The Wings of Ashtaroth: The Sands of Hazzan, #1

By Steve Hugh Westenra

The great city of Qemassen is at a crossroads. A powerful empire from beyond the ocean threatens to reignite a centuries-old feud. A slave rebellion brews in the tangled labyrinth of tunnels beneath the city streets. And Crown Prince Ashtaroth, the city's supposed saviour, is considered unfit to rule even by those closest to him.

When the high priest burns one of the royal children alive as a desperate offering to the city's absentee gods, it destroys the fragile peace within Qemassen's scheming first family. Seeking revenge for the death of her child, Ashtaroth's mother calls on a powerful demon named Lilit.

But Lilit cannot be trusted. Her cruel machinations pit brother against sister and father against daughter, laying waste to Ashtaroth's family. Then Lilit approaches Ashtaroth with a demonic pact of his own-one that could save his people and his home. But between war from without and a revolution erupting within, even a demon may not be enough to keep Qemassen standing.

Set in a secondary world based on the conflict between Ancient Carthage and Rome, The Wings of Ashtaroth is a sprawling, multi-POV epic fantasy, full of queerness, political intrigue, and demons.

Content warnings included in the back of the book and on the author's website: stevewestenraDOTcom

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hugh Westenra
• Release date: May 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223834380

Steve Hugh Westenra

Steve is a trans author of fantasy, science fiction, and horror (basically, if it’s weird he writes it). He grew up on the eldritch shores of Newfoundland, Canada, and currently lives and works in (the slightly less eldritch) Montreal with his partner and two cats. He holds advanced degrees in Russian Literature, Medieval Studies, and Religious Studies. His current academic work focuses on marginalized reclamations of monstrous figures. He teaches the History of Satan;  Religion and its Monsters; and Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion. The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle is Steve's second published novel. He is also the author of the political epic fantasy, The Wings of Ashtaroth. Steve is passionate about queer representation, Late Antiquity, and spiders.

Book preview

Prologue: Children

Samelqo: The City Streets: Qemassen

Samelqo eq-Milqar, high priest of the great city of Qemassen, had a headache.

He’d hoped he might find relief once he returned to his litter, but the dry airs and scorching heat of the desert sun pervaded beneath the litter’s canopy. Each bump in the road, every jostle atop the shoulders of Samelqo’s acolytes, was a spear of pain piercing past his left eye to the back of his skull.

And the smoke. No smell would ever root itself in Samelqo’s body like that sulfuric stench. It lingered thick in the nose, and the throat, and on the tongue, and when many sacrifices were burned one after the other, over a period of days during the hottest summer in fifty years, the smoke hung thick as memory. It drifted, oily, beside the litter, just as it had all the way from the temple district. It drowned his breath like sour black water.

Samelqo smoothed a hand over his bald scalp, eyes closed but vision seething. He could still see the lines of supplicants outside the temples downhill: desperate mothers lined up for grain the priests didn’t have to give, desperate fathers leaving the death god’s gardens with empty hands and emptier stomachs, their sacrifices already burned to ash in the god’s golden hands.

His throat itched. He coughed into his fine azure sleeve. When he drew it back and opened his eyes, he half expected to see blood, but the fabric was clear. The high priest—the heq-Ashqen—did not bleed for his city. As the dryness of the river proved, the heq-Ashqen did little for Qemassen.

Nothing, at least, that had not also been for himself.

Samelqo scowled. Tonight’s festival would absolve him of whatever wrongs had drawn the gods’ ire. The sacrifices of the peasants were clearly insufficient. The gods demanded a greater price—one only a king could pay.

He searched out the letter buried in the folds of his robes and curled his fingers around the rough papyrus. Its surface seemed to burn hot as coals. The letter had finally convinced King Eshmunen his sacrifice was necessary, but the words Samelqo had written there were as false as his intentions were true.

Swallowing, he withdrew his hand.

What was one more lie to add to a lifetime’s deceits?

The acolytes ducked down suddenly. Samelqo gripped the cedar handrests inside his litter, biting back a curse. With a grimace, he shoved the curtains aside to spy out at the twisting cobble street. The fine palace of Qemassen’s kings and nobles—its Semassenqa—loomed above the flat-roofed mud-brick apartments of the lower city. Its myriad colours—blues and oranges and pristine whites—were like a million flowers blooming against the sky. As a child, Samelqo had thought those palace towers beautiful, but if they were, it was the beauty of death, the unkindness of a jewelled dagger against the throat.

Shit, as his father had used to say, flowed downhill.

Why have we stopped? he asked.

Apologies, Sese, mumbled—and Samelqo had warned them about mumbling—one of his acolytes. A gull swooped. We—we were avoiding it. It . . . defecated on Bilan’s head.

Restraint. Samelqo would restrain himself. His tongue had ever been razor-sharp, Esha had once said. He breathed in, sucking back foul airs, and swallowed the cough that threatened to follow. Jaw clenched, he drew the curtains.

Carry on, he announced. When the litter did not continue he called louder, and it lifted into the air.

Samelqo’s temple throbbed, and he gripped his handrests, running long, thin fingers over wood so smooth it could be skin.

His hands had been deft once, hadn’t they? Time took so much, so slowly, that one hardly realized what was being stripped away till it was all but gone.

The temptation to rest his head against the side of the litter nearly overwhelmed him. If he closed his eyes and slept the rest of the way, perhaps it would ease his headache. He could let the rhythmic up and down of the acolytes’ steps lull his racing thoughts to rest. But Samelqo sat straight, neck rigid and proud, gaze fixed on the opposite wall of the litter. He sat that way for a long time, pernicious memories nipping at his eyelids each time they threatened to close. Only the weak required rest, and Samelqo was not weak.

There was a creak, followed by the familiar sound of the palace gates unlocking. The litter hurried inside, no doubt hastened by the acolytes’ fear. Samelqo let them carry him till he was certain he was well within the palace grounds, then tapped the litter’s side again with the flat of his palm.

Set me down. I shall walk the rest of the way.

They did as instructed, and Samelqo abandoned them without comment, soft robes fluttering about his ankles as he stalked away.

The air here was fresher, laden only with the ocean’s salt and not the vapors that choked the city streets. From high up in the palace gardens, one had a perfect view of the Helit sea. It stretched northward from Qemassen’s port, its waters glistening and utterly useless. Even salt water refused to give up its fish to Qemassen’s nets.

Samelqo needed solitude, a moment of respite before tonight’s festival—somewhere to think silently and steady himself. There was still much to be done. The palace slaves were to be sent out with food for the people, and although Samelqo had already instructed the other temple priests—the Ashenqa—as to their roles tonight, certain of them were less than competent. Competence was in eternally short supply, its coffers near as empty as the city’s.

