly with nothing to say.

"You see I'm hiding no weapons, my lord." I tried to sound brave as gentry, but I was shivering so hard, my voice warbled like a bird's, my words knocking against each other. I had to bite my tongue to bleeding to keep from picking my cloak back up, wrapping it around myself, curling up to hide. "You see I submit to you. I'm here of my own will, as you wanted. I'm sacrificing myself for this realm. If you are a man of honor, before the Ancestors, under the Eternal Blue Sky, you'll keep your word. Take me and leave this realm in peace."

He didn't say anything. He stared at me. His men looked away, at the ground, at the clouds. Though hard warriors, I think they couldn't help being embarrassed for the poor naked girl. There was some revenge in this, I realized, remembering how Lord Khasar had stood naked before my lady. But I couldn't glory in it. The shame hurt me like the cold, and I trembled inside and out and winced when tears burned my eyes.

"Please don't make me stand here like this," I said, my words shaking. I didn't mean to beg, but there it came.

"Please say you accept my sacrifice and let me put my cloak back on. Please."

He started walking toward me now. Slowly. His men stepped aside.

"You surprise me, Lady Saren."

He kept coming nearer.

"I never expected you to do anything but tremble and cry. Though I see you're trembling, where are the tears?

Ah, I think I see one. That's better."

And nearer. My stomach quivered, my blood was hot. This was the moment. I bowed my head, as if meekly.

The sunlight was strong behind me, Evela was smiling on my hope, but I knew the moment he saw my face, he'd kill me. He was near enough now that through my hair I could make out his own features. I can't say if he was handsome or ugly. He looked like pain to me. Then I noticed one detail--he had three thin white scars down his cheek, like the marks a cat might leave. It seems My Lord had drawn some blood that night he escaped the wolf's jaws. The thought gave me a gust of warm courage.

Before Khasar's hands reached me, I had to act.

"Witness all!" I lifted my arms and knelt, the frosty grass snapped like glass under my knees. "See Lady Saren surrender to Khan Khasar. I sing the song of submission."

Here was the trick. I don't know a song of submission. Instead, I began to sing the song of the wolf.

"Yellow eyes, blink the night," I sang. "Two paws in, two paws gone," while praying that there were no muckers among his warriors, that they wouldn't know what it was I sang. I remembered the voices of my brothers chanting those words, yelling them at the night to save the sheep, felt that childhood tune hum inside me now as if in harmony. I reached forward, I touched Khasar's boots, hoping the contact would make the song stronger.

Khasar stared down at me and did nothing, his face puzzled, his body rigid. I think I understood him then --I think he felt that something was wrong but he couldn't allow himself to be afraid, not of me, not of a naked girl singing. And because he did nothing to stop me, neither did his men. I kept singing, calling the wolf out of the man.

Too late Khasar asked, "What are you --"

He didn't finish his question, because his head was thrown back, and he stared up, in pain or thrill I don't know.

I almost stopped singing then, my limbs shook so that the ache was nearly unbearable. I didn't know what would happen. Would the wolf in Khasar hear my song and flee its daylight form? Would it come out under the sun ?

With my voice I sang, and with my heart I prayed. Titor, god of animals, whose realm this man destroyed.

Under, god of tricks, whose name this man cast off. Goda, goddess of sleep, I gave you a sleepless night in prayer.

Evela, my lady, goddess of sunlight and songs, give me voice. Ancestors, let me sing this man into his animal form, his sleepless form of night, trick him into it under this sunlight.

I sang to him the song of the wolf.

He stumbled back a step, but it was the most he could manage. All his force seemed focused on trying to hold his shape. His men were still looking away, ashamed of my shame, unaware of their lord's danger. Then Khasar groaned.

"My lord? Khan Khasar?" Chinua asked, as if beginning to wonder if something was wrong. The rest didn't suspect me still, I think. I'd completely debased myself, I'd become a thing too low to contemplate. Still, I guessed I wouldn't have long. The moment they thought me dangerous, they'd let their arrows fly.

Louder I sang. I stood, trembling for cold and fear, and I put my hands on his chest. So close I was, he could've snapped my neck by accident. If he'd looked, he'd have seen the lie in my face. But his neck arched and his glance flung up toward the sky. My voice quavered so that on the low notes it was nothing but a rasp, two stones grating together.

Please, I prayed.

Please change.

Hurry.

Become that wolf. Now, now.

"My lord? Are you all right?" asked Chinua. He stepped forward two paces and pulled his bow back tighter. "I think you'd better stand back now, girl."

But I couldn't stand back until Khasar was gone where he couldn't hurt Tegus or make my lady quake or sneak into my nightmares. I clung to Khasar, so the warriors couldn't shoot at me without risking their lord.

"The night, the night!" I sang, and my voice was getting more desperate. I knew I didn't sound very meek anymore, but the wolf in Khasar wasn't coming out. "The night drips from your teeth. The night melts from your eyes.

Yellow eyes!"

"Stand back," said Chinua, "or your eyes will be strung together on my arrow!"

He aimed at my head, I screamed my song, and Khasar thrust back his head and howled. Not at the moon, not at the shifting stars, but howled right at the Eternal Blue Sky.

That, I thought should get the Ancestors' attention.

Khasar pulled out of my grip, and I dropped flat to the ground just as an arrow whisked over me. I kept singing. And Khasar kept thrashing. His men were advancing, but for the moment they forgot me in favor of their lord, who had begun to screech and howl, his hands clawing the air. I held no weapon; they must not have understood that I could harm him. So I sang on, though I don't know how I found any voice with all the shaking and barely a breath trickling into my lungs.

Then the change happened. It really did. I'd believed Saren when she'd told me what she'd seen, or I'd thought I had, but until I saw the change myself,

I guess I hadn't truly understood. Just the sight of its wrongness made my stomach seize up, and I would've lost my breakfast if I'd had any.

I don't think I can describe the sound of flesh bulging and ripping, or the smell that clouded around Khasar, strange and rancid. I can say that his face thrust out, his back hunched with fur, his clothing tore, his armor bent and groaned before popping off. He dropped down on all fours and where Khasar had stood, a wolf now growled.

Khasar the wolf was enormous, as tall as an antelope, as fat as a mare, with jaws that could take down the largest yak. The size, the sheer menace of the thing made me quake, and the song choked in my throat. His men hollered and jumped back from the snarls, the teeth, the daggered paws.

"It's our lord!" shouted Chinua. "Do not harm him!"

Here's where my plan took the greatest risk. What would the wolf do? I was bargaining that the wolf who had snarled at me in the tower was more instinct than thought, that he loses his humanness when he's a wolf. Saren's story suggested such, when Chinua moved them behind a fire to protect them from his lord. Here was my hope--that Khasar the wolf would now attack his own men.

"It is our lord," Chinua was shouting. "Do not harm him!"

Chinua ran about, bellowing, trying to get warriors to move so the wolf would have an escape, but the camp completely ringed the woods. With city wall before us and forty thousand warriors and their ghers and animals all around, there was nowhere for the beast to flee. He paced and growled and wiped his face against his legs as if the sunlight were painful.

My plan was failing. The warriors kept their swords and arrows pointed at the wolf but didn't strike, and the wolf just snarled and snapped at nothing.

