Between Dragons and Their Wrath

Book 1: The Shattered Kingdom

by Devin Madson

Genres: Sword & Sorcery

Synopsis

From Aurealis Award‑nominated author Devin Madson comes a new rip-roaring epic fantasy full of dragons, alchemical magic, and forbidden romance that unfolds as three people in a shattered empire become entangled in a looming revolution.

The old kingdom of Paicha has been split into city states, but there are those who seek to reunite the shattered realm—by force if necessary. Amidst the turmoil there are three who will find their destinies inextricably tangled. 

Tesha is a glassblower’s apprentice who becomes a tribute bride when her city is conquered by the south. In the enemy’s court, she’s perfectly placed to sabotage them, but her heart has other plans. 

Naili is a laundress in the house of an eccentric alchemist who is awakening to strange new powers. When radicals approach her, she faces a choice between keeping her magic to herself and using it to change the world. 

And in the desolate Shield Mountains, dragon rider Ash protects the cities from the monsters in the Iipao sands beyond. But, soon he'll have to learn how to protect his dragon when hunters unlock the secret to killing them. 

As war sweeps across the land, Tesha, Naili, and Ash must fight for survival against political enemies, dragon hunters, and monsters both within and without.  

For more from Devin Madson, check out:

The Reborn Empire: 
We Ride the Storm
We Lie With Death
We Cry for Blood
We Dream of Gods

Release date: August 27, 2024

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 432

Sample

Afternoon Bulletin

To all criers for announcement throughout Learshapa

Grievous blow for the city as a second critical scale shipment fails to arrive from Therinfrou Mine. Attacks by Lummazzt soldiers to blame.

Emergency council meeting called to discuss rising border tensions with Lummazza, despite initial plans not to meet again until after next week’s vote. “We would be stronger together,” says Reacher Sormei.

Nine ritual carvings have gone missing from Lord Sactasque’s public gallery. It is the second such incident this month. Information is sought regarding this assault on Celessi history.

200:49

The shatter of warm glass hitting stone has a particular tenor, a sound that reaches deep, more feeling than noise. It touches every memory of broken glasswork and shattered dreams, of beauty lost and time torn away. Even when it’s Assistant Jul’s ugly carafe that looks better as a pile of shards.

“Sweep it up!” Master Hoye called over the roaring furnace. “Life is glass!”

“Life is glass,” the boy mumbled back, the lesson still too sharp to fit into the ugly-carafe-shaped hole in his heart. Likely it would be a few more years before he realised what our master’s favourite phrase really meant. Not that glasswork was all we lived for, but that life was glass. Like life, glass is infinitely malleable when warm and well-tended, yet fragile enough to shatter at a single wrong move. It can be moulded by any hands into any shape, but the more skilled and prepared the hands the better the outcome. Even the addition of scale for strength was akin to the way people gathered wealth and resources about themselves and called it resilience.

I’d been staring out the back window, lost in thought, but as broken glass tinkled into the scrap bucket I shoved the last bite of honey-crusted bread into my mouth. Outside, the slice of Learshapa that had been my lunch-break companion went on unchanged. Overhead, sunlight reflected off whitewashed walls beneath an endless blue sky, yet little light reached the courtyard of faded tiles on the other side of the window. Once it had been a fine atrium, but now it was full of dusty, cobwebbed pots owning lethargic plants more grey than green.

I licked my fingers and wiped the sticky residue down my apron as Master Hoye called, “The gather won’t shape itself!”

To Master Hoye, everything was about glass. He likened his desire not to rush out of bed in the morning to glass being stronger when cooled slowly in vermiculite, and the suffering of stress to the drawing of thin canes. Even wrong words spoken at the wrong time earned a hiss from him, like hot glass being dunked in a quenching barrel.

Back at my workbench, I gathered materials for the next job. Cobalt. A pinch of scale. Sand bed. Two moulds. Even with the scale shortage, there was a lot to do. The upcoming vote to decide Learshapa’s place in the Celes Basin seemed to have energised the city, sending everyone bustling about with renewed purpose and a determination to finish long-neglected projects. That afternoon, my list contained a dozen replacement armour scales, two matching brandy glasses, a trio of scaleglass blades to fit carved handles, and twenty unification badges I would rather have smashed on the floor. Unification. I sneered as I laid everything out ready. It was a fine word for conquest.

As I prepared to gather molten glass from the furnace, an arrival sent our bead curtain tinkling. “Good afternoon,” a young man said, unclipping his veil and casting his gaze around the large, smoky space.