To either side of Samelqo lay paradise: paths of mosaic tiles bordered by shade and fruit-giving trees; hidden statues in low bushes, peeking nymphish faces from between jade leaves; the soothing sound of water trickling nearby; and the yawning mews of the peacocks as they stalked along low walls and down circular avenues.

It was all frivolity, and deadly at so late an hour. The water used to feed the trees was better spent on the orchards and olive groves surrounding the city. But nothing was so precious to Queen Moniqa as her lilacs. Nothing, perhaps, save her eldest son, Aurelius.

Samelqo’s temple throbbed in time to the beat of his heart, his throat tightening as though he were once again surrounded by smoke.

Further inside the labyrinthine garden, children were laughing and shrieking.

Samelqo stopped in the centre tile of a forked pathway and listened. For a moment it sounded like Eshmunen was laughing beyond the bushes, still a child and so far from the man who would be king. Long ago, Samelqo had tutored the king and his sisters along these same paths. Stepped these same stones on much lighter feet.

He set his foot down atop a blue tile, then a green.

A girl’s shrill squeal of delight pierced the air, followed by a giggle.

A red tile, a black. He could hear them—Eshmunen and his sisters.

Samelqo frowned, knitting his brow. He looked left, then right, but found only the stone faces of statues.

He kept walking, his throat tightening with every phantom sound. Nila, Safeva, Meg—Eshmunen’s sisters were long dead, charges Samelqo had failed in one way or another. They couldn’t be here, yet Samelqo knew more than most how the gods’ blessings could be sudden, unexpected. Perhaps, after everything, after Qemassen’s sacrifices, the gods had seen fit to reward him. All he would have to do was find the children in the garden, warn them of their fates.

Gods could be kind as well as cruel.

"Stop hitting me." A girl’s voice. Meg? He had heard her, hadn’t he?

Years ago, he would have been faster on his feet. Now past sixty, Samelqo could feel the death god Molot’s fingers tickling his skin, smell Molot in the stuffy streets, see Molot in the lines that marked his once-proud face. Nevertheless, he skipped one tile, then another, growing more spry with each step, every corner turned.

Samelqo rounded a bend. He could—he really could hear them. Eshmunen and his three sisters, but as children again, living children. Some god or goddess had turned their gaze his way and conjured the dead to toy with him.

The sky was reddening. In the evenings, the children would usually be brought inside. Samelqo must hurry. The gods might be smiling on him, but even immortal smiles could sour.

One slipper fell from his foot as he ran toward the centre of the gardens. The tiles, scattered with sand, scraped his bare skin. A stone pierced him; he winced and stumbled. He was afoot again quickly enough. It was as though the years fell away from him with every cubit. The air, no longer dry, tickled his cheek. His clouded eyes grew clear. His legs, strong and fit, closed the distance with agility long mourned and put to rest.

At another fork, he paused to listen, heart pounding.

Another laugh. Eshmunen again? It wasn’t quite right, and yet—

He dipped down the shortcut the garden slaves used to tend the grounds. The thorns of Moniqa’s roses grazed his bare arms. Blood trickled down his calves as he burst onto the path, in the middle of a four-way intersection.

The children usually came this way to play in the central fountain, but—

"Ow!" Nila’s voice this time. They were near the palace walls that overlooked the northern quarter of the garden.

He quickened his pace. From around the corner, sunlight reflected off the jewelled beads of a royal tunic, smooth brown skin flitting beyond the leaves. He rounded the corner, whacking a bush in his haste. There was a flurry of activity from amidst the thicket, and an owl swooped out from the trees, hooting once before disappearing.

He surged forward, but something pulled him back. He twisted his neck to look. Behind him, his fine robes were caught in the brambles, spread out like punctured blue wings.

There was no time. Samelqo tugged, ripping the fabric.

As he tore away, all his aches gripped his joints with renewed hunger. He was an old man again, and the air just as dry as before. Above the gardens, the red evening sun had returned to the blazing yellow of mid-afternoon.

The voices were just ahead of him now, and yet—they weren’t quite right.

He stepped onto the path.

The royal children were here, but it wasn’t Eshmunen and his sisters. These were King Eshmunen’s son and daughters: Aurelius, Himalit, and Qwella.

Young Dashel was with them—a palace servant. Moniqa’s creature.

Samelqo swallowed, focusing on the rhythm of his own breath in order to retrieve his usual calm. Had the laughter been an illusion? He ought to return to his duties.

Dashel hovered over Qwella’s shoulder, his pale, olive finger poked in the dirt as though he’d been drawing something. He stood hurriedly when he noticed Samelqo. For a man of fourteen he was awkwardly tall. He bowed curtly. Sese.

Samelqo dismissed the honorific with a wave. He had no illusions about how much respect Moniqa’s pet showed him when he wasn’t there.

Himalit, eleven, had a stick in her hand, poised as though to strike Qwella, who was sitting cross-legged in the dirt. Aurelius, the youngest at six, was balancing atop a stone bench with a branch of his own, hopelessly outmatched by his eldest sister.

They were staring at Samelqo.

Aurelius guffawed.

There’s a plant stuck to your face, said Qwella. The eight-year-old bit her lip as if to suppress a laugh.

Samelqo held his head high, smoothed his tattered robes with one hand, then delicately plucked the offending leaf from his forehead.

Qwella pointed at him. Not that one. The other one.

Samelqo brushed his hand over his head. It came back stained with the black kohl that lined his eyes. He scowled, then looked away.

He’d been certain he’d heard Eshmunen and his dead sisters. But. . . no. The heat had got to him, that was all. He needed shade and water. He couldn’t be seen to make a fool of himself during the sacrifice, in front of the city. Qemassen deserved more than that. King Eshmunen deserved more.

Yet Samelqo’s heart still raced.

Himalit whipped her branch across the ground. Did that owl chase you? A smirk played at her lips.

Owls are bad onions, said Qwella. She looked up at Samelqo, smiling triumphantly as she attempted to recite back one of Samelqo’s lessons. Onions from Molot’s wife.

Dashel grinned. Don’t you mean omens?

Samelqo definitely said onions, said Aurelius.

Lamentably, intoned Samelqo, your attendant is correct. Owls can indeed be bad omens. Though in this case, I merely disturbed its rest. Or so he hoped.

He stepped toward Qwella and Dashel, where the pair had drawn something in a patch of spilled sand. A knife of pain shot up his leg, and he winced, his bare foot giving way for an instant before he caught himself.