"Change back, Lord Khasar," Chinua said. "It's day! Change, my lord, change."

He's going to turn back, I thought. And then he'll kill me or worse.

His men now knew that he was a wolf skin-walker, but the warriors weren't fleeing their posts. As Batu said, there was the possibility that they'd revere him even more. I'd lost, I'd lost.

The failure was painful and I was so cold, I moved to crawl back into my cloak. That was a stupid thing to do.

Stupid. Because then the wolf noticed me.

His eyes were on me, and he crouched and snarled.

Sing, Dashti,

I told myself.

Push him back with your song. Sing!

But I was so cold, so terrified, my voice iced in my throat. I couldn't squeak even a word. So I tried to run. I didn't make it three steps.

He pounced, landing on my leg, and I heard a crunch before I felt pain. His foul breath filled my mouth as he snapped in my face, and my stomach tried to vomit. I turned my head as he lunged. The sides of our skulls collided. I could taste blood.

Then, the eerie whistle of an arrow scratched the air. The arrow nipped the beast in the rear and he yelped and turned. His warriors stared back, shaking. One warrior held a bow with no arrow. Maybe it had been a mistake and the bowstring had slipped in his fingers. Maybe he had a sister or daughter my age and thought of her when the wolf leaped on me. Or maybe it had been Under s doing. However it was, Ancestors, please bless that man.

The wolf made a new noise in his throat now, one of hunger and rage. He turned his jaws toward the warriors, and he lunged.

"Don't shoot him," Chinua yelled, but three men, their eyes wide with terror, began emptying their quivers. It didn't matter--the wolf leaped and rolled at incredible speed, and nothing could touch him. When one arrow grazed his leg, the wolf wailed in rage. He sprang, his jaws tearing out the throats of two men.

More arrows cut the air, and the wolf's attack became so swift and deadly, several warriors lay bleeding before I could even comprehend what was happening.

The wolf was smearing his muzzle in the blood of another soldier when at last one of the arrows struck him hard, then another and another. He roared and clawed at the warriors, killing two more. The men were running back, letting arrows fly as they tried to get out of his reach. Chinua was yelling something, but so was everyone else.

Another arrow struck the wolf, another, and another. He howled and snarled, running a circle in mad fury.

He was too wounded to make chase, and all the warriors had retreated beyond his reach. That's when his horrible eyes found me again. I'd managed to pull my cloak on and was trying to drag myself away, but I couldn't stand, I couldn't run. How I prayed to Carthen, goddess of strength! I wept so hard my throat ached, though I was too cold to make tears.

The wolf padded toward me, stuck with arrows, his head low to the ground. He was still tense, growling as if he would attack. I pressed my hands against the crackling grass and pushed myself back, back, as hard and fast as I could, my wounded leg dragging on the ground. But he was faster.

He pounced, and I screamed my song again, just one line, one rattled tune. His jaws snapped a hands-breadth from my face, his spittle flying against my lips. His breath stank of blood, and I couldn't seize enough breath to sing again. His maw opened toward my throat, but before he could clamp down, his body slumped. At last the weight of those arrows in him was too great. The full force of his body collapsed on me. He didn't move again.

I thought I was dead too. A hot pain pierced my ankle, a dull pain throbbed in my head. I was pinned to the ground by the wolf s corpse and surrounded by an angry anthill of soldiers. Chinua, his face full of rage and grief, ran forward and prodded his wolf lord to see if he was dead. I pushed against the hairy body with all my strength. The corpse rolled a little to the right, but it was so heavy, I couldn't budge it from my leg.

Then for whole moments, I heard no sound but my own heartbeat.

I let my head fall back, and I gazed into the Eternal Blue Sky. It was morning. Some of the sky was yellow, some the softest blue. One small cloud scuttled along. Strange how everything below can be such death and chaos and pain while above the sky is peace, sweet blue gentleness. I heard a shaman say once, the Ancestors want our souls to be like the blue sky.

I prayed to the sky--

Here I am. I took what the

Ancestors gave me and I avenged their names. You. saw it. You're above all, even the sun, even the Sacred Mountain, even the Ancestors. I submit to you, and if you're sending me on to see my mama again, I'm ready to go.

Just take care of my lady, please, and Tegus, too.

And I closed my eyes to die. But you see that I'm not dead, as I'm still writing. Under heeded my pleas today, though he still tricked me in my turn.

The drums rapped and the horns called. I turned my head and saw five hundred warriors coming from the west gate of the city, Batu at their lead. They halted a safe distance from Khasar's men.

"My lady, are you all right?" Batu shouted to me.

"Yes," I said, because it seemed what he expected to hear. And I was alive still, which I guess was all right.

He gestured with his chin to the dead creature pinning me. "Is that Khasar?"

"It was."

"In wolf form, just as you said. Beware a lady's faith, you warriors of Under's Scorn."

Chinua looked made of wrath. A company of warriors had come forward, standing behind him with weapons in hand. "You should beware us, Evela's peasants! Carthen's Glory' is not defeated by the slaying of one wolf."

Batu shrugged. "I have nearly thirty thousand warriors ready at the gates, men fighting for their homes. Your numbers are larger, true, but with your wolf lord dead, how many will fight? He was your real strength. If you leave now, you'll make it home before true winter falls. Don't waste the time. Throw down your weapons, let us take Lady Saren safely away, and we won't pursue."

There was more talk, I think, but I didn't catch it. It took so much effort to try and listen. My ears were so frozen I wouldn't have been surprised to see them break right off my head. My feet seemed to have never existed at all, and my throat screamed with every inhale. Pressed against the ground like that, I was so cold, the only parts of me I could feel were throbbing something vicious, and I wanted to howl and cry with the pain, but I couldn't move enough to do that much.

Suddenly the ache in my ankle pierced me like a new wound, and I screamed before I realized what had happened. Chinua and two other warriors had rolled the wolf off me. They began to tow the carcass toward their camp, and behind them, Khasar's warriors retreated. I guess Batu had been pretty convincing.

I sat up and almost fainted from pain. I paused, waiting for the blackness in my vision to go away so I could stand, and I found myself looking into the eyes of the wolf. They were dragging him by his hind legs, and his dead eyes stared back at me. In death, his eyes lost their wildness. They calmed and saddened some, and I realized that his wolf eyes were as blue as the Eternal Sky. I wonder if right at the moment of his death, Khasar remembered the price his wolf strength cost. He offered his soul to the desert shamans. Now it can never climb the Sacred Mountain, never enter the Realm of the Ancestors. I suppose it's the path he chose. I suppose it's what he deserves.

[Image: A Wolf]

"My lady," said Batu, "can you come to me?"

Chinua and his warriors had withdrawn, but I understood that Batu didn't dare turn his back on them, nor could he risk riding to me and putting any more distance between him and the path of retreat.

I nodded and stood on my left leg, making sure my cloak was tight around me. I couldn't feel its warmth.

I didn't know how I would walk. I hopped a few steps and felt ridiculous, a just-hatched bird, hobbling and unsure, while thousands of warriors watched me. So I thought I'd risk one step on my right foot. That was a mistake, I thought, as I yelped in pain and fell forward.