“Good afternoon.” Assistant Borro hurried forward, wiping his hands on his apron as Master Hoye always did. “What can we do for you?”

“I’m hoping to leave a small pile of flyers on your counter in support of the vote.” As he spoke, the man handed Borro a paper-wrapped sugar curl from a basket he carried. “Is there perhaps someone more senior I could speak to?”

A glance back found Master Hoye in the middle of shaping a vase and shouting at Assistant Jul, both dripping sweat, and poor Borro rolled his gaze my way.

I strode over, but before I could speak, the young man thrust one of his sugar curls into my hand—a traditional Memento curl of skulls and suns. “A Memento Festival token for next week’s Memento Eve vote,” he said, all bright cheerfulness. “Might I leave a small pile of flyers here for your customers?”

I glanced down at the flyers, able to make out only two words at the top of the page: Stronger Together. “I take it you’re supporting the ‘conquer us, please, we can’t take care of ourselves’ vote then,” I said, utterly failing at what Master Hoye called civil indifference.

Likely the man had a ready response for most arguments, just not one so blunt. For a long moment he stared at me and I stared back, sugar curl growing sticky in my warm hand.

Behind him, the glass-bead curtain tinkled again, heralding the arrival of two women, arm-in-arm as they let down their veils. “Good afternoon,” I said, grateful for the distraction. “Can I help you?”

“We’re looking for scaleglass wedding bands,” the younger said, a shy glance thrown at her companion. “I know scale is in short supply, but, well, we’re asking around anyway.”

“Wedding bands?” I scoffed, the disgusted words escaping before I could swallow them. The women froze—a startled tableau of horror.

With a hiss mimicking hot glass hitting water, Master Hoye stepped forward. “That’s not Apprentice Tesha’s field of expertise,” he said, patting my arm with one hand while wiping his damp brow with the other. “Best to speak to me about that. I’m Master Hoye, and you’re right, scale is…” His words trailed off as he guided them to the other side of the entry space, away from the ever-present roar of the furnaces. Neither young woman glanced back to see my heated cheeks.

“Oh, so you’re that kind of Learshapan, are you?” the man said, finding his voice again. “Traditional. Against all change.”

“You say that like change is a neutral term,” I snapped back. “Like taking up a new fashion is the same as giving up our ability to decide our own future, because that’s what this is. A vote for unification is a vote for assimilation into the Emoran empire.”

“And a vote for separation is a vote to stay weak and risk further Lummazzt attacks!”

“Bullshit!”

Master Hoye and the two women broke off their low-voiced conversation, all three turning to stare at us. Cheeks reddening for the second time, I leaned over the counter, bringing my fury face-to-face with the flyer man’s. “Lummazza has never attacked us and has no reason to now. But if you give Emora the power to make us in their image there will be no Learshapa. And certainly no Memento Festival.” I crushed the softening sugar curl in my fist, snapping its artistry like tiny bones. “The answer is no, you can’t leave your flyers here.”

“And you think I’m the fear monger,” the man scoffed, and in a flurry of skirts, he spun away, pushing through the glass-bead curtain and out into the bright heat before he’d even clipped his veil into place.

“That went well.”

I turned to find Master Hoye watching, the two women having departed, leaving our entry empty.

“I’m sorry,” I said, anger chilling to regret in a heartbeat. “I ought not to have lost my temper with him. It’s not good for business.”

“No, but neither is complete Emoran rule, so you’re forgiven.” There was nothing more to be said, yet he remained watching me.

“What is it?” I said, instantly breathless with worry.

“You need to be more respectful when people come in looking for wedding bands, but I think you know that already, don’t you?”

I closed my eyes and gave a solemn nod. “It’s just so ridiculous. Especially in a scale shortage.”

“Times have been rough.” His voice sank to a quiet murmur. “Who am I to judge what people choose to make them happy?”

“Marriage? Family?” I all but spat the words. “You know as well as I do how dangerous those customs are to our communes and care groups.”

Master Hoye dropped his hand on my shoulder. “These are concerns for the meeting house, not my workshop. And yes, I know you haven’t been attending meetings, like I know you’re a fool who can’t find her place in the world, but I’d say it’s been long enough, huh?”

I nodded slowly, shame at my outbursts weighing me down. “I’m sorry, Master. I will take more care.”

“I know you will.”

Again, he patted my shoulder, and would have turned back about his work had not a question burst from my lips. “What did you mean when you said I was ‘a fool who can’t find her place’?”

