At the medical ward, Dr Zughi unwrapped Renou's foot and examined it, then looked at me in astonishment. “You freed him from a box trap?”

Shamuni, the Eat-shit girl asked, “why didn't you just cut his foot off?”

Renou's eyes bulged at her, and she walked off. Plump eleven year-old Besami threw her arms around me. “I'm so glad you're OK!”

I rested my hand at the back of her head. “I'm glad I'm OK, too!”

A woman's voice came in from the far side of the medical ward, “what happened?”

The princess was a tall woman. Her skin wasn’t as dark a green as the pure-blooded Na’uhui, and her father's dark-green hair had streaks of white. She wore a silken sash wrapped around her waist that glimmered like rose gold with a flap that hung down to her knees and ended in delicate blue embroidery, held together with a silver clasp at the center of her waist that had a crescent moon inlaid with tiny diamond-tree stones. That same spider pendant hung between her bare breasts, and on her left hand she wore a ring of twisted copper.

I looked up at her and asked, “have you heard from my friends?”

She held up one hand and glared at me through eyes like dark amber, then turned to Renou. Dr Zughi was examining his lacerations with some metal instrument.

Renou's eyes were wide and he wore a big smile. He called the Princess over to him, “come over here! Let me tell you what happened!”

As she made her way over to him, I stepped up to her. “Have you heard from Yumi?”

She waved me off. “I'll talk to you. Can you wait, please?”

“What about…”

She glared at me, “can you go, please?”

With that, she turned back towards Renou, took a few steps, then glared at me again, ushering me off with her fingers.

I took that as a cue to leave.

As for where I'd go, I hadn't considered it. Miyani had said she wouldn't be back until late in the afternoon, but that she would try to meet me at Tower One, at least I think that was what she said.

I'm pretty sure.

I wanted to go to the church. A part of me was still unable to accept the idea that I somehow survived, and felt it prudent to thank God for his hand in that. But then my stomach cast a deciding vote, and I drifted towards the mess instead.

Surely God knew I was hungry, right?

The place smelled like seared olive oil and rosemary. As I walked in, I saw three men about in the kitchen while another swept the floor of the dining room. He glanced up at me and taunted, “ain’t nothin’ left, man, you're late!”

Within the kitchen on the right, one man tended to a fire beneath a giant stone oven, while on the left was a rotund man stirring a steel pot over a brick fire. They were both new to my eyes, but a third man looked familiar, the man covered in tattoos. Except his eye patch was turned up, and he could clearly see just fine.

They all glared at me when I walked in.

I furrowed my brow. “Is there truly nothing here to eat?”

The man with the tattoos stood up straight, looked around with both eyes, then turned to the man stirring the pot with a big smile. “Shayden! You have a customer!”

The big guy’s chin wobbled as he turned to look at me. He then ladled a good portion of something brown and soupy into a ceramic bowl and brought it over. It smelt like warm butter and had a massive ball of dough swimming in a thick gravy of carrots, beans, and corn.

The tattooed man sat down across from me and smiled wide-eyed. “Go on! Try it!”

I did.

“Well?”

I struggled to find tactful words for it, so I took another bite. It was palatable, “it wants salt.”

The man had a falcon tattooed on one shoulder and the crescent moon on the other. He waved that off “besides that.”

I had to search for something. “The carrots are well-cooked.”

The big man stood in the kitchen squinting his eyes at me with his arms crossed. The tattooed man had a scar like a straight line from his temple that ran across his eyelid, but it had healed long ago.

I couldn’t help but ask, “why do you wear an eyepatch?”

“Wife thinks it looks sexy. Anyway, the stew? I want you to be brutally honest.” He gave a grin to Shayden who hadn’t moved from his spot.

I furrowed my brow. “Brutally honest?”

The tattooed man leaned in. “Extra brutal!”

I gave the broth a good test and mashed up a bean in my tongue. “It’s a bit grainy.”

“Grainy?” the tattooed man smiled and glanced at Shayden, “that’s interesting! He says it’s grainy. Isn’t that interesting?”

Shayden pursed his lips.

The man’s chest was covered in tattoos. One of them was of Elk with all the animals gathering at his feet while Cougar and Falcon spoke to one another at the side. He had a strange symbol tucked away beneath his left arm made of black and white ink—like a circle with two halves devouring one another.

