text: Roh still lay tangled with Kadaan, warm and muzzy-headed under a great bearskin, when he heard the shouting outside. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the voice away, though it was familiar. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted to feel safe, just for another moment.
  
  Anavha yanked open the thin membrane of the tent, and fell back when he saw that Roh wasn't alone. His eyes widened at the sight of Kadaan wiping sleep from his eyes.
  
  "Zezili is here!" Anavha cried.
  
  Kadaan pulled on his under clothes and reached for a weapon. Roh yanked on his tunic.
  
  "Wait," Roh said to Kadaan, waving at the weapon. "What is it, Anavha?"
  
  "Zezili," Anavha said. "My wife."
  
  "Your wife? Here? Isn't that… good?"
  
  "No, oh no, no." Anavha pressed his hand to his mouth. "Oh no! This is very bad, Roh. This is so bad. Something has happened to her, she looks… Maybe it isn't her? Could it be a Tai Mora? Maybe, maybe so. But she knew me!"
  
  Kadaan handed Roh his tunic and said in Saiduan, "Is this a domestic matter?"
  
  "I just need to calm him down," Roh said. "I'm sure it's fine."
  
  Kadaan shrugged and kissed him. Roh held the kiss a moment longer than Kadaan expected. They leaned in together, still hungry, still warm.
  
  "Please!" Anavha said.
  
  Roh sighed. "All right."
  
  He had expected that meeting Kadaan again after all this time, after all that had happened to him, would be awkward and terrible. Roh was no longer the dancer Kadaan had known. He had been a slave for a long time now. But they didn't speak about any of that. They drank aatai and Kadaan told him about how he had escaped Anjoliaa. Roh talked about how he had convinced Anavha into getting them out of Oma's Temple, and Kadaan found the story incredible.
  
  They didn't speak much more that night. The speaking, the reliving of the horror, wasn't what either of them wanted. No talk of the past. No talk of the future.
  
  In the wan light of day, Roh saw that Kadaan looked much older than he remembered. The bruises beneath his eyes were deep, and the lines around his mouth seemed to always draw his lips into a frown. But he was warm, and familiar, and for a little longer, Roh wanted to pretend nothing had happened to either of them. He pulled on his trousers, wincing at the sight of his mangled knees, and crawled out of the shelter.
  
  The wind brought with it the smell of burning. Wisps of smoke curled through the air.
  
  "Is that us?" he asked Anavha, but Anavha was already babbling again about his wife.
  
  Saradyn still lay wrapped in a fireweed blanket, snoring near a banked fire. Roh could not see any other source of burning but the fires nearby, all of which were banked and nearly smokeless.
  
  "Anavha, what's burning?" Roh asked again.
  
  Anavha hugged himself; he was trembling. "I don't know about that. It's just, Zezili–"
  
  A woman strode toward them, one with a tawny Dhai complexion but the flat features of a Dorinah. Roh saw something odd about her immediately. She moved too fast. Her skin was too clear. Something in her black eyes gave him pause. Roh limped forward and placed himself in front of Anavha. Anavha made some kind of strangled shriek and froze in place.
  
  "Who are you?" Roh asked in Dorinah. "Anavha wants to be left alone."
  
  "He's my husband," the woman, Zezili, said. Her black hair was long and shiny, twisted back from her face in a single loop.
  
  "You don't own him," Roh said. "This is Dhai."
  
  Behind him, Saradyn sat up, stretched, and yawned. Zezili's gaze moved to him, and her eyes widened. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
  
  Saradyn caught sight of her and laughed.
  
  Zezili roared at him and bolted past Roh, knocking Roh and Anavha out of the way. She tackled Saradyn and punched him square in the face. His nose burst, spewing blood.
  
  Roh, dumbfounded, watched them roll around in the turf.
  
  Kadaan came out just as Saradyn bit the woman's cheek, spraying more blood.
  
  "Do we want to break this up?" Kadaan asked.
  
  "I don't know," Roh said. He glanced at Anavha. "What–"
  
  "He cut off her hand," Anavha said. "And kidnapped me, I suppose. Well, it was Natanial, but it was for Saradyn."
  
  Roh thought that interesting, as Zezili seemed to have both hands. Tira was risen, though, and Sina, and Oma. He supposed all things were possible. Why being kidnapped by Saradyn didn't seem to bother Anavha at all was puzzling, though.
  
  A blazing ring of fire surrounded the two struggling adversaries, so hot it nearly singed Roh's eyebrows. He stumbled back, twisting his ankle on a divot in the ground, and fell. Kadaan reached for him.
  
  Maralah came up to them, one hand out, face intent, little tendrils of fire dancing along her fingers. "That's enough! No violence in the camp! Enough! Get up!"
  
