text: "I should have told them the boy could see through wards," Dasai said. He stood on the great wall of Kuonrada and gazed north. The days were getting shorter, and colder. He huddled in a thick coat, but his feet were cold and his knees ached. It had been months since he woke without pain. He was a hundred and twenty-eight years old, and felt a hundred and fifty.
  
  "Not even the boy knew," Nioni said. "It was still best left unspoken."
  
  "There it is," Dasai said, and pointed to the shimmering amber blur in the sky. A flash, a moment, and it was gone. The wrong color for the northern lights.
  
  "I thought it would be more dramatic," Aramey said. He sat next to Nioni on the cold stone of the ramparts.
  
  Dasai had yet to find another part of the hold where he felt he could speak freely. Most of the hold's lookouts staffed the great spiraling thorn of the watchtower that grew from the center of the hold. Even so, he'd had Nioni construct an air bubble around them here to muffle sound. He had spent much of his youth in Saiduan. It's why his bones hurt so much now.
  
  "In a few weeks the snow will be bad enough that it will be too late to send the boys home," Nioni said. "We should do it now, before the Patron takes any more interest in how Rohinmey or any of the rest of us fit in his wider campaign. I'm dying, but these boys have their whole lives ahead."
  
  "I know you meant to protect him, Ora Dasai," Aramey said, "but this much interest could harm him. And us."
  
  "If things go badly here, the Patron's interest in that boy may save him," Dasai said. "Rohinmey is many things, but not stupid. You see how much he impressed those sanisi? They are taken with him. If they love him, they love us. It's relationships that save us, in the end. If I have to manipulate people to achieve that, I will."
  
  "You need to tell him," Aramey said.
  
  "I will discuss Rohinmey's ability with him," Dasai said. "He and the boys may require it on the way home. I admit I wished his brother had the talent he has. Ora Chali has a less passionate disposition."
  
  "That's not always an asset," Aramey said.
  
  Nioni sighed. "Ora Chali has ambitions."
  
  "I wish to see him achieve them," Dasai said. "So does Ora Nasaka. They must go back."
  
  "Tomorrow, then," Nioni said.
  
  "Not until we've prepared for our escape north," Dasai said. "Ora Nasaka trusted my memory of what lies waiting for us in Caisau. Two of my colleagues are already in the city, but we need our sinajista before we proceed. She is at least another week away. We hold until then."
  
  "If Rohinmey hadn't seen those men –" Nioni said.
  
  "If he had not, we would be dead," Dasai said, "along with the Patron. Or we'd be sold off among his possessions to his successor. The terror and madness that sweeps across Saiduan when a Patron is killed would have ended our task before it began. Now we can get to Caisau and wake the creature there. We must merely endure more intense scrutiny."
  
  "Are we going to tell the boys who the invaders really are?" Nioni said.
  
  "We continue to do what the Kai sent us to do," Dasai said. "I made inquiries about the books mentioned in that screed from the Dhai scholar. I have an old colleague who may have found one of them for us. Let's wait to tell the boys about the invaders. It's too much."
  
  Aramey folded his arms. "We are putting a lot of faith in old books."
  
  "All of my faith is in a book," Dasai said. "The Book of Oma. Books have great power, Aramey."
  
  "Only as much as we give them," Nioni said. "The Saiduan are hoping for a book of miracles."
  
  "We may have one," Dasai said, "but I prefer to keep a number of switches in my basket."
  
  "I hope it's worth sending the boys out for it," Nioni said. "If they're caught –"
  
  "They won't be caught," Dasai said. "It's still festival season. The Saiduan have a festival every week during the winter, even now. Especially now. They have very little to hope for. Sending the boys out to enjoy themselves won't seem amiss."
  
  "I'm just very uncomfortable with this," Nioni said. "These are Saiduan we're betraying."
  
  "I know that better than anyone," Dasai said, "But now is a time for calm." For the second time in as many weeks, he questioned his decision to bring Nioni here. He needed men he could trust who could speak Saiduan, and whose families were large enough that they could afford to lose them. And Nioni was dying of stomach cancer. He would not survive the year. Aramey, his large-hearted husband, had wanted to die with him. Their situation was ideal for his purpose. But he worried they did not have the strength for what needed to be done.
  
  "We'll wait," Aramey said. He pointed to the sky. "I just worry they won't."
  
  Dasai found Kihin and Chali working in the sitting area outside their shared quarters. The group had turned it into a library and study space. Dasai saw stacks of books from the archives on Saiduan culture and ethics, all books the Saiduan librarians only agreed to part with because they had copies.
  
  "Where's Rohinmey?" he asked. The slaughter in the banquet hall had occurred the day before, and Roh had been sick most of the night. The endless vomiting told Dasai that the boy's queasy stomach likely had to do with food poisoning or some stomach ailment instead of fear or visceral terror. He had almost hoped the killing had sobered the boy instead of invigorated him. But he understood the sort of boy Roh was early on. The Kai had not.
  
  "Still in bed," Kihin said.
  
  "Did he eat?"
  
  "A little. No more vomit."
  
  "Good," Dasai said. He walked to Roh's room and opened the door, announced himself.
  
  "I'm awake," Roh said. He sat on the bottom bunk, huddled close to the fire. Two candles burned brightly in iron lanterns.
  