“Go on,” he said, still giddy at me to test the stew.

The dumplings were the size of a man’s fist. I cut into one of them and sliced off a piece. There was about an inch of good bread, but the dough was still raw on the inside. I showed my host.

Shayden snapped in a nasally voice, “it’s not done yet!”

The tattooed man then sniffed the air and shouted, “Sand! The bread!”

A short, stocky Saeni man had awaited the verdict on the stew. He shot up, “oh shit!” and ran back to the oven.

The tattooed man stood and made to leave. On the back of his right arm beneath the scar that matched the one on my wrist, he had columns of skulls—eight groups of six with three more on the side.

Then it occurred to me, “may I ask you a question?”

He turned and looked down at me. “You just did.”

It was true. My mind needed a second to absorb that. “May I ask you another question?”

He turned his body and gazed at me through dark green eyes with a warm smile, “that’s two already.”

I tasked my mind with assembling the correct words in the correct order. “May I question you further?”

He laughed, then sat back down across from me. I took a moment to shout out to Shayden, “you know, the done part of the dumplings is pretty good.”

Shayden nodded, and the Tattooed man asked, “what’s your question?

But before I could speak, he added, “I’m Lacius, by the way.”

I nodded, “I’m…”

“Caleb. I know. And if you hit on my wife again, I'll kill you.”

I froze, stuck between the revelation and the threat. “I am… so sorry. I…”

He laughed. “You didn't know, don't worry about it. Anyway, I'm just joking,” he leaned in for emphasis, “Blue would get to you long before I do!” He popped his eyebrows; his face told me that part wasn't a joke.

All I could say was, “oh.”

He had a green snake tattoo that started at his elbow and coiled around his arm, draped over the back of his shoulders and coiled around his other arm, and flitted its tongue about on his opposite elbow. He sat up and smiled. “What was your question?”

I took a deep breath and tried to reset. “How much do you know about the tribal markings people wear?”

He pointed at the glyphs on his shoulder. “You mean this stuff?”

I nodded.

“OK, well up North, the tribes around Carthia, pretty much everyone wears their vayiʃo. As you go further south, it’s more of a personal preference. I hope you know this guy,” he pointed at the Falcon. It was the exact same falcon drawing I’d seen on Davod’s and Borel’s shoulder. “Obviously.”

He laughed. Then he pointed at the crescent moon. “And this is Carthia.”

I tilted my head. “They have their own tribe here?”

“We,” he nodded. “We have our own tribe here.” He rested his weight on his shoulders and leaned in. “Carthia is home to the homeless. People who cannot exist anywhere else… are welcome here. And I think that’s beautiful. I believe this place is worth protecting, and so I fight. And I will fight every day of my life to protect this place if I have to.”

I held that in for a moment. “OK.”

“In fact,” he held up a finger. “If you’d like to know, the crescent moon was Dovann’s sigil.”

“Who’s that?”

“He was a sea captain. He was the bad guy for whoever paid him a whole lot of money to be the bad guy. He was that guy. One day he captured a ship, but it was loaded with slaves. Hundreds upon hundreds of people chained together below deck. Half of them were dead, and the other half were on their way. So this Dovann, he sees this and his heart breaks. He brings them all to the only place in the world they would be safe, Carthia. This was hundreds of years ago, by the way. Anyway, the crescent moon was his sigil.”

“Wow,” I shook my head. “I didn’t know any of that.”

“Alright. So, the main enemy is the Sewu’oni. Theirs is the head of a jaguar with its mouth open in a roar. I’m sure you’ve figured out that the bat’s wing is what's left of Miyani’s people. Did Ahmi tell you what they did to the dead after they were massacred?”

“She said they covered them in lye to prevent their spirits from returning home.”

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“Right,” he nodded. “That’s what we’re up against. They’re further south, so we don’t interact with them much. Cornerstone in their alliance, however, is the Mewi’ishi.”

“Those are the ones who lopped off those guys’ hands…”

“They’ve done worse than that, trust me. You probably saw the cloud thingy with the lightning coming down.”

“Yeah,” I nodded.