Suddenly one of Batu's soldiers was dismounting, running to my side. He lifted me under my knees and carried me back to his horse, boosting me up onto his saddle as if I weighed no more than a cat. His face was buried in a deep, fur-lined hood, and he rested a moment against his mare, bent forward as if he'd a pain in his middle. He groaned as he pulled himself into the saddle behind me, but he held me on his lap, one arm under my knees to keep my legs from bouncing against the horse. He wrapped his other arm around my waist as if to warm me as well as keep me on the saddle.

"My lord," I said as we rode back toward the city.

The horse's canter jostled my ankle and I couldn't help whimpering. The pain was like being stuck with a knife again, again, again.

Tegus held me tighter. "We've got to get you inside city walls and out of bowshot, and then I'll ask Bloodnose here to give us a nice, smooth walk. Just a little farther, just hang on."

"I'm all right," I said, pretending I didn't have pain tears streaking down my face. And I was so cold, my teeth had begun to chatter like a hammer against my jaw. "I could keep riding... all day. Why don't we... go mushroom hunting?"

"Now that's a fine idea and I would agree, but I must admit I'm embarrassed to be out with such a scatterbrain.

It seems, my lady, you forgot yet again to put on shoes this morning. What would your mother say?"

"I just wanted Khasar's opinion... on whether my ankles are... sturdier than yours."

"And what did he say?"

"I don't think he... liked my ankles so well. He fell on me... and broke one."

"That wasn't very kind," he agreed, talking lightly as if to distract me from the pain. "I think there are better ways to tell a person you don't approve of their ankles than to break them."

"That's what... I thought, too. His manners always were... la--lacking."

His arm held me tighter to him. "You're going to have to marry me now."

"But... I..."

"You slew Khasar, you healed me, and you have perfect ankles. I really don't think this is a question we need to debate."

"As always... my lord, you make perfect sense."

His cheek was next to mine. He pulled me closer, his warmth so wonderful, my skin stung against his touch.

And he kissed my neck, behind my ear. Kissed me once, quietly.

So you see, I agreed. To marry Khan Tegus. As Lady Saren. Ancestors, my thoughts must've been as numb as my feet.

And now here I am in a chamber stacked with furs and silks, with a fire at both ends of the room and three large windows, ice covered in a soft cloth pressed to my swollen jaw, my broken ankle wrapped and resting on pillows. And everyone calling me Lady Saren.

The sticking-needle pain of my warming feet has passed. I should go to the kitchens and tell my lady. Tell her that her khan wants to wed her. And it's time for her to say who she is. And who I'm not.

I'll go tomorrow.

Day 165

Shria visited me this morning, smiling. She said the chiefs voted that although Lady Saren's betrothal to Khan Tegus wasn't sanctioned by her father, he's dead now so that matter is meaningless, and since our (their) betrothal came first, he'll marry me (Lady Saren) and not Lady Vachir.

Shria said, "It's complicated for a ruling lady of one realm to marry a ruling lord of another--usually that lot is left to younger siblings. And now that Khasar s war isn't an issue, Lady Vachir's advisers seemed relieved that the betrothal ties were released."

She seemed to be holding something back, so I asked, "How did Lady Vachir take it?"

Shria frowned, then patted my cheek. "Don't worry about that. Even if her pride is hurt, Lady Vachir can't cause you any trouble now that the chiefs have decided. You'll have your wedding day."

She handed me a note from Khan Tegus and left me to read it.

We've been betrothed for five years so it doesn't make sense to wait longer. We'll have the wedding in nine days. Now that the date's set, I won't come see you until our wedding day--because it's bad luck and because you might protest the haste. If you try to put it off, I'll have Batu argue with you, and he's very good at it. Rest your ankle.

There will be dancing.

-- Tegus

So it's real. It's happening. And I'm lost.

I went to look for Saren, hobbling out of my room with the help of two canes, when Tegus came down the hallway. When he saw me, he skipped a step. He looked to see if we were alone, picked me up, hurried around a corner, and kissed me. Kissed me long. My canes clattered to the floor, my arms fit around his neck. I felt as though my whole body only now was thawing. While he was holding me I forgot that I'm not who I say I am, that he doesn't know that I'm just Dashti. How can anyone forget? But I did. And I wish I hadn't remembered again.

When we stopped to breathe, he said, "I wanted to show you something," and pulled from his belt a blue shirt I remembered well.

"The one I gave you," I said.

"I kept it with me until your scent faded from the fabric. I should have known you when you first came to sing for my leg, I should have remembered...."

He pressed his cheek against mine. He breathed in against my neck and sighed deep inside. I closed my eyes. I tried to memorize the warm, brown, cinnamon smell of his skin. In case I never smell it again.

"Will you take your shirt?" he asked. "Will you wear it for me? Against your skin, so it carries your scent again."

"Yes, my lord," I whispered. "Yes, Tegus."

"Do you have a lady's maid with you? Would you like me to find you one?"

"No, I'd rather not have a maid. I'm fine."

"Are you? Have you warmed back up again?" He rubbed my arms.

"Yes, I have. I'm fine, really. Actually, I'm wonderful." Just then, I felt it.

"You are," he agreed. Then he kissed me again, saying, "Mmm," as though my lips tasted better than candied fruit. "Don't tell. The chiefs believe I won't see you until the wedding, and you know how rigorous those chiefs can be about tradition."

He set me gently down, fetched me my canes, then ran off.

I came back to my room and sat alone. I can't go see my lady right now, not until I can stop crying.

Later

When I made my way to the kitchens, I passed by Lady Vachir's open door. Since travel in the winter is uncomfortable, even deadly, she's staying in the khan's house until spring, the thought of which makes me want to scratch the spider tickles off my back. She and all her maids stared at me as I passed by. I'm feeling like an antelope without a herd, with hunters riding down the hill.

Cook let me talk to Saren, saying, "Yes, my lady," and "Certainly, my lady," eyeing my new clothes as though the yellow brocade was fresh meat and she was starving. Saren and I sat in the empty sugar closet and I explained it all to her, as simply as I could.

"I did what you asked, I did my duty, and he's proved himself true to you. The chiefs ruled in your favor, Lady Vachir's betrothal is no more, and your wedding date is set. Now is the time to tell him who you are."

She shook her head. "You marry him as me first, then he won't be able to change his mind. Once he takes the vows for Lady Saren --"

"But I'm not Lady Saren!"

"You'll be acting as me. They'll understand."

Ancestors, what have I done? I think I'd rather face Khasar again, naked on a winter battlefield, than marry Tegus as Lady Saren. Won't he feel betrayed? I wish I had someone to plead for advice, but I've sworn secrecy.

Besides, if any discover I've claimed nobility, they could hang me just like Osol. I think I know what Lady Vachir would do --something involving removing my intestines while I still breathed. I've seen her eyes. I think she'd take pleasure in it.

Here in my room, I fold myself toward the Sacred Mountain for hours, praying, praying. Meanwhile, her lord's house is aflutter with wedding preparations. The poor girls in the kitchen must be drowning in dirty pots.