  Two twining whips of fire lashed at Zezili and Saradyn, finally drawing them apart. Zezili sat back, snarling, her hair singed. Half of Saradyn's beard was a melted mess; the air filled with the smell of burnt hair. He was shouting things at her in Tordinian as he got up. Still raging, he smacked his hand against a tree, for all the good it did him. Blood poured freely from his nose, spilling down his front.
  
  "Saradyn," Roh said. "Let it be." Kadaan helped him to his feet. A burning thread of pain shot through Roh's ankle. Just his luck.
  
  "Attacked me!" Saradyn bellowed, in Dorinah.
  
  "Sounds like she had good cause," Kadaan said.
  
  Maralah stalked up to them. "What the fuck is going on here?" she asked in Dhai, though the word "fuck" was in Saiduan.
  
  "Anavha?" Roh suggested, because he honestly had no idea.
  
  "I'm his wife!" Zezili said, rubbing at her bleeding cheek. "I have a right to speak to my husband. But him!" she pointed at Saradyn. "This man is a fucking war criminal. A fucking warmonger. You cast him out or I'll fucking kill him."
  
  "Is she real?" Anavha breathed. "Saradyn, you can see, can't you? Is she real? Is she some other Zezili? An imposter?"
  
  Saradyn rubbed at his face again. Glanced at Roh. Roh tried again, speaking more slowly, "Is this woman from here? Or is she a shadow?"
  
  "Ah," Saradyn said. He snorted. "Zezili. The same. Ours. Yes, same dumb cattle."
  
  "Fuck you, Saradyn, you mewling shitfucking–"
  
  "You'll shut your fucking face," Maralah said, and a wavering shield of shimmering heat surrounded her, so hot even Roh winced. "You get along or you leave the camp. We go by Dhai rules here. Woodland Dhai rules say no one owns anyone and nobody beats up anybody, no matter what you did outside this camp. I don't like it either, but that's how it is."
  
  "Those are weak fucking rules," Zezili said. "You fucking kill me, then!"
  
  "I might," Maralah said. "Don't test me."
  
  "No one said anything to me about Dhai rules," Zezili said.
  
  Maralah snorted. "Probably because 'don't murder the people who are providing you aid' should have been immediately obvious."
  
  "Could you just agree to leave Anavha alone?" Roh asked. "He's clearly frightened of you."
  
  Zezili frowned. "What? No, he's my husband. Anavha, you're not frightened, are you?"
  
  Anavha, still shaking, did not look at her.
  
  "Stay away from him," Maralah said. "And you–" she pointed at Saradyn, "–you stay away from her."
  
  Three other Dhai approached her, elders from the Woodland camp. Maralah began explaining her use of her gift, and the tussle between Zezili and Saradyn. Roh wondered if they would be exiled. Saradyn had provided a lot of aid to him, and his ability to find spies among them was valuable. Perhaps if he could speak to them…
  
  Roh tried to move away from Kadaan, but putting pressure on his ankle sent a fresh wave of pain. He sucked in a breath.
  
  "I'll take you to the infirmary," Kadaan said.
  
  "It's fine–"
  
  "Tira is risen," Kadaan said. "They can repair the injury in a few minutes and relieve the pain. There's no need to suffer."
  
  Roh heard the other part of that, too, and he admitted it made his heart a little lighter. "I suppose there are some things that can be mended," Roh said.
  
  "Yes." Kadaan squeezed his hand. "We have time."
  
  Yet, as Roh walked to the doctor's tent with Kadaan, he wondered how true that was. Did they have time? If they got onto that ship together and sailed south, if they left all of this to the Tai Mora and the various warring factions from other worlds, how safe would they truly be? For how long?
  
  "This is Sola," Kadaan said, introducing Roh to a lean young Saiduan woman in the medical tent who wore a leather apron. She had long, bony fingers and a chin that barely emerged from her jaw, giving her the appearance of a turtle.
  
  "Twisted ankle," Roh said, apologetic, because it seemed so small a thing to bother her with.
  
  "Have a seat here, I'm just finishing with a patient."
  
  Kadaan helped him sit on one of the cots. "I'm going to go and eat. I'll bring you something to break your fast," Kadaan said.
  
  Roh sat at the edge of the cot, legs dangling. Sola stood a few paces distant with a young woman, administering what appeared to be a very bitter tea. When Sola moved away, Roh saw the grimace on the girl's face. She, too, sat at the edge of her cot, legs dangling, one foot twisted under slightly. She leaned to one side, and worked her weak left hand in her lap; it had clearly just been regrown.
  
  She raised her head. Met his gaze.
  
  There was a long moment.
  
  Roh stared at her, dumbstruck. Her face was full of shiny scars, and her hair was much longer, her eyes somehow blacker, and her frown had clearly deepened, aging her face before its time. Her skin was sallow, sickly, and she was far too thin.
  
  He wasn't sure what to say. He wasn't entirely sure it was her.
  
  Something tugged at the corners of her mouth. A smile? Almost.
  
  "We really have to stop meeting like this," Lilia said.
  
  Roh burst into tears.