Dashel shifted as though to support him, but Samelqo slapped his hand away. I need no assistance, Erun.

What happened to your shoe? Himalit demanded. Samelqo turned toward her. She’d hopped onto the bench beside Aurelius. The two must have been sword fighting with their sticks. That was all Samelqo had heard. This heat—it was maddening.

Himalit’s gaze was fixed on Samelqo. She had much of Eshmunen in her. His hawk-like nose, his skin like sandstone. But her hair, her hair was brown shot through with gold.

A mishap, said Samelqo, remembering himself. He tore his attention from her unsettling amber eyes.

"When I lost my shoe you wouldn’t let me come back inside." Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Himalit whipped her stick against the bench, then at Qwella, who wailed as the beads decorating her hair scattered across the path.

Himalit grinned, her one, furred brow giving her an added ferocity as she beat at the shrubbery. Her curls, piled beautifully atop her head by a house slave, struggled for freedom as she traipsed back and forth, stola tucked at the belt so she looked a young warrior. I got you. She thrust the stick pointedly at her younger sister. Stay there or I’ll get you again.

Qwella dusted the sand from her dress, combing the dirt for her things. I’m not playing, she said. It’s a stupid game anyway. One of the twins is going to be king.

So this was the game. Samelqo should have known. I’m glad to see at least one of you is paying attention. He’d spent little time with the royal children these past few days, busy as he’d been counseling Eshmunen and preparing for tonight. No doubt Himalit and Aurelius had conjured all sorts of wild stories about their newborn brother and sister in that time. Moniqa had given birth to twins not two weeks past.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Himalit leapt from one bench to the next, jabbing her stick at Aurelius. She swung her sword, knocking him from the bench with a thud. Dashel rushed to the prince’s side, helping him up. Aurelius dusted his tunic off with a grin and hopped back on the bench, glaring at his sister.

I did it! Hah! Himalit prowled along the benches, tapping her stick against the wood. "I’m king now. After Father."

"The twins are going to be king. I told you." Qwella exchanged a look with Dashel, then glanced at Samelqo as though for support.

Samelqo arched his eyebrow. Yes, and he will bring great fortune to Qemassen. A fortune they desperately needed. By the time the twins were grown, Samelqo had no doubt their Lora enemies would be circling the skies above Qemassen’s hilly shore. Assuming there was anything left of the Massenqa to pick apart by then.

The letter.

They can’t both be king. A sombre tone entered Hima’s voice. Father will have to pick one.

Samelqo shoved his hand inside the folds of his robe, panic easing as his gnarled fingers felt the papyrus curled inside his pocket. He hadn’t lost it.

Can we see them? Aurelius asked. Mother said we could.

Dashel stood back up. We’ll see them later, once Queen Moniqa’s well.

Himalit turned to Samelqo, thrusting her play sword at him. Tell Father to let us see them. He will if you tell him. He always listens to you.

Samelqo cleared his throat. I will tell your father nothing, except that you’ve been well behaved, and respectful of the troubles of the poor. In the lower quarter this morning they were carting dead men out of the city to burn. Molot’s gardens are too full for the bodies these days, thin and frail though they are. How blessed you are not to look upon their faces, or go without bread and water for more than an hour.

Himalit lowered her gaze. Dashel took us to see the elephants today. One of them was dying. Yeremi slit its throat. We sang a prayer for it, and burned cedar wood. Yeremi says it’s with Adonis now.

Samelqo wished Eshmunen wouldn’t entertain Moniqa’s whimsy so. Dashel and his father, the royal mahout, were hardly suitable companions for Qemassen’s royal children. "Adonen," he corrected. "The elephant is with Adonen."

He glanced at the ground where Dashel and Qwella had been drawing, recognizing the shapes.

Samelqo strode toward Qwella, kicking the pictures away with his foot. You are not to preach to them, Erun. You’ve been told before.

Qwella’s face crumpled, eyes moist, and Dashel stared daggers at Samelqo. It won’t happen again, Sese. It was my mistake.

Himalit crossed her arms. Qwella asked him to, and anyway, Mother prays to Adonen. Who wants to pray to crusty old Molot? Or his stupid family. He’s just a dumb cow. Himalit’s voice was shaky, like she didn’t quite believe her own words.

Adonen is part of that stupid family, and not the most important part. Your mother’s people have forgotten the gods, and so they have been cast down. I would hold your tongue, before Molot casts you down along with them. You know they used to gild the tongues of those who spoke against Molot?

But Mother said— Himalit started.

She is of the Inda. She cannot be expected to follow our traditions. Samelqo broke the intensity of their exchange, turning toward the palace. He should never have matched Eshmunen with Moniqa—she was a nuisance at best, and the alliance the match had initially bought had crumbled to dust along with the bones of her usurped family. But Eshmunen would never be parted from his beloved Moniqa, no matter that another bride might have brought him true happiness, would not have been fool enough to cuckold a king.

Sese, said Dashel. Should I call a slave for you, Sese? You look . . . parched.

Samelqo shook his head. He needed to concentrate, tonight of all nights.

A dying sun cast its red hues past the arches along the airy palace walkways that lined the gardens. Samelqo looked out toward the hills where Qemassen’s goatherds tended their flocks beyond the city wall. Further still lay dried streams and fields gone dead from heat and lack of rain. And past that? Past that, the yawning desert scratched at civilization with its golden fingers, ever-threatening to clasp them shut about the lands of the Massenqa, Qemassen’s people, Samelqo’s people.

And past that?

Past that Samelqo’s death lay dreaming, nestled in the dunes at the desert-god Hazzan’s very breast.

Sese . . . ? Dashel took a step toward him.

What are you thinking about? Aurelius asked.

Samelqo raised his head, ignoring Dashel and staring at Aurelius.

Himalit poked Aurelius with her stick. Come on, he’s just being old. Let’s hunt for crabs on the beach.

There never are any, said Aurelius. Not anymore. We should go swimming.

What’s the point of that? Himalit said. "Let’s go to the hills. There were lions there last night, Yeremi said. He said the soldiers scared them off with torches. If we track the lions, we’ll find gazelles. We could catch one and give it to those people Samelqo told us about."

A distraction wouldn’t be the worst thing for the children tonight, but Samelqo couldn’t have them cavorting in the hills like goatherds. No.

Himalit looked like she might speak again, probably with some anecdote about how the fabled Queen Elibat had hunted gazelles on a giant tortoise, but she was interrupted by a cough from further down the path.

Samelqo tensed at the sound, remembering the owl, but it was one of Eshmunen’s slaves. She stood a few feet away, her head hung.