Day 167

The answer occurred to me early in the morning. I have to leave. My lady doesn't know what it is she's asking me to do, and I can't make her understand. Ancestors forgive me, but I can't dress in a marriage deel and pretend to be Lady Saren, take the vows to love her khan, and then step back for my lady. I can't make that lie, and I can't watch what will happen next.

Tegus, I'm leaving this book behind for you, so you will know the why of it all, and maybe you'll forgive me, or maybe you'll think me false and reprehensible. You'd be justified. I couldn't stand the thought of your reading all my words unless I knew for certain that I'd never have to face you again, so please don't look for me. If you read the book in its entirety, you'll know for truth who is Lady Saren. And I guess you'll also know that I'm a silly girl who writes down every word you said to me.

Please, Tegus, dress Saren in blue silk and let her hands be beautiful again. I think you'll worry for me because it's winter and I don't have a gher, but I'm a mucker and I'll find a way. Thank you. Forgive me. Don't worry.

I'll leave tomorrow.

Day 169

I thought I'd never write in this book again. I'm in yet another new room, though this one has no window, this one has a door that locks. It's underground, but it smells like the tower, and that smell makes my stomach spin and my vision dim and my skin itch as if ghost spiders cover me, and I scratch and scratch here in the dark. I'll be hanging before the week is out. But I'm trying not to think about that.

Yesterday I was too slow leaving, and I can't blame it all on my ankle. Wiry didn't I just get out into the city as quickly as I could hobble? I'm such a fool. And yet mostly what I feel right now is sad, all-out-of-food sad, lonely sad, sorry sad. Shamed sad, and hoping never to have to look Khan Tegus in the face again. And yet every moment hoping that he'll open that door. Why is that?

Yesterday I crept from my room early in the morning. I put on the blue shirt Tegus returned to me, my old wool deel, sheepskin cloak, and boots, forgetting my gloves in my hurry. I left this book behind for Tegus. When I passed Lady Vachir's room, her door was open and she watched me walk by.

My thought was to join the refugees in the streets. If I took the seven years' vow of servitude, maybe someone would take me in. I hoped to find a family who planned to leave Song for Evela come spring so I could disappear from the city as soon as I might.

My mistake was stopping in the kitchen. I'd thought it too cruel not to explain things to Saren and say good-bye to Qacha and Gal. I found the two girls scrubbing pots, and I sneaked in to work beside them a last time, whispering as we washed.

"I can't tell you why I lied, but I think rumors will bring it to your ears soon enough."

They didn't press, though they seemed sorry to have me go. I thought Qacha would miss me as much as I'd miss her, and poor Gal had heartbreak in her eyes.

"I liked thinking that you'd been gentry all along," Gal said, "that you were going to be the khan's bride. And if your story isn't true, then what about... well, how can anything impossible actually happen?"

I knew she was thinking of her family, if they were alive, if they would find their way to Song for Evela. I said,

"If they come for you, it'll most likely be in the spring." I didn't have a better answer.

My lady didn't take the news as kindly. We sat in the empty sugar closet. I closed the door when she began to yell.

"I order you to stay! I order you to marry him in my name. By the sacred nine, Dashri, you'll do what I say."

Strangely, her words held no sway over me. Maybe it's wrong, but I don't think I have to do what she says just because I'm a mucker and she's an honored lady. I smiled to myself then, thinking that if I were in a tower now and a black-gauntleted Khasar told me to put my hand back down so he could slap it, I'd tell him to go slap himself.

"No, my lady," I said as gently as I could. "I've tried to do my duty by you, but I won't do this."

Then she struck my face, just like her father and Lady Vachir, too. This time I didn't laugh. I just stood up slowly. Her eyes went wide, and I think she was afraid I'd hit her back. Not to say that I wasn't tempted.

"I'm sorry, my lady," I said. "My Lord the cat is a better companion for you than I am anyway."

My lady didn't cry, though her chin set to quivering. "Don't abandon me, Dashti. Everyone does, but you don't, you never do."

Those words pinched my heart. Poor little lost lamb, poor thin and wind-tossed thing.

"Oh Saren." I sat beside her and she put her head on my shoulder and lost every inch of the slapping, commanding gentry. "I could take you with me, but you really are better off here than living like a mucker. Khan Tegus is a good man, the best of men, the very best. He'll take care of you." I held her hands, I smiled to show her my confidence, and I felt as much like a good mucker mama as I ever hope to. "You've done so well these past weeks. I think you can be strong without me. This is your time, Saren. This is your chance to be brave. Stand up. Declare who you are. Will you do it?"

She hesitated. "I'll try. I'll think about it."

I left then. I should've gone straight out, hidden my mottled face beneath my hood, and lost myself in the city, but I slowed to say good-bye to Mucker. Fool, fool, fool. The yak would've been fine without a farewell, but now I am not.

When I emerged from the stable, Lady Vachir was in the kitchen yard, and with her the three vulture maids and a dozen warriors from Beloved of Ris. In her right hand, she was clutching this book.

I turned and fled. The ground was thick with ice. I could hear them shouting. I didn't look, I just hobbled toward the gate. I was nearly there when my canes slipped and my feet flew out from under me. I was on the ground, and when I looked up, warriors from Beloved of Ris surrounded me.

I screamed, I couldn't help it. Hands were on my arms and legs, pulling me to a chopping block in the center of the yard, and they were none too gentle with my broken ankle. One stood by, ready with a sword. I screamed louder and thrashed and kicked with my good leg. Everyone working in the yard stared, but no one moved to interfere with Lady Vachir s business.

The girls emerged from the kitchens, shivering without cloaks but too curious about the commotion not to peek. When they recognized me in the hands of the warriors, they ran forward. All except Saren, who went back inside.

"What are you doing?" Cook hollered, running at them with a kitchen knife. "Put Lady Saren down, you mangy villains!"

"This isn't Lady Saren." Lady Vachir spoke loudly enough for any bystander to hear. "This is Dashti the mucker maid. Isn't that right?"

If ever there was a good time to lie, that would've been it. But there we were, under the Eternal Blue Sky, and I just couldn't do it. Cook frowned at my silence and took a step back.

"By the ancient law of the Ancestors," said Lady Vachir, "it's my right to take the life of anyone who interferes with my lawful betrothal. This girl isn't Lady Saren, she isn't a lady at all. She's a commoner, a mucker from Titor's Garden, and confessed the truth herself in this book."

Gal and Qacha were beside us now, tugging on the warriors' sleeves, pushing their way to me. The warriors didn't strike the girls, just shoved and wriggled them off their arms. My head lay on the chunk of wood where fowl get their necks chopped. It was stained muddy red and colder than ice, and with my last thought I felt some real sympathy for those poor chickens.

The warriors had dragged Gal out of the way. Now only Qacha stood between me and the sword.

"You can't just kill her!" said Qacha. "Can they?"

"No, not until the khan's chiefs rule it so!" Gal shouted.

The warriors hesitated. Lady Vachir scowled. Apparently she knew that Gal was right.

"Then cut off one of her feet," said the lady, "so she can't run away again."

At those words, my ankles flamed with pain.

The warriors rolled me around until my broken and wrapped ankle lay on the chopping block. Maybe they figured it was already damaged and so not such a tragedy. I tried to kick with my left leg until someone pinned it to the ground. I screamed and fought, but I couldn't move.