“I meant exactly what I said.”

“I’m happy here. And in my care group.”

“For now, yes. But happy has never been what you’re looking for, has it?”

With a wink, he turned away, already calling for Assistant Borro to ready his punty. It was his way of ending conversations that had run out of usefulness, a sure sign that asking what he had meant a second time would earn no better answer.

As I returned to my work, hoping no one else would step through the door, a registered crier passed by in the street shouting the afternoon bulletin. “… scale shipment fails to arrive from Therinfrou Mine. Attacks by Lummazzt soldiers to blame,” she called, her voice carrying well in the narrow street. “Emergency council meeting called to discuss rising border tensions with Lummazza, despite initial plans not to meet again until after next week’s vote. ‘We would be stronger together,’ says Reacher Sormei…”

Her voice faded away on the reacher’s name, leaving me with the bitter taste of it in my mouth. Reacher Sormei, leader of Emora and the rest of the Celes Basin. At that very moment he was somewhere in Learshapa campaigning for the unification vote so he could rule us too, and people like that idiot with his flyers wanted to help him do it.

A long time ago the Celes Basin had been home only to roaming Apaian tribes, who had done nothing more with the basin’s vast scale deposits than carve death mementos into the stone. The discovery that it could be mixed into glass to create a substance stronger than any metal had changed everything. With scaleglass, the Apaians had built permanent settlements, water catchments, and roads that crossed the basin’s empty stones, even made an early form of blasting powder that dug the pits of our great cities—Bakii, Orsu, and Learshapa. Perhaps it would have stayed that way had the Emorans not been forced from their own lands into the basin, or perhaps they would have attacked anyway, coveting the scale and all it could do. Either way, as the Lummazzt conquered Emora, Emorans had conquered the basin and built their own city—Emora—from which to govern. The war had been brutal, but so long ago now it hardly seemed real. Only Learshapa had kept any form of democracy when the Emorans finally took over, a concession earned through bloodshed that some were now ready to vote away.

Returning to my abandoned tasks, I couldn’t extricate myself from the fear that grew daily. What if the unification vote won? What if my home was about to change forever no matter how tightly I clung? What would become of us then?

I might have relaxed had the day continued like any other, but in the middle of the afternoon it became even less like any other when Sorscha sauntered in, all at ease. His visits to the forge weren’t rare enough to herald trouble, but I hadn’t seen him for weeks. Not since I’d stopped volunteering at the west quarter meeting house. Not since I’d walked out on Uvao.

“Tesha. Master Hoye,” he said, shaking out the dark hair he loosed from his veil. “A fine afternoon to you both.”

He leaned on the counter, possessing none of the nervousness I felt at his arrival. As though I’d forgotten how to stand or smile or what to do with my arms. The urge to ask after Uvao was strong.

“Afternoon, yes. Fine, I’m not so sure,” Master Hoye said, handing his work to the boys and striding over. “What can we do for you, Sorscha?”

“Always business with you, Master Hoye.” Sorscha’s smile held a mocking edge, and his single-slit brows hovered low and sleepy. “I’m well, thank you for asking. Though the heat out there is quite something. Almost as bad as the heat in here.”

Despite his complaint, he looked cool and at ease, his dark hair ruffled in a careless style and his blackened leather tunic laced tight—as tight as the three brass bands constricting one arm. His glance flicked my way, his mocking smile unmoving, and I could only hope I looked untroubled lest he report my embarrassment to Uvao.

When Master Hoye didn’t answer in kind, Sorscha sighed and pulled a folded paper square from his skirt pocket. “Here then,” he said, unfolding it with painstaking diligence. “Something to keep you busy for the rest of the afternoon.”

“This afternoon? I’m full up.”

“Then give this one to Tesha.”

“No.”

Master Hoye’s sharp refusal was entirely expected and yet utterly disappointing—a feeling for which I ought to have been ashamed. The jobs Sorscha sometimes brought in were not only illegal but flouted our customs. Learshapa had always sustained itself by being a collective political community in which decisions were made together, but with that on the verge of change there was much allure in being able to just… do something about it. Quickly. Quietly. Changing the world.

With a silky hush, Sorscha slid the paper across the counter. Before Master Hoye snatched it up, I caught the words identical wine glasses, fast-acting poison, and illness. “And you need it tonight?”

“The client will accept tomorrow morning.”

“Then tomorrow morning it is. Come at opening, not before.”

“Naturally. Before would mean being up far too early.”