Sese. King Eshmunen sends for his eldest son, the Prince Aurelius eq-Eshmunen. He asks that the Erun, Dashel, remain with the princesses until they are summoned for their lessons.

Aurelius turned to Dashel, plaintive.

Samelqo clenched his fists. Didn’t we just have this conversation? You are a Massenqa prince. You do not defer to your mother’s Erun servant. Go to your father. The rest of you stay with Dashel, as you were commanded.

But I don’t want to go. I want to play.

That’s a king’s command, Sese, Dashel said, smiling at his charge. "And you can’t disobey a king—unless you’re giving the rest of us permission to disobey you?"

Aurelius stared at Dashel, sour. He fluttered his lashes like he was looking down his nose at the lot of them—did he fancy he was mocking Samelqo with that look?

Aurelius plodded after the slave all the same.

Dashel sighed, watching Aurelius leave. Why does the king want him?

Samelqo didn’t answer.

Something soft pressed against his fingers, and he looked down to find Qwella attempting to tuck a sprig of lilac into his palm. She alone truly shared her Indat mother’s likeness, her dark brown skin and rounded features. She was much better behaved than her mother.

He took the flower and forced a smile. Qwella hurried to Dashel’s side, offering him his own lilac.

There’s a festival tonight, said Samelqo, his weariness catching up with him. He twirled the stem of Qwella’s blossom in his hand, keeping his gaze on Prince Aurelius and the slave as they walked away. Aurelius is the first born son and must attend.

They all had dark duties they must attend to this evening.

Sounds boring, said Dashel. I mean—it sounds very important.

It is.

Himalit whipped her stick across the sand, hitting her sister a second time.

Himalit, Dashel cautioned, but she’d already run off, singing a particularly poor rendition of the summer hymn to Queen Elibat and skimming leaves off the trees with her stick.

Dashel hurriedly helped Qwella to her feet. Sese. He dipped his head at Samelqo. Dashel tugged Qwella along. Let’s go to your rooms to play.

Samelqo stood alone on the path for a long time, one bare foot stained with blood from the cuts on his leg. Moniqa’s thorns had choked out many of the trees Samelqo had known of old. His headache had faded some, in comparison with the sting of the roses’ bite.

Samelqo the heq-Ashqen gripped the papyrus in his hand, and listened to the sound of children playing long after Dashel, Himalit, and Qwella were gone.

Moniqa: The Palace: Qemassen

Everything Moniqa owned belonged to her husband, from the too-soft bed foisted upon her as one of his grand gestures, to her father’s treasured collection of ruby-eyed sandstone statues. It all belonged to him, no matter what she did, because she herself belonged to him, and because she belonged to him, so too did the flesh of her flesh—those newborn twins in the adjoining room, wailing as the slaves tended them.

No. That wasn’t true. Not everything belonged to Eshmunen. Some things, like the twins, like their sisters Himalit and Qwella, belonged to Samelqo. All Moniqa’s children were Eshmunen’s by blood, but everything that was Eshmunen’s was Samelqo’s.

Moniqa rolled onto her side in the darkness of her chamber, soft body sinking into softer bedding. An army of gold-tasseled pillows fortified the threshold of her frame, not because she needed the comfort, but because there wasn’t room for them elsewhere. The new bed wasn’t large enough, but that didn’t matter to Eshmunen, or the slaves that had carted the old one away. Lying there was like sinking beneath the water, surrounded by stones too slippery to grasp.

She stretched her hand out slowly, ebony skin catching a sliver of light from the windows she’d all but blacked out with thick curtains. She crooked her finger beneath the fragile gold of the sun. The light was like a bird or an insect come to balance on her hand. Inside its focused beam, the dust motes danced in slow circles. Massenqa dust—sand sneaking inside to colonize her lungs like little winged soldiers.

At home, in Indas, the air was hot and humid at this time of year. In the capital, Ipsis, slaves and boatmen would be threshing the reeds to keep the rivers clear for tradesmen and royal barges. When she’d been a child, she’d begged her older sister Lena to swim in the palace’s innermost canals. Moniqa had stopped asking only when Lena had told her the bottoms were full of human bones and giant fishes.

Moniqa closed her eyes, drunk on the lotus tea her Anan physician plied her with. Her fingers, still bathed in sunlight, dreamed of slipping beneath the surface of Ipsis’s waterways, of giant fishes nipping gently at her nails, her palms, her eyelids, the jellied eyes beneath.

Lena had disappeared long ago. Moniqa had never been sure why, but she’d always imagined that Lena had drowned—that her body lay sunken at the base of one of those verdant waterways—a feast for the eels. Maybe if they’d been close, Moniqa would have cried, but they hadn’t been close. Lena had worshipped the old gods, like the Massenqa did, not sweet Adonen. In that way she’d been their mother’s daughter, and Moniqa her father’s. Besides, mourning a vanished sister when their whole country had long been lost seemed almost fanciful.

But oh, how she wished she were in Indas now, that it had not been lost, that she’d never married the Massenqa king, that if she tipped her hand just so her skin would slip under cool water as the slaves ferried her downstream. She wished that everything she had was hers.

Moniqa opened her eyes and watched her hand resting in the light like it was someone else’s. Unrecognizable.

Aurelius was hers, because she’d named him. Some days, it was her only comfort.

She swallowed, then retracted her hand from the sunlight to push herself into a sitting position. As she heaved, she jostled a pillow and it tumbled to the floor. It looked so absurd there—a square puff upside-down, balanced perfectly on its peak.

Moniqa laughed, which was the lotus tea, but she didn’t care. Let her laugh.

She kicked all the other pillows off the bed and onto the floor, watching them skid across the polished surface. One of them collided with the thin leg of a cedarwood table—another of Eshmunen’s endless gifts—and one of her father’s statues wobbled threateningly.

Moniqa grit her teeth, overwhelmed with a desire to smash them. That, too, was the lotus talking.

So let it talk.

She bolted from the bed, ignoring the hint of residual birth pain that spiked past the numbing power of the lotus, and marched toward the nearest of the small statues that lined the walls. There were seven in all—identical, beastly-faced, red-eyed relics from the civilization that had reigned in Indas before the Inda had ever dwelt there. The builders of the marveled canals, lotus-topped palaces, and the sunken cities slumped underwater in Indas’s southern reaches had left hundreds of similar artifacts behind to be puzzled over by their successors.

The statues were valuable, reminded her in some way of home, but they were not of her home, of her father. The statues were hideous. Evil. Perhaps they were the votives of early gods, demons watching her from behind their red eyes. Maybe the demons had leapt out of the statues during Indas’s Troubles, to possess the bodies of the savages who’d overthrown her family, who’d dragged her brother’s corpse through the streets, so that sharp stones had scoured his skin.