  "What are you reading?"
  
  "Saiduan stories about the Dhai," Roh said. "Did you know Grania was once part of the larger land mass of Saiduan? The whole continent stretched unbroken from here down to Hrollief."
  
  "I did," Dasai said.
  
  "When the breaking came – they called Oma's rise last time the breaking – it unleashed huge forces across the world. It broke up the whole continent. Imagine how that must have been. It was so powerful it broke continents. There were earthquakes and terrible storms."
  
  "Yes," Dasai said, "and very powerful omajistas who knew that breaking up the continent would break up the Dhai's line of supply. Not all of these phenomena associated with Oma's rise are caused by Oma. The gods grant us many gifts, and they guide us on how to use them, but they do not force our hand. They make no moral judgments on the use of those powers. What one woman believes is evil, another thinks is for the greater good of her country."
  
  "I just didn't realize how big Dhai was," Roh said. "We learn a lot, but not… Not all the things they have here."
  
  "There is fear we may become as we once were," Dasai said. "No one wants us to be those people again."
  
  "We would be so powerful –"
  
  "We would be murderers and dealers in flesh," Dasai said. He felt his temper flare, and allowed it to cool a moment before continuing. He feared this boy sometimes, feared what someone so passionate, with so much gifted potential, would become. "We have chosen another path."
  
  "Sorry," Roh said.
  
  "Let me tell you a story about a slave," Dasai said.
  
  "Ora Dasai, I'm sorry –"
  
  "Quiet now. Be respectful for a moment of your exhausting life, please."
  
  "Sorry."
  
  "There was once a Dhai slave owned by the Patron of Saiduan. Not this Patron, but the one four Patrons before this one. He was captured very young, when the fishing boat his mothers took him out on was overtaken. This slave was a dancer like you, and a powerful sinajista. He was so powerful that for much of his life he was paired with a flat-headed slave with greater talent who prevented him from tapping into his full abilities."
  
  "They just stayed together day and night?"
  
  "Yes," Dasai said. "He became very close to the Patron, and the flat-headed slave did too. One day the Dhai slave seduced the flat-headed slave, and drugged him. Then he crept to the Patron's rooms and tried to burn him in his bed. But the Patron was protected by powerful wards. He woke, unscathed, and had the Dhai slave's legs broken."
  
  "Did the Dhai live?"
  
  "He did," Dasai said, "but he never danced again. And he could no longer fight. If he was going to improve his circumstances, he needed something other than brute force." Dasai pointed to Roh's head. "He needed to use his wits."
  
  "Did he escape?"
  
  "He did," Dasai said, "many years later, when the Patron's family was killed by usurpers. He convinced the new Patron that he was a free Dhai. And, having no use for him, the new Patron released him. He walked one thousand miles to the harbor in Alorjan, and rejoined his family in Dhai."
  
  "That's a sad story," Roh said. "But why tell me?"
  
  "Because you may find yourself in a very bad position, Rohinmey," Dasai said. "If things go wrong, I do not want you to fight. I want you to live."
  
  "He lost years of his life, Ora Dasai," Roh said. "I couldn't live like that."
  
  "You'd be surprised what one can endure," Dasai said. He watched the boy's face. He looked young and fragile. Dasai imagined listening to some old man tell him not to fight. To just endure. To have his legs and will broken time and again. Foolish old man, Dasai would have thought, then.
  
  "Ora Dasai, did you know I can see through wards? That's what the sanisi said I did."
  
  "It was known to me, yes."
  
  "Why didn't anyone tell me?"
  
  "You're a young novice. We preferred to wait until you had more… discipline."
  
  "What does it mean? I don't actually see any breath around them. I just… see them."
  
  "Some parajistas can see through wards. It means you can see things that others wish to keep hidden."
  
  "I thought I was just smart."
  
  "Being smart takes effort," Dasai said. "I suspect that seeing the things you do requires little effort."
  
  "Can I get better at it?"
  
  "Perhaps. But not here. I have other tasks for you."
  
  "Like what?"
  
  "You're to stay away from the dancers," Dasai said, "and the Patron, and the sanisi, during our final days here. I want you working only for the archive project now. We have much yet to accomplish."
  
  "Ora Dasai, I still –"
  
  "This is not a negotiation, let alone an argument," Dasai said. "Tomorrow you and Kihin and Luna will travel a few hours south with a text we've uncovered. You'll meet a man named Shodav, an old colleague of mine. You will give him a book to translate. In return, he'll turn over a book to you to bring back in its place. I want you to deliver it to me. Discretely. If anyone asks, you're simply going there for the Bone Festival, to see the wolf dancing and meet with a friend of mine to discuss Saiduan grammar. Understood?"
  
  Roh grinned. "Yes, Ora Dasai." Dasai found it wearying that the boy was so excited at the prospect of deception. I was young once, he reminded himself, but that did not make him feel better. He should have left the boy in Dhai, Sina take the Kai.
  
  Dasai eased to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. It was like the world itself wanted to suck him back into it, yanking painfully at his bones. "Good night, Rohinmey."
  
  He shuffled to the door.
  
  "Ora Dasai?"
  
  "Hm?"
  
  "Were you a very good dancer?"
  
  "The very best," he said.