We settled in for the night no more than a bowshot from the rat ambush. Hasda and his battered men picked at jerky before tucking in for the night. After laying her burden down and assuring herself that the jackal was comfortable, Gunarra lowered herself next to me with a sigh.

“What would you know, O Perceptive One?” Her teeth glistened in the moonlight as she flashed a wry smile.

Grunting, I reclined against a thick trunk. “Been puzzling over something you said earlier. You named yourself Hithian, and yet you called Marudak a usurper. Now, technically, you could argue the distinction, given that Paedea wasn’t his until he established himself as head of the pantheon. But it sounds to me like you’re splitting hairs.”

Her breath caught, and then she hissed a sigh. “It would be untrue to deny a shared lineage, yet to lump us together misses the situation as well. Hithia is…would have been my home, if the Bull of Heaven hadn’t crushed us. But he did.”

“How did he, if you had tuzshu?” I frowned. “Did Hithia have tuzshu? You seem to know quite a bit about them.”

She tilted her head, tails twitching. “I trained them, while I served my mistress. We didn’t know that Marudak had raised his own, and mortals die easier than gods. By the time we discovered his plot, he’d already executed his maneuver and our tuzshu.”

I frowned. “So you know how to make more?”

“If I may be permitted a question of my own?” Her eyes glowed a mellow orange in the moonlight. “Where did your tuzshu find his djinn?”

“A land far from here.” I held up a hand when she went to ask more. “There may be more djinn like his, and I’ll not hand the keys to that kingdom to someone I know precious little about.”

The way she ground her teeth made my hair stand on end. “I knew all of the djinns, even the ones who betrayed us. I would like to know if one of mine survived the killing field.”

“For as long as Marudak has ruled the Paedens, if you haven’t found that out on your own, I don’t know what to tell you.” I crossed my arms and stared her down. “Speaking of timelines, when was your mistress bound? You talk about her as if she’s close, and a breath away from breaking free.”

She looked away and fingered her collar. “I’ve seeded the crop to bring about her release throughout the people of Curnerein. With Balphar, I’d very nearly succeeded in returning her, but the Stitcher felling him has set that back and almost salted the field.” Almost absently she flipped the collar right side out, revealing a thick piece of amber wider than her thumb. “This gemstone is her symbol, and while Balphar lived it served as a source of hope and comfort. Under the Stitcher, it has been twisted into a sign of avarice and fear. My mistress lies imprisoned deep in a mountain to the north, beyond the Hall of Balphar. And the Stitcher has turned her resurrection into something to fear, since she could very well overthrow him, as he did Balphar.”

“Pretty speech.” I scratched my chin. “What’s your mistress like? Does she have a name?”

“She is my world.” She barked a laugh, still thumbing the gemstone. “And this mineral bears her name.”

Warning beacons lit across my mind. The pattern I saw wasn’t a perfect match, though. “How long have you been in Curnerein?”

“Long enough to watch the House of Balphar sprout from the scraps Marudak left behind. Long enough for my spirit to waste away while my mistress deteriorated in her prison. Long enough that it’s taken a different form of necromancy to raise the memory of Hithia in this region.” Her voice was hard as she punctuated each sentence.

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I shook my head, as much for her diversion as for the creeping chill of the night. “Let’s try a different tack. Who guards your mistress’s prison now?”

She gave me a sharp look. “It lays unguarded, save for the fear the mortals hold for it and the decree of the Stitcher, barring its exploration.”

“And who used to guard it?” I smiled at her irritated frown. “I thought as much. But what confuses me is how they used you to seal her, where they’ve always anchored the prison to a full-blooded deity.”

“Powerful though my mistress be, she is but a simple goddess. They wouldn’t waste even a minor deity imprisoning her.” She snarled. “And it has been far too many centuries since she last saw the light of the sun.”

My eyebrows scrunched together. “But you’re not a demigod, exactly.”