Master Hoye grunted and walked away, leaving me facing Sorscha, who remained leaning against the front bench. “Long time, no see, Tesh,” he said in his lazy way. “Arguments at the meeting house haven’t been as fiery without you. Will you be attending tonight?”

A shrug was all I could manage. Mere weeks ago, I would have been there every night helping out, but accidentally uncovering Uvao’s identity had changed everything. No matter how often I might wish, as I lay awake at night, that I’d never found out at all.

“This second scale shipment failing to arrive has everyone on edge,” Sorscha went on, thankfully unaware of my thoughts. “Even more on edge than the coming vote and the presence of Reacher Sormei walking the streets shaking everyone’s hand, that is.”

For people who didn’t know him, it was unnerving witnessing Sorscha’s shift from charming insouciance to serious political discussion. I’d spent too long in his company to be shocked, but it sent a thrill up my spine every time. “I think we’d all be better off if someone killed Reacher Sormei and let us get on with our lives,” he added. “And no, before you ask, that’s not the job I just gave Master Hoye. Unfortunately. At least we get to vote, huh? Imagine living in Bakii and having no say over anything at all.”

We both grimaced, momentarily in accord as he readied his veil to depart. “Catch you around, Tesh.”

“Wait, before you go. Tell me… how do you think the vote will go?”

“Are you asking me as me, or asking me as someone whose friend turned out to be an Emoran lord who knows more of what’s going on than we do?”

“Both.”

A soft laugh brushed his veil as he drew it up, pinning it to his hair. “It’s the same answer anyway. I don’t know, so I find myself grateful that I’ll be at least somewhat protected from the worst of the fallout by said friend turning out to be an Emoran lord. Same place you would be in if you hadn’t made such a pointless moral stand when you found out who Uvao was.”

“Pointless?”

“You asked,” Sorscha said, and with a little wave, he headed for the door, skirt swishing. “Goodbye, Tesh.”

He was gone on the words, leaving me stunned and flustered with an increasing urge to run after him and argue. An urge quashed only by Master Hoye dropping half a dozen jobs on my bench.

“No time for daydreaming, Tesha, we’re swamped,” he said, before retiring to the back of the workshop alone. There, the box he always used for Sorscha’s special jobs already sat out. It was flat and rectangular, little bigger than a book, but with wooden panels so finely decorated it would have been worth a fortune even without the secretive contents. Master Hoye had never told me what was inside, but over the years I’d come to believe it was all poisons—poisons over which his hands danced with ease, each vial touched with the gentleness of old friends.

Having chosen vials from the box, he turned to make a fresh gather, and I spun away. Nothing was as sure to incite his ire as curiosity about his box of poisons and the glassware he sometimes put them in for money.

Despite my worries, there was so much work to do that for the rest of the day I lost myself in glass and heat and sweat. For a time, the mysterious box was forgotten, as was the vote, Uvao, Sorscha, and the political plays of Reacher Sormei, each melting away beneath the singular focus of practising my craft and practising it well.

By the end of the day, I was worn out but satisfied and had started tidying the workshop when a registered crier passed, calling the evening news. As always, we all paused in our work to listen.

“—to the scale shortage, yet another shipment of sand has failed to arrive as scheduled due to ongoing blockades between Orsu and the northern mines. Learshapans advised to ration their glass needs,” the crier shouted, slowly passing the open portico. “After this afternoon’s emergency council meeting, Lord Councillor Angue is expected to address crowds in the chamber square at sundown, while Reacher Sormei…”

Her voice faded as she moved on, once more taking with her the Reacher’s dreaded name and much of the air left in our stifling workshop.

“Sand too,” Master Hoye grumbled. “I’ll have to go through the orders and see what can be put off.”

What more was there to say? With a huff of breath, he waved a hand at the assistants, both elbow-deep in the washing tub and looking miserable. “Go on, run along home, boys. I’ll wash up tonight. You too, Tesha. I need to think.”

Waved away with a preoccupied scowl, there was nothing to do but swap apron for veil and head out into the street, leaving him to his thoughts.

Although the sun was setting, the air outside still held the day’s heat, drying everything it touched. Learshapa could get as hot as our forge, but the city never smelled of burning paper and coal and wax and scale; rather the street held tangs of life, of cooking food and warm earth and sweat, of water and flowers and spilled date brandy. It was all so very Learshapa that I breathed deep.

At the end of the street, the public house was already full of noise, all chatter and laughter and the squeak of worn sandals on the glass-tiled floor. A tangle of vines shaded the outdoor plaza, where cooler air gathered around the spill of a central fountain.