Moniqa rested her hands to either side of the middlemost statue, staring with it eye-to-eye. She wanted the statue to squeal, to see the rubies shrivel within its placid face.

It was heavier than she remembered and the weight stretched an ache up her arms. Her palms shook as she lifted it to her chin. She let it drop, her hands still shaking as it crunked against the fine patterned floor. Its waist split diagonally with the impact, refusing to shatter like she’d imagined.

Outside, the newborns cried again—had they gone silent while she’d been daydreaming? She hadn’t noticed, and the realization stung deep in her chest. One of them—the boy—was sickly. His urine was sweet, an illness that had plagued Moniqa’s family in the past, and he cried endlessly no matter what the slaves did to ease him. He would probably die, frail as he was, and wouldn’t that suit Samelqo and his silly little prophecy just perfectly? How could there be a seventh child, when Moniqa had borne twins? And the girl—well, she was just a girl, wasn’t she? Only another meal for some king.

The seventh child, according to Samelqo’s silly scrolls, was to be a great king and save his people. Moniqa wasn’t even certain the twins were her seventh children in the eyes of Adonen. The two she’d lost had lived such brief lives, they could hardly be called lives at all.

She stared at the floor, at the broken statue. It lay face-down so that its eyes were covered. It was pathetic and small now, only its back visible, like a corpse floating on the surface of a stream. She knelt slowly, wincing, then rolled its top half back over so that it was gazing up at her. The points of the rubies had made small indents in the floor, but its eyes—its eyes were just as red, just as evil.

What kind of person made something to look so evil?

The chimes outside her door tinkled against one another. Moniqa stood up.

Sese? The slave’s voice was pitched, slightly frantic. Are you well?

She should have called for Dashel—perhaps she still would. She would have him bring Aurelius, and they could sit together, maybe even in the gardens beside the lilacs. She’d been teaching Aurelius Inda songs and stories lately, so he would hold her homeland in his heart, so he would know it was his and retake it for her. Inda songs for an Indan boy. When Aurelius sang back to her he had the most perfect voice—just like a songbird.

Moniqa hesitated. Come in.

The slave—a plain, Massenqa face that Moniqa only half-recognized—locked eyes with her. There was a noise, Sese.

Moniqa smiled, then glanced at the floor. I dropped it.

The girl rushed in, cooing over the destroyed object. Moniqa took a step backwards as the girl struggled with how to go about moving and fixing the thing. The slave’s hands darted to either side of it, never touching it, like it was a spiny urchin that might stab her.

Don’t fuss over it so. Moniqa held her head high, reaching her hand back to brush over her close-shaved head. She opened her eyes wide even though the slave couldn’t see her, in case she still looked drunk on lotus tea. I would like to see my son. Now. And Dashel. Have them both brought to me in the gardens.

Just your son, Sese?

Moniqa turned on the girl. Aurelius—I meant Aurelius. Not— The newborns had no names yet, young as they were. Not the other one.

She smiled to herself—the name a kiss on her lips, a quickening of her heart. The first Aurelius, just like Lena, was long dead, but sometimes in the night she would wrap her arms around herself and pretend they were her Loran lover’s arms, holding her tight and safe.

He hadn’t been Eshmunen’s either. And he had died for it.

Sese? The slave was staring at her.

Moniqa stroked her lip with her thumb. She didn’t remember raising her hand at all. How long had she been standing here? It’s just the lotus tea. I’m well. The admission relaxed her.

Sese—apologies—your physician didn’t see you today.

Of course he had. Of course he had, but . . . no, that had been yesterday. It was Dashel she’d seen today. He’d brought her . . . no, not lotus tea. He’d brought her sapenta, the poppy drink.

Moniqa nodded, annoyed. That doesn’t have anything to do with my son. Go get him. Go get Dashel. I want him here. No. The gardens. She’d wanted them in the gardens, to pray to Adonen.

Sese, the prince is with his slaves. The festival is tonight, Sese, and court—you requested to attend court this evening.

The air smelled burnt. She coughed to clear her throat. Had it smelled burnt earlier? She wasn’t herself.

Of course I will attend, she snapped, too roughly. She shook her head. Have cold water brought—frigid. I must wash. She must wake herself.

The slave stood, bowed, then slipped toward the door without turning around again. She left it ajar. Moniqa stared at the lanternlight casting dotted patterns in the next room. She took a step toward it, then into the adjoining chamber where her babies rested. It was a small, circular room. Round braziers crouched at the room’s entrance—the burning smell from before?

One window lit a small patch of floor. A skeletal olive branch stretched inside like a clawed hand, reaching for the royal children. Moniqa strode over and tried to snap it, but the bark was still wiry despite the supposed drought, and it bent instead of breaking.

An owl hooted.

Moniqa leapt back, hands in front of her face. Her heart hammered in her breast. She froze, watching as the night bird shuffled from its hidden perch outside the window toward the branch Moniqa had failed to break. White feathers puffed out from its horrid black eyes, and it held its tawny wings pinned to its back.

Don’t stare, said Moniqa. She lowered her hand. And go away—it isn’t time for you.

It wasn’t yet evening, let alone night. And there was nothing to eat here—no olives on the tree to entice prey.

Only babes in their beds.

Lilit—the night bird, the demon who stole children from their cradles. Dashel had told Moniqa about her. Goddess of the dark, of vengeance, of death. She took the form of a strix.

Moniqa stepped protectively in front of the baskets where the twins lay gurgling. Go away, she repeated more harshly.

A cloud must have passed, because sunlight suddenly caught the bird’s eyes, and for an instant they flashed red and round, and cruel as rubies.

There were names one was to speak to ward the demon off, but even if Moniqa had known them, she wouldn’t have spoken them. They were the names of Massenqa gods. The only god Moniqa needed was Adonen.

She sucked a breath. Adonen be gone with you.

The bird cocked its head at her. It looked . . . amused. But then it hooted and flew off, as fast as it had seemed to appear.

Moniqa bent over and laughed. Silly. It was silly.

She turned from the window to her children. Their eyes were closed, their breathing untroubled. The boy. He looked peaceful. Perhaps the physician was wrong and he didn’t have the sweet sickness. Perhaps he would be well. The owl hadn’t even woken him—or her, the girl.

The children weren’t really Samelqo’s or Eshmunen’s. Just Moniqa’s. She would love them, she would care for them. It had been the sapenta making her think such thoughts before. She was queen of Qemassen—she could have anything she wanted. What she wanted was to kiss them. But no—they’d only wake again, and she must get herself ready. She would look well for the court tonight.