The sword rose above me. I looked up at it, silver against blue sky, and I was a fool enough to think, Isn't that pretty? Silver on blue.

I held my breath while I waited for the blade to drop. I didn't look down, I didn't want to see blood, see my leg end at my ankle. I just kept staring up and thinking, silver on blue, silver on blue.

I hadn't realized that the girls had been screaming until they stopped. The sword quivered and didn't fall.

The hands holding me let go, and I thumped onto the ground. I wiggled my toes. All ten were still there.

Khan Tegus was crouching beside me, short of breath. I could see Saren standing behind him, her cheeks pink from running.

"I got him," she said, proud as a rooster. "I found him, Dashti. I was brave."

Tegus scooped my hands into his. The mist of his breath wrapped around my face, and he spoke to me as though we were all alone. "Ancestors, your hands are cold. First I find you bootless on a battlefield, now with your feet on a chopping block. And with bare hands, no less."

"Hello," was all I could manage back.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, and though his voice was gentle toward me, I sensed anger in it. He wasn't angry at me then, but I knew he would be soon.

"Alive still," I said, "and with both my feet intact even."

There's something about being with Tegus that feels like privacy. The way he looks at me or touches me, we can be in a room full of people but I always feel as though we're alone, no one else in the world. I felt that way then, his white breath and mine mingling, his large hands trying to warm my own.

But then Lady Vachir spoke up. Of course she would.

"My lord, that girl is not Lady Saren."

He helped me to my feet, and I wobbled on one leg, so he put an arm around my waist to hold me steady. The shouting and explaining and accusing had started again, but I didn't hear much of it. My head felt as though it were still pressed to the block, and everyone was talking at once, and I was watching Tegus, the anger in his eyes, the doubt creasing his forehead. All I could think was,

When will he let go of me?

That wondering was bigger than my head.

"Enough!" Tegus shouted. He turned to me. "Is it true, what she says she read?"

"My name's Dashti," I said, as simply as I could. I knew it was all about to end and I didn't want to lie anymore. "I'm not Lady Saren. I'm a mucker maid, no more." I wouldn't point out the real Saren now, not with Lady Vachir there hoping for someone to chop up.

He asked Lady Vachir for my book. She gripped it. "Lady Vachir," he said quietly, "stealing is also a crime."

She placed it in his hands, her expression carefully casual. He pressed it back into mine. "Keep this close to you," he whispered.

Then, at last, came the moment when his arm fell away from my waist. I shivered as he took a step back, suddenly as frozen inside as out. Perhaps it's irony that I'd met Khasar naked on the battlefield, but I felt colder now.

After he let me go, warriors carried me here, locked me in. I stared at my one candle for hours. I couldn't bear to look away.

This evening Shria brought some supper, and with it my horsehair blanket, some ink, and a brush. She didn't speak to me, but she touched my cheek before she left. I tore a blank page out of this book and thought to write Tegus an explanation. I crossed out the words again and again before I gave up. Every word I write to him sounds false. I can't speak the whole truth--That I wasn't only acting out of duty for my lady, how it was my own shirt I gave him.

How parts of me wanted to be his lady, just for a moment even.

Stop it, Dashti. None of that matters now. My whole, heavy world hangs by a thin rope. I remember a time when I comprehended Saren's plea to die, but not now. Now I want to live. Ancestors, please, I want to keep on living.

It's cold down here.

Day 170

Khan Tegus came this morning. He asked me again if it was all true.

"Yes," I said.

He groaned and paced. I didn't explain. I guess I always knew it would come to this, and trying to change it now seemed like trying to stop the wind from blowing across the steppes. Besides, the excuse "my lady ordered me to"

sounded so feeble in my head. She ordered me, but I chose to obey.

"Lady Vachir is claiming blood rights," he said. "Protection of binding betrothals is as old as cities, since the days men would get brides by kidnapping. The law is severe on that point, and my chiefs say she's within the law, and... Dashti, I don't know what to do."

"Have you spoken with Lady Saren?"

He looked sharply at me. "Is she Lady Saren? She's been claiming such, and I told her to be quiet about it and stay hidden in the kitchens. No need to give Vachir another target."

"If it comes to dying"--I sat on my hands so he couldn't see them shake --"if it comes to that, don't be anxious for me. I have a mama in the Ancestors' Realm. She'll sing me in. I'll be all right."

I didn't want to say that. I wanted to throw myself on my knees and beg to keep breathing, but I can't have him breaking his heart for worrying about me. Even so, my words didn't seem to relieve him any. He put his face in his hands and breathed slowly for a long while. I think he might've cried, if he'd let himself. He might've cried for me.

What a powerful thought.

"You're our champion." He let his hands drop. "You went out alone, you took down Khasar. But now Lady Vachir has made certain there's not a soul in this city who doesn't also know that you lied, you claimed to be gentry, you..." He sat beside me and was quiet for a while. I kept my eyes on his hands until he spoke again.

"Lady Saren's father visited Song for Evela when I was eight. I remember at a banquet, my father pulling me in close and saying, in almost a teasing way, 'He has a daughter named Saren. You might marry her one day, you know.

What do you think about that?' When I was fourteen and received her first letter, it didn't seem strange because I'd had her in my mind all those years."

"You were meant to marry her," I said.

He shrugged. "The letters were a game. I was young, I felt as though I were playing at being in love. I read poetry to try to learn how one courts with words, and I failed at it miserably. But it was fun, anticipating a new letter, hiding it from my father and hers, and we kept it up for a few years. When my father died before declaring who he wanted me to marry, I realized I might actually wed Lady Saren. I looked over her letters again, and I saw them anew-

-they were simple, little humor or life. To tell the truth, I was apprehensive at best. And then came news of the tower.

"I felt responsible, but I was dreading the meeting, too. It was you, wasn't it, Dashti? You were the one who spoke to me."

I nodded. I was wrapped up in the weave of his story and didn't want to speak.

"Of course it was you. I never should've left you in there. I should've risked war with Titor's Garden and Thoughts of Under. We met war anyway. When I spoke with Lady Saren in the tower, with you, it was a wonder. It felt right." He smiled. "Then I met you as Dashti, but when you told me you were Lady Saren, that felt right, too. And all has seemed right until... Ancestors, it's all wrong. You weren't Lady Saren in the tower, you weren't when you faced Khasar, you're not now and you won't ever be, and for that the chief of order says you must hang."

I thought I'd prepared myself for that end, but hearing him say it made my heart sting.

He rubbed his face again. "Dashti, I don't know what to do. I don't know. Can you, will you sing for me?"

So I sang him the song for clear thoughts, and after a time he leaned back against the wall with me and rested his head against mine, humming along. It was strange, as I think back on it now, that I'm the one scheduled to die but I was comforting him. At the time, it felt just right. It was a moment of peace, and it gave me space to think. We were betrothed once. I always knew it was ill-fated, but he truly believed I would be his bride. I guess I'd never realized that before. He had taken my mucker hand and looked at my mottled face and believed we would wed. And he hadn't seemed sorry. In fact, he'd swooped me up in the corridor and kissed me.

That set me to crying. He sat up and took my hand, the one mottled, holding it to his lips.