He continued. “OK. The one that looks like a vita’o talon, those are the Yanasayu. They live by the coast, and they’re assholes. Big-time assholes. If you must know, they’re the reason I’ve been so careful with the salt lately.”

“What about one that looks like a coiled snake…”

“Fuck those guys.” He shook his hands before me. Then he giggled lightly, “don’t tell my wife I said that! But seriously, fuck those guys.”

“Who are they?”

“The peðayaŋa.”

“Are they the enemy?”

He chuckled, then smiled and shook his head. “Yeah. Uh… they’re in the alliance.”

“Why do you say it like that?”

A voice bellowed out from an archway at the south side of the mess. “Caleb of Gath!”

It was Taganu, the man with the widow’s peak hairline who knew the names of every alligator in the moat. He stood wearing a light-blue silk that draped over the front of his toughened-leather belt. “The princess would like a word.”

Lacius laughed, “if you see any others, don't be shy,” then went back into the kitchen. I came up to Taganu. Instead of turning to lead me off, he fixed his yellow eyes on mine and smiled.

I stared at him. He stared back at me through bright yellow eyes and laughed. “Come!” before turning away and leading me out of the mess.

His skin was not as dark as the others. he'd tied his sandy-green hair at the back, leaving curls to dangle down his muscular back and the lines of scar across his left shoulder blade.

Outside waiting for us was a voluptuous young Goloagi woman wearing a tied burlap dress over her shoulders that scarcely covered her hips and left her arms exposed bearing the number seared into her skin when she was a child, 773-614. She’d sold us the mosquito ward on our way down from the pass.

I spoke to her, “Ranía?”

Her emerald eyes exploded with wonder at me. “Wow! So this is the moment!”

Taganu looked at me, smiling. I answered, “what moment?”

She shook her head and beamed with joy. “I can’t believe this! I came down here to meet the Umeazi slave brothers. They’d come by ship, so I wanted to see them for myself, but you!”

My eyes went back to Taganu, who looked at her. “And what about him?”

Ranía stepped effusively up to me, resting her hand on my cheek. “This is the moment! I’m so happy!”

“O… K?” I nodded, still confused.

Then she pointed a finger at me and got serious. “I’m worried about Davod.” Then she turned and smiled, “Anyway, I see them over there! Goodbye now!”

I called out, “vʌ ɣʊwoʒisa!”

She laughed and called back “pʊ xeŋɪse vʊvoya!”

Taganu laughed and shook his head.

I glanced at him and furrowed my brow. “Wait for… something?

He chuckled, “I’ll let you figure that one out on your own. This way.”

As he led me towards the library, he slowed and glanced behind me. “May I ask you something,” he spoke as we walked.

I grinned. “You just did!”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re a medic. Tell me, have you ever encountered anyone… like… her?”

I furrowed my brow. “Like her? What do you mean?”

He nodded. “She says things. Just… I don’t know. I was just wondering is all.” Then he held out his hands, “I don’t have a problem with her, trust me. But… I worry. That’s all. I was wondering if—in all your medical experience—you’ve ever met with her… someone like her before.”

“No,” I shook my head. “What do you mean she says things?”

“Mmm,” he bobbed his head back and forth. Then he chuckled. “Did anything she just said make sense to you?”

I laughed, “no!”

We rounded the library and made our way past the nook where I’d reminded Miyani of our touch game. In the market was the boy from the cafe with the bat’s wing inked on his shoulder. He carried a burlap sack bulging of something draped over his shoulder front and back. When he saw me, he smiled and took a step towards us, “hey!” pointing one fist out towards me with his free hand.

Taganu leaned in. “Touch your fist to his.”

I shrugged, then raised my fist to bump against his. The boy nodded with an enthusiastic grin, “ariee!”

As we neared the tall towers of the inner sanctum, Taganu grinned at me once more. “You should probably talk to Miyani about ‘æmiʃʌði.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a ŋa’uxuwi custom where on a child’s ascension to adulthood, they choose their first lover.”

“Wait… I heard of that…”

Taganu continued. “It's a sacred honor. And, as I understand it, Miyani is quite traditional.”

I hesitated. “What are you saying?”

He chuckled lightly. “The boy you just met has been making eyes at her.”