What was taking that slave so long?

With a smile at her sleeping babies and a quick glance at the owl-less window, Moniqa left the nursery for her room. She would need her fine silks—the finest. The Semassenqa needed cheer and Moniqa would be that cheer. Eshmunen had gifted her a thousand fabrics, a thousand near-translucent garments in another thousand hues. She would wear none of those tonight. Tonight she would wear the orange and purple—the silks he, Aurelius, had given her.

She hoped Eshmunen and Samelqo remembered them. She hoped it was a dagger in her husband’s heart and that when he cried about it, Samelqo wasn’t there to coddle him.

It was dark in this room—too dark. It wasn’t good for her. She flung aside the curtains and the sunlight poured in. Evening would be coming on soon, but for a little while at least the sun would shine on the queen of Qemassen.

Each of Moniqa’s most treasured objects, silks included, were stored in a great banded chest beside her bed—one thing, at least, that Eshmunen had not stolen away and replaced. It was filled with trinkets from her youth, a lock of each of her childrens’ hair, a small statue of Adonen that her father had given her. Moniqa unbolted the now-rusted lock that kept it closed, heart brimming with newfound determination. In the distance, from the hallway, she could hear the feet of slaves returning with the water she’d asked for.

She lifted the lid.

It was empty. Almost. A sandstone statue with little rubies for eyes stared up at her, laid on its back, wrapped round with a scrap of torn orange cloth.

His cloth.

It had to be a trick. A terrible trick—the slave had put it there. The vicious little thing had stolen in here and torn her fine clothes and robbed her and put the statue back together and hidden it in the chest as a nasty, nasty, cruel trick and all for Samelqo. Yes. It had been him, him or Eshmunen. They’d taken everything—Samelqo had killed Aurelius, if not with his own hand then with a hired one, and now he’d ripped even this small pleasure from her. He’d taken—

Moniqa twisted around and counted the statues. There were six lining the wall, one broken on the floor. All of them. The sapenta. It had to be. She looked back at the chest. The statue was gone. Instead, nestled amongst her fine silks, beside her trinkets and the statue of Adonen and the locks of her childrens’ hair, was the curled white feather of an owl.

Dashel: The Throne Room: Qemassen

Dashel stood scrunched between perfumed nobles on the packed mezzanine of Qemassen’s throne room. The competing scents of qyphi, rose, and lily clouded in the air around him until they were sucked inside his nose, dizzying.

In his plain cotton tunic, sweat-soaked from his day in the hot sun with the royal children, Dashel was out of place. But Moniqa wanted him here to spy for her and see things she might miss. No one would question his presence.

He gripped the railing with damp palms, surveying the courtiers below. They milled at the rounded end of the great hall, framed by huge, arched windows behind them. The court hadn’t been so packed in weeks, and it was hard to spy on the Semassenqa with the room so full.

Moniqa’s cousin—tall, muscled, and imposing—was easy to spot. The exiled Indan prince, Shaqarbas, pushed his way through the crowd to stand at its head. He stopped a few feet in front of the rest of the Semassenqa.

The merchant Qanmi looked Shaqarbas up and down before whispering something to his brother Sabeq. The two shifted subtly till they were flush with Shaqarbas. Even from Dashel’s spot on the mezzanine, Qanmi’s gold earrings glinted in the light, reflecting off the polished onyx floor.

Qanmi was always the most ostentatiously dressed at court—like he thought he was a prince. He wasn’t a prince at all, just rich, and no friend to Samelqo. There wasn’t much point in watching him.

The Ajwata ambassador was close behind them, but the Anata ambassador from eq-Anout and the Lora ambassador were both missing. Dashel scanned the crowd for their faces. They definitely weren’t here. It was odd, but maybe they’d tired of Samelqo’s pronouncements of doom.

At the head of the room, not so far from Dashel’s vantage, Qemassen’s queen and king—Moniqa and Eshmunen—sat upon their thrones, each seat resting on a tiered dais. The third throne sat empty.

Where was Samelqo? His throne stood to the right of Eshmunen’s, on the lowest tier of the dais. The lowest, even though everyone knew Eshmunen was only a puppet. Samelqo was Qemassen’s real king. It was him Moniqa needed Dashel to watch. Moniqa was sure he was plotting something against her.

A minor noble nudged Dashel’s side as though to press past and get a better view, but Dashel was tall and strong for a man of fourteen. He planted his feet firmly apart and nudged the noble right back before gripping the railing again. He’d promised Moniqa he’d be here for her tonight, promised her he’d stand at the edge of the gallery so she’d know where to find him. It was all worth it, because Dashel was needed.

It was worth missing his last night with Isef.

He ran his tongue over his lips, remembering Isef’s kiss this morning. Dashel’s skin still tasted of olives, just like Isef’s.

Isef’s mother had arranged a marriage for her son—a pretty girl from Lorar. Usually Isef’s mother hated anyone who wasn’t a real, Qemassen-born Erun, but apparently an Eru girl from Lorar counted as long as she got Isef away from Dashel.

Well, that was fine. Dashel still had the memory of his lips. He gripped the railing tighter, shifting his attention from Isef and back to what he was supposed to be doing.

Moniqa’s many-hued skirts spilled from the dais to the floor in front of her—expensive silks traded from distant lands, displaying her wealth and power to everyone assembled. It was a perfect gown in which to stand up to Samelqo.

Today was her first day at court since the royal twins had come screaming into the world. A sweat had gripped her until five days past, and Dashel had spent most of that time at her side, or with Aurelius, or attending court as her eyes and ears. Samelqo’s underlings had tried to bar his entry, but Moniqa had put a stop to that with a word to the king. Dashel wasn’t sure how good his reports were, but Moniqa always thanked him, and paid him, and smiled.

Dashel kicked at the rail with his foot, and his sandal scuffed the floor, squeaking against stone. He grinned sheepishly at the courtier beside him, but no one seemed to have heard. Everyone was chattering about tonight’s festival—staring and pointing at the more important nobles standing below them, at the far end of the curved hall.

Dashel straightened. And so what if they had heard? Everyone knew he was Moniqa’s favourite. No one would dare say a word to him.

Why tonight, is what I don’t understand, someone said nearby. And where’s the heq-Ashqen? He should answer for this. I can’t spare what I have plumping up peasants for some festival—

Dashel turned his attention back to the hall below. Samelqo’s empty throne was like a gaping wound.

A few months ago, Samelqo had claimed demons sent by the death god, Molot, were responsible for both the dryness of the river Izzat, and the Lora mercenaries attacking the trading ships and caravans that normally crowded Qemassen’s famed harbour and merchant quarter. Everyone had thought it funny at the time, but now? Molot’s gardens were packed with supplicants, the ground seasoned with ashes.