It took a few moments to find an empty table near the netting edge, but I soon had a tall glass of brandy laced with benki flowers and my very own sticky cake I utterly deserved. Overhead, the sky was turning pink with the setting sun, which meant Lord Councillor Angue would be speaking soon in the chamber square. I tried not to think about what he might have to say, tried not to think about the vote and its consequences, not to think about war with Lummazza or Reacher Sormei or scale and sand shortages, and ended up thinking about them all. Around me, people chattered and laughed and shared drinks, but not everyone was cheerful. Little knots of argument broke out here and there, each akin to the conversation I’d had with Flyer Man earlier that day. The sense that whatever the vote’s outcome, Learshapa was fracturing couldn’t but worry at me, and though I drank my brandy and ate my cake, I tasted neither.

Perhaps I ought to go to that evening’s meeting after all.

While I weighed my desire for political debate against what I told myself was an aversion to seeing Uvao again, a scuffle broke out near the entrance of the public house. An argument over who was next in line for a table perhaps, fierce enough that someone was shoved against the netting, causing a wave to flow across the sheer roof—a sheer roof beyond which the sun had set. In the upper city, Lord Councillor Angue would already have spoken.

A knot of apprehension tightened in my gut as people at nearby tables rose to stare at the spreading disagreement in the entryway. Whispers hissed around me like a buzz of insects, abruptly cut off as someone cheered. Another screamed. Shouting broke out and patrons turned on one another, fingers jabbing into faces and spit flying, and for a moment all I could do was sit, frozen in place, holding tight to my terror.

At the next table, an old man who’d been drinking with a friend rose to his feet looking as confused as I felt. “What in dragon’s breath is going on?” he demanded of no one in particular, but he needn’t have.

Rising above the noise came the clear tone of a crier. “Due to the imminent war with Lummazza, the council have used their executive power to accept Reacher Sormei’s treaty,” she called. “There will be no vote. Learshapa is to unite with the rest of the Celes Basin.”

The words rolled over me, along with a tide of shouts and cheers and cries I knew couldn’t be real. The Learshapan people had a vote because we’d always had a vote; that was how the city worked. Yet someone threw a punch, others cried, and a group danced on their table while drinks were thrown at them. And amid the noise I found my gaze meeting that of the old man, his horror what made it all too real.

They’d sold us out.

Chest tight, I was up before I had a plan, pushing my way through the chaotic crowd. The crowd pushed back, all manic energy, but I needed to get out, needed answers, so I turned my shoulder and cut my way through, brandy splashing my skirt and fingers catching in my hair.

Outside was little better. Learshapa had erupted, equal parts joy and anguish and hissing with rage wherever the two met, but I had mind only for my destination, and for the question burning my tongue. A question only one person I knew could answer.

I hardly saw the city, hardly felt my own steps, time seeming to freeze and yet speed ahead like it had become untethered from the world, spooling away into nothing. One moment I was pushing through the crowd, the next I was at the back door of the meeting house—the door out which I’d walked when I’d cut Uvao from my life. Now I dared not think what I would do if he wasn’t inside.

The moment I pushed it open, a sweet-scented bundle crashed into me, slowing the world to its natural pace. “Tesh! You came back!”

“Jiiala!” I returned her tight embrace, grateful for the moment of comfort. We were alone in the narrow back room, a tiny air pocket in a world of noise that thrummed through the surrounding walls. “I heard the news. Is… is Uvao here?”

Still holding my arms, she looked up, lips parted upon words she couldn’t utter—words lost as the door into the main meeting hall opened and closed upon a short burst of noise, spilling Sorscha free. He’d been bright and full of charm earlier, but this was a Sorscha buckling under unexpected weight.

“It’s bad out there,” he said, ruffling his hair and dropping onto the bench. “I guess it was always going to be if this happened, but not getting any warning…” He trailed off and blew out a heavy breath. “If you’re here to shout at Uvao, Tesh, pick a better time.”

“No, I—”

With another short burst of noise, the meeting hall door opened and closed again, wafting the scent of dusky panawood into the room. My chest constricted an instant before Uvao appeared in the corner of my vision—a memory at which I dared not stare. Seemingly as intent on ignoring me, he sighed. “What a fucking nightmare.”

“Ought I go back out there?” Sorscha lacked all enthusiasm for his own suggestion.