My eyes popped as I put the pieces together. I looked back, but he’d long turned the corner. “So she…”

Taganu smiled. “If you were of this culture, you would understand. Your people are… I would recommend that if you're not comfortable with her taking an evening to show him how to have sex, you should have that conversation with her before he does. Assuming he hasn't asked already.”

Images of that boy—he was almost my age—on top of her, listening to her moan as he… I felt my heart twist into knots and I couldn’t breathe.

We came to the gate outside the tall towers of the inner sanctum. Two armored men stood one on each side with spears in hand watching everyone who passed. They nodded at Taganu as we walked by, and I wondered if either of them were involved with a native woman, and how they’d feel about sharing her with some kid.

And he acted so friendly with me.

In the shade of the gate were two more men, with passages inside beyond iron portculliexeusesaieses leading who-knows-where.

The towers gave way to a small, open courtyard with stone walls on all sides reaching up until only a window remained at the top to let the clouds in. Vines crept along the walls bearing dark purple fruits higher up. Taganu led me within an arched doorway to the right that was too short to enter without ducking low. He then took a paper lantern on a long stick from a basket beside the entrance and led me up a dark stairway past stones with trickles of water seeping down on one side. After what felt like three or four flights, we came to a narrow passageway with an open door on the right.

Inside was a generous window with enough light to see clearly. There was a heavy wooden desk laid out with papers and things, with a bag chair on each side. The princess sat on the one opposite the door. She glanced up “come in.”

As I walked in, she set a stack of papers down and looked up at me. “Please sit down. Would you like something to drink?”

“Please,” I said. How would I talk to Miyani? What would I say to her? I wasn’t comfortable with it; how would I say that to her? And what if she insisted? What would I do? Sounds of her voice making fucking noises ricocheted within my skull and refused to stop.

The princess poured from a steel pitcher a dull orange drink into two glasses, then set them side-by-side in front of me, such that each was the same distance from either of us. I chose one and sipped.

She explained, “that’s padeshika. It’s good, isn’t it?”

“It is,” I nodded. It was delicately sweet with a hint of sour that lingered on the tongue. In the reflection of the glass, I could see his hands all over her body, touching her in all the places I liked to touch while her hands grasped at his bum and pulled him in to hold her body close to his. My fingers shook.

The princess sat with her arms on the table and leaned in to me. “I’d like to hear what happened from your point of view?”

“From my point of view,” I shook my head, trying to break free from the storm that gripped my breath. “Have you heard from my friends? Have you heard from Yumi?”

Without speaking, she handed me a small, brown piece of paper that curled in tight on both sides. I unfurled it and read.

Praying Mantis— Davod arrives short two trapped near Old Joint.

“Does this mean they’re OK?”

The princess smirked. “Your friends made it to Tower One; that’s what that means.”

“What about Yumi?”

She shook her head. “We haven't heard anything; Ahmi went to go look for her. Do you mind telling me what happened?”

I relaxed and took a deep breath. I closed my eyes and watched as he leaned down to kiss her lips. I watched her bring her hand behind his head to hold him in place while she kissed him back. I couldn’t shake it. “Well, uh… we were walking through the forest and we didn’t see Yumi for a while. We started to worry; we didn’t know if that was normal.” One of his hands had cupped her breast, stroking her nipple between his fingers. “Then Renou falls into this trap thing, there’s knives all over inside it, one went through his foot, and there's blood everywhere. We all talked about it, and it was decided that the rest of them should continue on to Tower One while I stayed behind to get Renou out.”

The princess blinked. Then she tilted her head to the side.

I heard Miyani exhale as he entered her. My knee shook; I tried to steady it. “Um…”

“Is that how it went down?”

“Why?” I scratched my head. My eyes searched for anything that might distract me from something that hadn’t even happened yet. There was a map on the wall behind the princess, the kind with sea monsters in the deep ocean that showed the whole Uhui region south of the Empire with names of places written in that Uhuida script.

The princess asked me, “whose idea was it to have you stay behind?”

I shrugged. “Well, I’m supposed to be the medic, so…”

“Why did the rest of them leave?”

“They were… we were afraid that if the whole unit stuck around, that we might get ambushed, so…”

She set her drink on the table and sat up, covering her eyes as she shook her head. “Tell me again how it went? Renou fell into a trap, and then what?”