"Dashti, oh Dashti, I'm sorry." He smoothed my hair against the back of my head, he held my forehead to his.

"Please, I'm so sorry. Listen, nothing's settled yet. The chiefs may vote to preserve your life.

A lesser sentence might be banishment from Song for Evela."

Ancestors know that I never would've said aloud what I thought then--that living didn't matter to me if it meant I'd be alone, that I'd have to leave Tegus behind. Is that silly? And yet I really feel it. Here's what I wished I could say--

Tegus, I'll not find a better man than you, not on the steppes, not in any city or in all the wilds of the Eight Realms. You're better than seven years of food. You're better than windows. You're even better than the sky.

But I couldn't tell him that, and since I had to hold back words, I wanted to give him something. "Take my book of thought keeping," I said. "It's all I have that I care about."

"Haven't you destroyed it yet? I gave it back to you so you could. It's the best evidence against you." He put it back in my hands and stood at once. Before he passed through my door, he turned and said, "I'm sorry, Dashti."

And I guess that's the last time I'll ever see him.

After he left, I sat on the ground and stared at the door for a long time. A very long time. I didn't want to move ever again. Eventually I got myself up so I could write what Tegus said. To keep telling my story seems like the last bit of living I can still do. I feel like a dragonfly clinging to a grass blade in a windstorm, but I can't just let go. I can't.

I stare at the candle, how the flame shivers and bends when the wick is too long. The light is small and unsteady, but unless it's snuffed out, it'll keep burning for as long as the wick runs.

There's a stinging, cold sensation that shivers through my blood. I look at my hands, stare at how they're shaking, and wonder if this is how Osol felt the night before he died. I wonder if everyone who faces death hurts like this. It's as though for the first time I realize how much just being alive makes my body ache. But I don't want that ache to stop.

Day 171

What a long, cold night it was. I guess I can admit that I wept instead of sleeping. Odd how much that made my throat hurt. With no window, no way to track the time, I felt as though I spent days here alone. When Shria came with breakfast, she assured me that it was just barely morning out in the world. Along with cheese and bread, she brought news.

"There's quite a tumult in your kitchens," she said. "The family of one of the girls made it out of Goda's Second Gift and came here. Seems it was pretty rough going, traveling into winter, but they didn't stop until they found their daughter."

"Gal," I said. A grin took over my face and felt like an old friend come home.

The news changed me, and I've been thinking and buzzing for hours. Though the only light I have is a candle and even wrapped up in my blanket my bones are cold like stones, I'm filled with a kind of wonder, I guess. A wonder that burns. If Gal's family is alive and found her, if her impossible wish came true, what else can happen? It makes me almost believe that everything works out somehow, and even if the best possible ending for all this is for me to speedily join my mama in the Realm of the Ancestors, then so be it. That is an ending to be proud of.

And I've decided a second thing--I don't care if this book is evidence against me. I've thought and thought and folded myself toward the Sacred Mountain and prayed to all the Ancestors, and what I know is that I'm tired of deception and lies. I want Tegus to know all. Even if it be my end. Endings aren't so bad. After the night I endured, any ending sounds like peace.

When Shria returns, I'll send this book with her to the khan. The thought of him reading these silly thoughts of mine makes me want to pull the horsehair blanket over my head. But so be it. I am done. Besides, if I'm being truly honest, I must admit that ever since I first heard his voice outside the tower, I've been writing this book for him. To him. It's his more than mine.

And whoever reads this, be it Tegus or Shria or anyone, I've kept my wages in the far left corner of the sugar closet beneath the pile of empty sacks. I wish you'd give them to Gal's family to get them started. I hate to think of those coins lying idle and doing no good.

[Image: Picture of Hands Writing In a Book with a lit candle]

Day 174

This book of thought keeping must have the soul of a good mare who always returns to her master, for here it is, in my hands again. I have much to tell and little time, so here I go.

After I last wrote, Shria came again to my locked room, bringing supper, and I sent her away with this book in hand and a request to give it to Khan Tegus. I waited two more days, knowing nothing. No one came but a kitchen boy whose name I never learned, bringing raisin rice, carrot salad, and milk to drink. No meat for prisoners. That's the law.

Those two days felt as long as a tower year. I've grown accustomed to easing loneliness and worry by writing my thoughts here or making a sketch of what I see. Being alone, without even this book to write in--well, I guess that's about as lonely as I've ever felt. I began to imagine that the world had swallowed me and I was lost and trapped deep in its belly with... never mind, I don't want to think about it anymore.

After two days Shria returned. Her mouth was wrinkled like a winter carrot as she frowned at me--she wasn't angry, more sorry.

"Say prayers if you wish, Dashti," she said. "You won't be coming back here. Whatever fate they decide for you, they'll enact it today."

I said prayers. I didn't know what to pray for, so instead I just folded myself toward the north and, closing my eyes, tried to fill myself with memories of the Eternal Blue Sky. How can a body be too sad or frightened or lonely when she's filled up her soul with the highest sky blue? I left my horsehair blanket behind but told Shria that if they were to hang me, I wouldn't mind my body being covered in that brown blanket. It's been a good comfort to me. She nodded. I think she was too teary to speak. Ancestors bless her.

Then upstairs to the large feasting hall. Lady Vachir was there, the seven chiefs of Song for Evela and one empty chair, four shaman, my lady, and Khan Tegus. I hadn't realized that he'd be there. Everyone was frowning at me.

The city chief, a squat woman with black eyes, led the tribunal. "We're here to decide the fate of Dashti, a lady's maid, who claimed nobility and betrothal to our khan."

It was the chief of order's responsibility to lay out my crimes, and she did a very good job. While she spoke, she held this book in her hand, and I guessed that before Shria was able to deliver it to the khan, the chief of order had taken a look.

"Dashti," she said. She had a very tiny mouth. It unnerved me. "Dashti, why did you claim to be Lady Saren?"

"My lady asked me to," I said. "She ordered me on the sacred nine, and I had sworn to obey her."

"Hmm," said the chief. Then she opened this book and began to read parts aloud, parts that made me wish I could bury myself alive. How I gave Tegus my own shirt, when I said my lady smelled like hot dung, when I said I hated her, when I described the smell of Teguss neck... Ancestors, it was horrible to hear. Every word made me hate myself more, and I decided that they'd be right to hang me.

"Do you have any defense for yourself, Dashti?" asked the chief of order.

I didn't. I couldn't think of anything, and I couldn't bear to look at Tegus. At that moment, my one wish was for a rope around my neck as fast as possible.

"Then I demand her blood!" Lady Vachir arose and began to shout for my death, and not by hanging but my head on the chopping block so my blood would be spilled. That bit seemed to go on forever, and I thought, I really am going to die today. And the end is just and everything will be fine.

While they shouted, I concentrated on sitting up straight. My thoughts kept returning to the idea of silver on blue, silver on blue. Oddly enough, that image of the sword against the sky was comforting to me. Maybe because the sword never fell?

And then the khan stood, calming Lady Vachir back into her seat.

"Since Dashti doesn't give her own defense, chiefs, I ask for the right to do so for her."

The chiefs nodded. The khan approached my chair, and I kept my eyes on his boots.