For a moment, the perfume of the courtiers was replaced by the pungent smell of smoke, and Dashel shuddered. Staring at Samelqo’s seat, he could almost see the demons crawling from the void it represented, black and burned.

Samelqo’s festival had been announced only a few days earlier, its details left vague. Dashel’s sister Sarah had told him that Eshmunen’s slaves had bought up the remainder of her date stores in preparation. Dashel liked festivals, but Massenqa ones were often gloomy affairs—there was good food and good drink, but instead of eating it they just burned it in big piles for their strange gods.

And since the spring, they burned more than food.

Dashel shifted, and stared down at the marble pillars that supported the mezzanine on the other side of the hall. His gaze slipped from pillar to pillar until it reached the vast arches of the windows, whose light still spilled across the floor. It was warm in the throne room, but thinking on Molot always gave Dashel a chill. The last time they’d passed the death god’s gardens, his mother and father had talked about how soon the Massenqa would tire of burning their own. Then they’d turn on the Eru, start blaming them for the drought. Dashel’s people would have to leave.

If that happened, Dashel would stay. Qemassen was the only home he’d ever known. Dashel believed in Adonis like any good Erun, even if the sages’ lectures put him to sleep, but his place was with the royal children. It didn’t matter that they were Massenqa.

Besides, Moniqa would protect him. She’d protect all of them. He tore his gaze away, settling his attention on her.

She turned Dashel’s way, chin angled upward, searching for him. His heart beat faster. He grinned, then waved. From all the way up here, he could just make out her smile—and she’d smiled it for him.

Then Eshmunen leaned toward her and spoke, and she turned away. Her shoulders slumped. She still looked beautiful in her silks that spread around her like the petals of a flower, but it was like the world had crashed down on her with her husband’s words.

The atmosphere around the palace must be adding to Moniqa’s unease. The mood was anxious, confused. Then again, her melancholy might be from the sapenta Dashel had brought her earlier.

Three slaves holding a ney, a sistrum, and a cymbal skittered from the marble pillars beneath the mezzanine and stopped at the centre of the room. Together, they played the melody that signaled the start of a session. The rattles of the sistrum were not so different from those of some living thing—like a field of insects laying in the grass.

No sooner had one slave lowered her ney from her lips, than the doors across the hall flew open, and Samelqo strode inside. With his robes whirling about him, his steps long and firm, he looked nothing like the wreck Dashel had seen earlier in the gardens. The musicians scrambled back into the shadows beneath the mezzanine like mice scattering before a cat.

Samelqo surveyed the room quickly, then bowed to his king and queen. King Eshmunen barely looked up. He was hunched against his seat, one fist propping up his chin as his other arm fell lazily over the throne’s sphinx-headed armrest. The sphinxes’ blind faces seemed to stare endlessly past the great windows opposite, past Qemassen and its rounded harbour.

As Samelqo took a few slow, deliberate steps to the centre of the room, Moniqa trailed him with her gaze. Dashel turned to the rest of the Semassenqa.

A heaviness had descended on the court, like the tension in the air before the summer storms. The horses in the stables beside his father’s elephants would squeal, and rear, and kick when the thunder came, and sometimes before it even started. No one was kicking or squealing now. Somehow it was more frightening.

Samelqo was taking his time. He prowled the floor, and as he prowled, Dashel followed his every movement, as transfixed as the Semassenqa. He swallowed.

Evening sunlight shone against the bald dome of Samelqo’s head, casting the heq-Ashqen’s golden skin an angry orange. Samelqo was always so prim and arch, like an evil sorcerer out of a story. It had felt good earlier in the garden to see his mask cracking. Maybe if it cracked enough, the king would finally see past Samelqo’s avian gaze to the serpent under it.

The crowd were fidgeting.

At last Samelqo spoke. Beloved children of Qemassen. He raised a rolled scroll high up in the air, and as he did so his robes swiveled about him as though to emphasize his every word. His voice echoed throughout the hall, clear and commanding. I come before you with further proof of the gods’ displeasure. The harmony of the Helit Sea is unbalanced. Lora conquerors have set sail for Zimrida.

The hush of the court burst into a flurry of whispers. Dashel’s heart leapt to his throat. He darted a look at Moniqa, whose skirts rustled as she shifted on her throne. She was gripping her handrests. Eshmunen didn’t even look up.

He’d known. He’d known before the meeting was called. The queen had not.

From the unhappy looks on the Semassenqa’s faces, no one had yet been told. And how had Dashel missed this news? He had plenty of friends at the docks—sailors and traders who would have known about a Lora attack. He should have been paying more attention to his work and less to Isef.

Have ships been sent? Queen Moniqa rose from her throne. How long have you known this?

Samelqo didn’t turn around to address her. The ships were sent, but too late. Molot has delayed them, or demons attacked them. The speed of our oars is nothing against the will of the divine. He turned so that he surveyed the Semassenqa as he spoke. Only three days ago word reached us that our outpost was besieged, and today our informers in Ledan confirmed the island was taken. There is no sign of our ships, Queen. They never reached Zimrida. Samelqo paused. They never even reached Ledan.

Dashel darted a look at the Semassenqa. That must be why the Anata ambassador was missing. Ledan was his nation’s capital. As the closest landmass to Qemassen’s outpost on Zimrida, Ledan should have sent word earlier.

Moniqa’s cousin Shaqarbas brushed past the merchant Qanmi, and stepped halfway onto the floor of the hall. Never reached Ledan or weren’t reported? What proof do we have that these informers are loyal to Qemassen? He, at least, wasn’t frightened of Samelqo. How do we know the Anata themselves haven’t been bought with Lora coin? Anyone here worth the gold on his fingers knows demons don’t helm ships, but pirates and traitors are more than willing.

Demons have no need of ships, said Samelqo. Some of the Semassenqa were nodding in agreement. Were they so desperate for reassurance they were suddenly willing to swallow Samelqo’s stories? Moniqa had told him there’d been droughts before. Qemassen would survive.

They come up from the seafloor or take shape from the wind itself, Samelqo continued. They scatter men’s bones along the shore and drag warriors off to feast upon beneath the waves. We have come to laugh at our demons and the gods they serve, but that laughter twists back on us now. Rivers dried and scouting parties missing? Ships vanished and seedlings suffocated by barren sands? What of Indas? What of She?

Dashel’s throat felt thick, strangled. How dare he speak of Moniqa’s home?