“Sukalla and Apkalla are semi-divine. We sit adjacent to the demigods without threatening to become fully divine.” She waved her hand. “Non-mortal servants, if you wish to think of us that way.”

“But special.”

She nodded. “But special.”

“How many other Hithians are there?”

“Who knows?” Shrugging, she glanced away. “Our numbers were precious little before Marudak’s tuzshu cut us down. And since I escaped the pit, I’ve remained here, working to free my mistress. None have come looking for me, and I haven’t searched.”

I sighed and let my head fall back. Overhead, the moon battled to shine through drifting clouds and forest foliage, mostly losing. A sad state of affairs for those who enjoyed moonshine, but Ulti would be happy. They loved dancing across the fluffy ceiling.

“How did you know that I was compelled to be the warden?” Her soft eyes watched my face.

I grunted. “You’re not the first such case we’ve encountered. The last one is roaming these woods somewhere. You’ve probably seen her.”

“The long-winged harpy.” She tilted her head. “But the Sea Mother has yet to return.”

“We’ve been preventing her, as much as we can.” I shook my head. “You’ve been through a binding before. Could you recreate it?”

Frowning, she gripped her collar. “For an elder goddess, not a chance. For a full-blooded deity, perhaps, but I don’t want to try.”

“Well, if you’d be willing to explain the fundamentals some time, we might be able to put them to good use.” I shifted my weight, trying to get the bark to stop digging into my back so hard. “Why did the Paedens imprison Amber? I’m afraid we’re fairly ignorant of their history.”

“When a fire grows too large, you douse it.” Gunarra picked at the dirt with her feet. “The Sea Mother cultivated her children into shathrapavans, what you would call pantheons, and fostered strife amongst them. Those more capable raised their own offspring into formidable houses—although Balphar’s House held a different lineage—and Marudak was a strong champion for his branch. As such, the Sea Mother entrusted a division of djinn to his mother, who in turn divided the spirits among her daughters. Marudak, being the only son, expected to be included with his sisters, but his mother, Niyanu, passed over him in favor of her granddaughter, Amber.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Your mistress is Marudak’s daughter? We didn’t even know he had a mate.”

She nodded. “A casualty of Marudak’s rebellion. He used the marriage to form an alliance with a house his mother favored. While he presented it as submitting to his mother’s will, his real target was that pantheon’s tuzshu. Outwardly, he brought them into Amber’s fold, but the Kurrian tuzshu always held fealty to him. And he married off his other children to grow that flock.”

“But not Amber?”

Gunarra sighed, a smile on her face. “She was his crown jewel. You have to understand, Marudak was a god plagued by failure from his very birth. His ambition belonged on one of his sisters, or that he should have been born a daughter. The Kurrians, stronger by far than Niyanu’s Ayanians, only agreed to the marriage because Zaparrni was too gentle for their designs. She was beautiful, yes, but cared more for the synonyms of noble life than conniving and employing her appearance for cunning reasons. That such a union would produce a princess to rival her father, ah, what a precious treasure she was.” Laughing, Gunarra picked up a stick and chewed it. “My mistress held more promise than even her father, had he been born properly, and the Sea Mother took note. If she had left my mistress be, Marudak may never have revolted.”

I glanced over at Hasda, sleeping in the middle of his men. Yeah, I could understand that.

“The Sea Mother tried to take my mistress to be among her chosen. Not quite a pantheon, but certainly a place of favor.” The twig snapped as Gunarra bit too hard. She spit the piece out and went back to chewing. “However, only those select few could visit her once taken. Even I, as her handmaiden, would have been replaced.”

I frowned. “But if Tamiyat kept such a close grip on her gods, then she must have known taking Amber would provoke Marudak.”

Clamping the stick with her teeth, she breathed out through her nose. “The rumor that spread with the smoke of the Sea Mother’s fall was that she suspected the extent of Marudak’s alliances, and used claiming Amber as a way to cull him before he grew too large without publicly executing him. A pantheon’s fall was always brought about by another’s. That was her children’s game—”

Guttural growls erupted from the pile of men.