"First, allow me to examine other entries." He opened the book and read some from times in the tower, when I didn't want to speak for Saren, when I worried and prayed, when I begged her not to order me to. He read the entire entry from the day I gave My Lord the cat to Saren. He read my encounter with Khasar. There were murmurs of approval from some of the chiefs then.

"There was another part that caught my interest as well," said the khan. "The day you arrived in Song for Evela.

First, Dashti, you are a mucker, is that correct?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Forgive our ignorance of mucker ways, but as more folk from the steppes come here, we're beginning to learn.

I understand that, according to the law of the steppes, if a mucker offers her last animal to another family or clan, accepting that gift means recognizing the mucker as a member of the family. Is that so?"

I guess I just gaped at him then, I was so confused. What in all the realms was he saying? And when was he going to condemn me to death?

"Shria, please relate your first encounter with Dashti."

The white-haired woman stood. "She arrived at the gates with Lady Saren and a brown yak. She said she wanted to give the yak to Khan Tegus, that it was a gift for him."

"Did she ask payment?"

"No, in fact the gatekeeper stated no payment would be given, and she offered it anyway."

"Did she trade the animal in return for employment?"

"No, she gave the animal freely. I offered her scrubber work after the gift had been given."

The khan nodded, satisfied. "I submit to you, chiefs, that Dashti presented me with her last animal, her only means of livelihood, and as such has the right to expect family status. I formally accept her gift of...," he turned to me,

"a yak, was it?"

"Yes, a very fine yak," I said. For he is--the finest yak I've ever known.

The khan nodded. "Of a very fine yak. Here's where two laws collide, chiefs. Do we honor Lady Vachir's claim of blood against any who threaten her betrothal? Or do we protect Dashti as a member of my own family?"

Lady Vachir stood. "Chiefs, I demand --"

"Wait, please, my lady, wait a little longer before getting back to the demands. I recognize that this argument isn't enough to stay your claim to blood right, but there is more. Lady Saren?"

He took Saren's hand to help her rise from her seat, and I thought, That's how they'll hold hands when they're wed.

"This is the true Lady Saren of Titor's Garden. I have her letters here," he placed parchments on the table before the chiefs, "accepting my offer of betrothal. "

"My lord," said the chief of order, "we've already ruled that your betrothal to Lady Saren precedes that to Lady Vachir. You have every right to marry the true Lady Saren, but this doesn't excuse Dashti s crimes."

"Lady Saren," asked the khan, all business. "Why did Dashti claim she was you?"

"I ordered her to. I told her to act in my name." She turned to Lady Vachir and said, "It was my right," offering along with the words a very convincing glare.

The chief of animals shook her head. "Acting for her lady is the duty of a lady's maid, but professing to be her?

Claiming her name? No. We're hearing reasons for the behavior but nothing that pardons the maid. Pretending nobility is the grossest crime imaginable."

"Grosser than trading the soul's freedom to the desert shamans?" Batu said in a grumble that didn't carry far beyond the chief's table. "Grosser than razing Titor's Garden?"

All were quiet for a moment. Then the chief of animals spoke again.

"Nevertheless, the law is paramount. If we don't obey the law, then we create as much chaos as Khasar and his army. If I had to vote now --"

"A moment, chief, please, I beg you. Don't cast your vote just yet." Khan Tegus turned back to Saren. "My lady, tell me what you told me this morning."

Saren smiled, dimples and all, and didn't even clutch her own hands as she said, "Dashti is my sister."

I started to gasp but choked on it. "Now let's be clear," said Tegus. "Has she always been your sister?"

"No." Saren was smiling fit to split her face in half. Her voice clipped, in such a way that I guessed she'd rehearsed this answer and was proud to be getting it right. "But she stayed with me when everyone else left. And... and we spent nearly three years locked in a tower, and when we came out, it was as though we were birth... uh, being born anew. All my real family was dead."

"How did they die?"

"Killed by Lord Khasar. And then Dashti faced him and helped av--aveg..." "Avenge," said the khan.

"Avenge my family and defend my honor.' ' She looked at me, hard, and then she straightened up, turned herself toward the chiefs, and said in as bold a voice as I've ever heard, "Hear me, chiefs, the last lady of Titor's Garden. Dashti never betrayed me, never abandoned me. She was as true a lady's maid as the Ancestors ever created."

There was power in her voice, and the chiefs took notice. How could they not? I've seen my lady begin to change since the cat purred in her lap, since she found use for her hands in the kitchen, since Khasar died, but never until that moment had she looked like I thought gentry should. Like anyone should. More than a thousand days we've been together, more than a thousand songs I've sung for her, and only now, I think, do I see Saren truly begin to heal.

"And since I have no more family," Saren said, "it's my right under the Ancestors to declare Dashti my sister and an honored daughter of Titor's Garden."

I think that's the part where I did gasp and gulp at the same time, which set me coughing.

"Oh, one more question for Shria," said the khan. "Please tell the chiefs what you told me before, what you found in Dashti s room after she fled this house, the day Lady Vachir s warriors tried to cut off her foot."

Shria cleared her throat. "Nothing, my lord. I mean, everything. That room was filled with silk and brocade deels, silver and porcelain bowls and cups, hair combs decorated with pearls. She left them all behind, only took her old clothing, the very rags she'd been wearing when she arrived." She looked at the chiefs. "Seemed to me that if she were lying about who she was for selfish reasons, she would've taken some of those nice things to sell out in the city."

"Thank you, Shria." He turned to the chiefs. "I submit to you Dashti, a mucker maid. She said she was gentry, but is that a crime for one who was named as a sister by the lady of Titor's Garden, or for one who earned the right to be considered a member of my own honored family? She proved herself loyal to her lady even unto risking her own life, an act that should far outweigh any impropriety. As well, she faced Khasar alone on the battlefield and, blessed by the Ancestors themselves, walked away from it, victorious. For my vote, one in the nine, I find her actions justified, and what some would call a crime, I declare a noble act of loyalty. How find you?"

There was a horrible silence as the chiefs thought, some whispering to one another, some shaking their heads.

Khan Tegus clenched his jaw and his eyes were fearful. I knew it would take just four chiefs to find me guilty. It is assumed that the chief in the empty chair will always vote for death.

The oldest chief, the one who serves Evela, goddess of sunlight, turned to the four shamans and asked, "What say you, holy ones?"

The shaman who'd read the sheep bones and declared Khasar couldn't be defeated by strength looked at me when he spoke. "I haven't read the signs or submitted to a trance, but my instinct says the Ancestors love this girl."

"Hmm," said the chief. And again, the horrible silence, which was finally broken by Batu, who hit his palm against the table, making everyone jump.

"Come now, my friends. This isn't so difficult. Our khan has done a mightier job here than even we dull-brained lot needed. Who among you really thinks this girl committed a crime?"

Several chiefs shook their heads, a couple squirmed, but not one raised a fist to vote. The mood exhaled. I think I might've cried.

"Disgraceful," said Lady Vachir, as she and all her vulture maids marched out of the room. Winter or not, I doubt Lady Vachir will be staying long in Song for Evela.

As soon as she was gone, Khan Tegus leaned against the table and sighed for relief so loudly, several people laughed. I didn't. I still couldn't breathe right.