“Maybe later, if the crowds stick around. I have to go, but I should be back in—”

“Go?” I blurted, forgetting the question that had brought me. “Something is more important than the council surrendering Learshapa?”

Uvao didn’t turn, but his dark, tired eyes glanced my way in the barest acknowledgement. “Of course there is,” he said. “You don’t think my hair stays this nice without constant appointments with a pommadeur, do you?”

Jiiala gave a hearty sniff. “Don’t listen to him, Tesh. He’s just being silly.”

“I would never dare be silly, Jii,” Uvao said, grabbing his veil from its hook. “Such a thing is, of course, entirely beneath my exalted position.”

Ignoring this jibe my way, I unlatched myself from Jiiala. “And what are you planning to do about all this, given that exalted position of yours?”

He turned then, anger simmering in his bright eyes. “Why, I’m going to wave a magic wand and fix it to my liking because that’s what lords do. Strange I didn’t think of that when you walked out on me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do need to go.”

“Where?”

Uvao didn’t look up from tying his veil. “To a meeting, if you must know. About all this that you want me to fix.”

“A meeting of the council?”

Uvao barked a humourless laugh. “Hardly. Now I’ve let you throw your darts, Tesh, so goodbye.”

“No!” I cried, desperation throwing me between him and the door. “No, please. I’m not trying to throw darts. I need to know what we can do. What… what I can do. This wasn’t supposed to happen, not like this.”

Caught there between him and his way out, it was all I could do to hold the fiery heat of his gaze as it raked my features, all anger but for a tiny hint of need that sent my thoughts wheeling back to a better time, when I’d been crushed to the wall by his passion, breathless and ecstatic. That heat boiled all air from the small room, silencing even Sorscha, and though I knew myself a fool for having come, I would have made the same choice given it again. Somehow in this moment he was the only one I trusted to give me answers.

At last, he gave a careless shrug. “Come then, if you must. Behind the old playhouse on Fourth. Twenty minutes. You make your own way.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it, Tesh, take it or leave it, just get out of my way.”

I stepped aside, heart and mind racing with possibilities as he pulled open the door. A nod to Jiiala, a word to Sorscha, and he was gone, leaving me unsure if I still remembered how to breathe.

A clink startled me as Sorscha poured himself a drink. “Better you than me,” he said, and raised the glass. “But I guess we all get what we deserve one way or another.”

“Shush,” Jiiala snapped at him. “Don’t be more of a shit than comes naturally, Sorscha. And don’t pour a drink without pouring one for me too.” Two steps brought her to my side, and she squeezed my arm. “You’d better hurry if you’re going, Tesh.”

“Yes. Thank you, Jii. I’ll…” I gestured to the door. “I guess I’ll be going then. Yes.”

Sorscha snorted. “Yes, do. Goodbye, Tesh.”

Once again out in the warm evening air, the streets through which I hurried were packed with people and a breathless unease. Fear of imminent war sat on the tip of every tongue, and even those grateful for unification decried our lack of choice. The city itself hadn’t changed, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling I wouldn’t recognise it come morning. Somewhere in the upper city, Reacher Sormei would be smiling at the chaos he had wrought—and at the expansion of his empire.

Behind the old playhouse, Uvao had said, and following his instructions I found a run-down, rambling house, built at a time when space hadn’t been so tight. It looked empty, dead, but unpinning my veil, I knocked before fear could stop me. The dull sound of knuckles upon stained scaleglass faded quickly, but my thumping heartbeat continued the rhythm while I shifted foot to foot.

The door yanked open, letting free a whiff of stale korsh smoke and date brandy. “What do you want?” came a snap of high-born impatience, and I knew I was in the right place.

“Uvao invited me.”

“Ah.” The disembodied voice pulled the door open in somewhat reluctant welcome. “Hurry up, don’t dawdle.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” I muttered, stepping into the darkness. Inside, the heavy, musky scent had a physical presence, so strong I could taste it. “This place stinks.”

“An infelicitous observation,” the voice said as it strode deeper into the house.

“Only if it’s infelicitous to be honest.”

He stopped abruptly. “You know what infelicitous means?”

“You’re surprised?”

“Only because Uvao’s… friends have a tendency to be commoners, even the pretty ones.”

“That doesn’t mean uneducated” was all I managed before the man strode on, out into an atrium where moonlight sheared through the arches, lighting a garden filled alternately with dead plants and vigorous weeds, tumbling from their beds.

As my guide stepped into the light, I caught my first glimpse of his face—the face of a stranger who nevertheless looked vaguely familiar.