“Well,” I was unsure what detail she sought, but the line of questioning focused my attention on the moment. “The rest of them made a perimeter while I checked him out. I told Davod it would be a while. We were afraid of an ambush, because that’s their tactic—man screams, they have our position, you know. We discussed the matter. We knew it would be a risk, but it was a lesser risk than to put the whole unit in danger. We uh… I mean, I’m supposed to be a medic, so I stayed with Renou.”

The princess crossed her arms, allowing her breasts to settle in the nook. She stared at me dumbfounded. “Why are you lying to me?”

“What?” I was shocked. “I’m telling you the truth!”

She shook her head, “no, you’re not. I want you to tell me what really happened.”

“I just did!”

“You lied to me. That’s what you just did; you lied to me.”

“I did not!”

She opened her eyes wide and grimaced. “And he keeps denying it! I’m going to give you one more chance.”

I sat up straight. “I told you already. I’m not changing the truth.”

She scowled at me. “Is it true you disobeyed a direct order?”

“Yes, it’s true.”

My fingers shook. The princess frowned and glared at me for at least a minute before either of us spoke. Finally she took another sip from her drink and set it down, resuming her attention to the stack of papers she’d had when I came in. “You can spend the night in the sling. In the morning, you’ll go with another unit to Praying Mantis where you’ll rejoin your friends. You’re dismissed.”

My head sank.

Hanging by my arms and legs face-down half a yard from the ground was every bit as miserable as it had been the last time. I fought with my arms to gain some breath, hoping to distract my body long enough to meditate through the mess that was my mind.

How would it work? Was I supposed to just kiss her goodnight, maybe give her a hug, knowing she was about to share her bed with that kid? And I suppose I would recline somewhere, probably in the barracks, and stare at the wall imagining it, waiting for it to be over.

There had to be something else for me to think about.

As Renou and I hobbled towards Carthia, there was a gargantuan cloud in the west like a giant pyramid that cast everything beneath it in darkness and haze. Later on while I was in the mess, it rained hard with thunder and lightning, and it carried on like that for a good while until Taganu showed up. Even now, the grass was wet and let off fragrant hints of fresh coriander.

I felt something under me.

Like the tap of a wrist against my belly. I looked down, and it was Blue’s head. He squawked, then pushed himself beneath me, wedging himself between me and the ground until my body lay across his back, hoisted up a good several inches. I wasn’t sure why he did that, but he released the strain on my arms completely and I could breathe for once.

“Hel-lo!” Miyani’s melodic voice cupped my soul in her delicate fingers.

“Zawa!” I looked up. God, she was pretty. She had a sheen all over her dark-green skin that flowed over glorious muscles. Her face was home to the most beautiful smile there ever was.

She unrolled a mat of sorts made of carved sticks knotted together, covered by a dense-looking pad covered in a simple cotton sheet. Then she lay down and shuffled herself beneath me, and leaned up to kiss me on the lips.

Blue nuzzled his head over to a corner of the padding and rested his head there.

Then she took out a woven wicker basket and unfolded a cloth flap to show me steaming, moist masses of what looked like cornmeal that let off pepper, coriander, and something else I couldn’t place, but it made bold promises whatever it was.

Miyani nodded on each word, “or, now, then, uh…?”

“Later,” I said.

She laughed. “Later!”

My heart leaped. I couldn't believe she'd arranged all this. “Thank you. Nuvidesa.”

She smiled, “OK.”

Her sublime face as she looked up at me, her magical smile, her effusive eyes. Would she look up at him like that if he were on top of her, feeling her thighs at his hips as she opened herself for him?

Miyani pulled out from the basket a wooden box filled with easily two-hundred cards. She then drew one and showed me one side of it with two words written in Herali; chair, and sit. I tried to think of the word in her language, but all I could think of was how I could talk to her about that boy.

In truth, it wasn't the language barrier. I couldn't muster the nerve to broach the topic.

She guessed my side “sit?”

I pursed my lips. She turned it over, “sit! T-shair.”

I read the glyphs in her language. “xeðu.”

She nodded, “xeðu,” and pulled the next one.

I should have said something.