"Thank the Ancestors," he said. "And you as well, honored chiefs. Thank you."

Saren embraced me. She did it clumsily, placing one arm around my neck and resting her head on my shoulder.

She whispered, "I was scared, Dashti. I was really scared. I thought you might die and I really, really didn't want you to."

"You did well," I whispered back. "You spoke up like a lady. You were so brave." It made my eyes sting to say it, I really did feel as proud as any mucker mama. "Thank you, my lady."

She looked at me now and said, "No more 'my lady,' Dashti. No more of that."

I couldn't respond. I didn't know what to say. No chance my mouth was going to let me call her sister. Not yet.

Batu was slapping Tegus on the back and laughing with relief. All the chiefs were standing, talking. A few were a bit disgruntled, but most seemed happy, excited even.

"And now at last," said the chief of light, "we'll have our khan's wedding. Lady Saren, may I be the first to congratulate you."

Tegus and Saren looked at each other. The whole room quieted. And I found reason to be glad I was still sitting.

Of course this is how it'll end, I told myself. This is how it should end. She's an honored lady. Isn't this what I've wanted for her? And I'll stay with her still and be her friend and coddle her babies, their babies, and keep my thoughts to myself and the pages of my book. It'll be all right. Saren will be the lady of Song for Evela and maybe I can write letters for her, advise her on things, be useful. It won't be so bad. It's an ending.

And though I reminded myself that I was just happy to be alive, some part of me wanted to shrink and die.

Tegus glanced at me once before saying, "Lady Saren, we are betrothed. Do you wish to wed me?"

Saren was watching me, and her eyes seemed troubled, but I can't be sure about that, because I felt like I was falling through the floor and seeing her from so far away.

"I'm not sure --," she started before the chief of order rushed forward and shushed everyone.

"My lord, may I hastily remind you that if you and Lady Saren break your betrothal, Lady Vachir will have full claim on your hand."

"Thank you, honored chief," said Tegus. "But Saren and I spoke this morning, and we both felt--"

"Careful," said the town chief, her eyes on the door. "I wouldn't advise you to say anything."

Saren was still looking at me when she said, "Then I will say." She drew herself up tall. "Khan Tegus, I would rather not marry you. However...," she said loudly, cutting through the outcries from the chiefs, "however, I retain my right to our betrothal, and I exact it for my sister, Dashti."

Batu chuckled. Why was he laughing? Was it a joke on me?

Tegus didn't seem surprised. He offered Saren his hands, palms down. She took them, and he kissed her forehead as he would a younger sister.

Then he smiled at me, and I knew it wasn't a joke. Tegus would never play a cruel trick on me, and he never smiles by accident. He means each one. Then he was beside me. Then he was on one knee and taking my hand. And it felt like the tower, after he'd given me My Lord the cat when he held my hand, and everything in the world was inside that touch. And only the Ancestors know why, but I stopped feeling dizzy and confused, and all I wanted to do was laugh. So I did. Tegus did too, a surprised laugh.

"All right, all right," he said, forcing a straight face. "Here I go." He took a deep breath. "Dashti of Titor's Garden, Dashti of the steppes, will you please be my betrothed and my bride and my wife in this realm and the next?"

At those words, all laughter left me. Now, I've trembled before in steppes cold that's fit to freeze a yak. But when Tegus spoke those words, my arms took to shaking like I've never seen, and my legs knocking, my knees chattering, my whole body consumed to shivering so that I was afraid I couldn't keep my seat. I think I was crying too, and I wished I could leap up and dance, but it was all so much, my body couldn't hold it in. I shook and shook, my voice lost in the shudders.

So I looked to my lady. After all, I figured it was her turn to speak for me.

And Saren, understanding precisely what I wanted of her, faced Tegus and said, "Yes. She will."

Day 178

Today Tegus and I were wed, and Ancestors, but there was so much food! I wore a deel dyed as blue as the Eternal Sky, embroidered with yellow and gold thread, sunrise and sunset running up and down my sleeves. Qacha and Gal helped me dress and cooed over me as if I were the prettiest bride anyone had ever seen. Truth is, I felt it. I tried to wear a veil, but Tegus wouldn't have it.

"I want to see you as we take the vows. I want everyone to see you. My Dashti."

Then he kissed me on the mouth, though there were five chiefs in the room. Kissing like that in front of others may not be proper, but I felt certain that even the Ancestors didn't mind. I put my arms around his neck and kissed him back. Can a person actually float away from happiness?

A thing of wonder happened as Tegus and I took the vows. It was as though I'd been standing on one side of the room and suddenly everything swooped around and changed places, though nothing actually moved. It sounds strange, I know, but I felt the whooshing feeling in my belly, as if I were riding a mare that leaped from standing right into a gallop. And what caused that feeling inside me was this thought --I'm not a mucker marrying a khan. I'm Dashti marrying Tegus. And that feels just right. How Mama would laugh.

At the feast, Saren showed me all the trays of food she helped prepare. She doesn't have to work in the kitchens anymore, she has her own room and two sweet-voiced maids to call on for anything. But she likes to work with food, she says, and she likes to arrange things and make them look pretty. She looked more than pretty in a peach silk deel tonight, her hair in eight braids twisted up. Two of Tegus s cousins held a mock sword battle with tiny fish bones to see who got to sit beside her. I guess I've never heard her giggle so much. It was pretty funny, actually, and they do seem like decent boys, but I told Tegus no one has permission to court her until I know every detail of his life and personality. Saren deserves a gentle man, someone sweet who makes her laugh, who doesn't make her feel dull-witted, and when his arms are around her, she knows she's in the safest place in all the realms. We'll find the right one. Tegus has thirty-seven cousins.

There's still more feasting to be done and dancing until the sun sets, and Tegus swore he could hold me as we danced so my injured leg would never touch the floor. I can hear the music just starting, but I hopped back here to our rooms so I could change my clothes.

During the tediously long ceremony, I was remembering when Tegus and I spoke through the tower and he'd said, "Would that I could take you out of here, and hold a feast and a dance, and see you bedecked in a silver deel."

And there just happens to be a deel in the wardrobe made of silver silk. I can't wait to see his face when he sees me in it. I plan to laugh and laugh and dance and maybe I'll kiss him again, kiss my khan, right in front of the whole world.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is based on the fairy tale "Maid Maleen," as recorded by the Grimm brothers, though I took many liberties with the original in my quest to find Dashti's story. Although I invented the Eight Realms, the setting was inspired in part by medieval Mongolia. Jack Weatherford s

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World was, a fascinating read and huge help. Special thanks to Burd Jadamba, Sarantuya Batbold, Ariunaa Buyantogtokh, and Bonnie Bryner for the many stories and facts about Mongolia.

In researching and writing this story, I was impressed by the lifesaving difference one animal can make in a family's survival. We've been able to donate some of the proceeds of this book to Heifer International, an organization that gives important domestic animals to families in third world countries. Check out www.lieifer.org, where you can donate a goat or water buffalo or flock of geese to a family in need.

As always, much credit goes to Victoria Wells Arms and Dean "The Family Yak" Hale for being inspired editors and readers, and to Max, for making the whole world new.

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