Samelqo’s voice reverberated throughout the hall as the sun’s light faded. The shadows deepened across the room, across Shaqarbas’s face. At the mention of his homeland, Shaqarbas looked like he might take those last few steps and strangle Samelqo where he stood.

Dashel’s heart fluttered with the hope, but Prince Shaqarbas didn’t move.

Qemassen is great, as once was Indas, continued the heq-Ashqen. Qemassen forgets its gods as Indas once did. It is not the Lora we should fear, but ourselves. I shall tell you of Indas the Great―of the fall of her cities and her towns. Where now is the great city of Ipsis, but clutched greedily by Lorar? What of Lera, whose palaces burned with fire from the torches of her own Inda people? It is a Loran king who governs in the City of Reeds, and it is a Loran king who will govern these sacred halls and call himself Semassenqen.

Dashel squeezed the railing. Samelqo was laying fallen Indas, naked and shamed, before the Semassenqa—it was as though he’d stripped Moniqa bare.

Moniqa was trembling—not with tears, Dashel thought, but with anger. For Samelqo to have publicly slandered the Inda people, and Moniqa’s family in particular, was a dangerous tactic. Everyone knew how Eshmunen loved his queen. The people loved their queen.

Yet Eshmunen did nothing. No one did anything as Samelqo ranted on, commanding quiet with his every word as his gaze danced across the faces of the assembled nobility.

The temples of Molot and Abaal were razed to the ground in Ipsis, and the Adonis of Elu held up in their place. It is easy for a mighty people to forget their benefactors and grow lax. It is easier to worship one god than many. It is easier to burn lambs and leaves than human hair and bone, and it is easiest of all to grow complacent in our wealth. As Samelqo moved, the very torchlight made a specter of his shadow, which stretched long and looming behind him. Who here goes starving like the woman in the street who peddles her sex for milk and olives? Who here makes sacrifice as Elibat’s people were once taught to do? The common people of Qemassen know what this drought means, even if we do not. The common people of Qemassen, whores and gamblers and degenerates, know better what is required of them than the kings and queens of this mighty city.

Dashel’s skin crawled with the legs of a hundred creeping insects.

"You preach as though you speak for your king, Ashqen, snapped Moniqa. She didn’t sound tired now—she sounded like a queen. It is you who forgets who rules in Qemassen. Who his allies are."

Before Samelqo was forced to answer though, Qanmi eq-Sabaal took a step forward. What allies? The men promised us died long ago in lands most of us have never seen. He cracked his gold-ringed fingers as he stared Moniqa down. I paid well to sit your brother on the Inda throne. I hoped my trading barges might find safe harbour in his ports. Perhaps the new king in Indas would recognize the agreement if I sent a fallen Indat princess in place of pots and linens? I hear Lorar looks kindly on those who bow in defeat.

Qanmi couldn’t have said such a thing a year ago, yet none now seemed surprised by the threat.

King Eshmunen shifted in his seat for the first time since the beginning of the meeting. His greying curls hung limp against his chest as he straightened. Dashel had to lean forward to hear the king’s hushed voice.

There will be no talk of defeat inside Qemassen’s walls. Bowing to Lorar would mean the death of us. They can’t afford for Qemassen to be left standing. Eshmunen gestured vaguely with his hand, as though to indicate the west, and Moniqa’s homeland. The loss of Indas was great, but there are other potential allies. Envoys have been sent across the Helit Sea to treat with the northwestern clansmen. The chiefs of the Feislands are joining their armies to fend off Lora raiding parties, with talk of electing a leader. The king of the Feislands won’t refuse a prize as great as the future ruler of the Helit. A marriage alliance would solidify our friendship.

Dashel cringed, trying to picture pretty little Qwella forced to marry a brutish tribesman in furs. From the stirring of the court, it sounded like they were as concerned as Dashel. The palace would be filled with Feislanda beasts.

Samelqo held out his hands. "The king has decided this after much thought. The Feislanda are not what they once were and bring with them many warriors and much territory. Farming territory."

Shaqarbas cut Samelqo off with a laugh, grinning ear-to-ear. He would stand up for Moniqa’s children when her husband wouldn’t. And marrying a woolly northern elephant, was that something the gods commanded, Samelqo? If so, I feel sorry for our young heir. Someone should tell the child, so he can crawl back inside his mother. Of course, we could always send our heq-Ashqen to the Feislands. I’m sure there must be some poor hag, blind enough to welcome him to her bed.

Dashel chuckled. If only the king would send Samelqo to the Feislands.

Common sense commanded this alliance of the king, Samelqo answered, pinched. If the gods find fault with his decision they will inform us.

A chill passed over Dashel. There was something he wasn’t understanding, buried in Samelqo eq-Milqar’s words. He looked out the windows behind the Semassenqa. Slaves had come and lit the torches in the room and the sun had nearly disappeared from the sky. The red and purple sunset still spilled across the walls here and there, but the shapes had taken on a sinister bent and, for a moment, Dashel could have sworn he’d seen the face of a real demon painted in crimson on the white walls.

And what are we to do with this news? asked Shaqarbas.

Samelqo inclined his head. Pray.

Shaqarbas snorted, arms folded across his broad chest, but he stepped back. The Ashenqa have been praying for years.

Then the manner of prayer must change.

The manner of prayer?

The merchant Qanmi crept forward, his earrings and metal-ornamented braids tinkling against one another. You can’t ask that of us. My Titrit is nearly twelve.

I do not ask it of you, nor does our king. Samelqo stood rigid, oddly emotionless suddenly.

Then what is it he does ask? said Qanmi.

It is written in the Book of Abaal that following seven years of plague and meagre yields a gift of two hundred children was made in Molot’s gardens. That spring, the rains flooded the banks of the Izzat. Molot rewards those who follow the proper observances, and punishes those who refuse. Yet we live in a time even more uncertain than those first days, with enemies to either side of us, and silence from the skies above.

Dashel had always lived in Qemassen, a friend to its people, but even at his age there were areas of the city he feared to enter, and the gardens most of all. When he was small, Sarah had told him ghost stories about the bodies buried in those grounds, and of the graves left empty when the flames took everything. Only once had he chanced to see the great gold statue of Molot, with its bull’s head and outstretched hands. He’d been riding in a litter with the queen, and Moniqa had parted the curtains to point toward the temple entrance behind the statue. The temple’s giant steps had led down to a sandstone walkway that extended all the way to Molot’s back. The smoke that hung perpetually over the quarter these days had not been there then, but the image had shaped his nightmares for months.

Stop dancing around the question, said Shaqarbas. "Explain what you mean if it’s not the murder of our children. The poor burning babes they can no longer