Autumn changed the Hollows from a place of green and brown to a place of many colors. In this season where the world died slowly, Tuya felt a new world gaining life within her. She sat near the meadow, enjoying the view while she scraped a dried wolf hide to stock furs for the coming winter.

Yaha nudged her. “Come on, Tuya. Let’s get this done.”

Tuya did not register Yaha’s pestering, and it was not because she spoke in Leverian. Her focus drifted, like the scent of fallen leaves on the breeze. Tamer Darrakh attempted to tame a fire, rubbing dead tinder together the Celegan way. Last night’s rains left the logs and the kindling damp, dooming his efforts. For all that, he did not scream, did not descend into a frenzied rage, did not throw logs at the nearest girl. Tuya sensed his frustrations with her mind, but saw his control with her eyes.

Darrakh was beautiful. Perhaps he would not have been so had Tuya not desired to see him that way. Yaha certainly did not. She followed Tuya’s gaze and delivered another nudge. “The hides, Tuya.”

“My fingers need rest.”

Yaha gave her a scathing side-eyed stare. “Uh-huh.”

Darrakh reminded her of the sun shining on warm sands, of a home she had never been to. His skin was the same light brown as hers, marking him as another lost child of the sands of distant Isihla. Tuya liked to dream of him being like her, pulled away from the place where they belonged and transplanted into this land where the trees had holes. This boy, barely into manhood, did not just remind her of a home she had never known; he did not remind her of the hell she had known.

Perfectly average was Darrakh the tamer in nearly every sense of the word. He was slightly taller than Tuya, though Tuya would never be some towering woman like Yaha or Zaya. He was fit enough that his body declared that he was not the indolent tamer who made khorota do everything for him, though he was not so strong that his mere presence sent tendrils of fear down her spine. His body told the story Tuya wanted to hear; this man was unlike Gurgaldai or Makhun, unlike the other tamers who hit women or launched into harangues of hatred at the slightest frustration. His silent brooding over his failed fire ignited desire within Tuya’s very core. Every other tamer she knew would have thrown the wet sticks to the ground and beaten the nearest khorota halfway to death. Instead, he set his sticks down, sighed, and did the thing Tuya most liked about him.

He lifted his head, twisted his neck, and scanned with his eyes until he found Tuya. His lips curled into a smile, the same bashful smile that graced her face. For a couple very rapid heartbeats, they held this gaze, Tuya feeling things in her body that made her want to hold this moment in time, to close the distance between them, to sit beside him, holding his hand. Alas, their eyes darted away, scurrying like scared girls beneath the gaze of a cruel tamer. Now, they entered into the unspoken agreement to watch each other from the corners of their eyes, those little, secret smiles still there, shining upon their faces like sunlight on warm sands.

Feelings of warmth reverberated through Tuya, tickling her belly. Her shiny eyes made out every beloved detail. Eyes green like the leaves in summer, plump lips made for smiling, his smile lifting his already high cheekbones. The other tamers mocked his wispy whiskers, but Tuya thought they were cute. Yaha gagged at his dark, messy hair, but she liked her men shaved. Tuya adored his wild, untamed mane.

She halfheartedly scraped at the bear hide with her stone and contemplated if she should take Yaha’s flint and steel and spark the fire for Darrakh. Her imagination ran away with the cascade of events that would follow from saying nice words to snuggling by the fire to running away from the Hollows with him.

“It could never be,” Yaha said, as if she was the one that could sense minds.

This. Again. Tuya knew. She knew like she knew that the pretty sky would turn dark, that clouds would cover the sun and rain would fall. But knowing and feeling were not the same. It felt like it would always be sunny and always be light. Tuya knew that every tamer saw her as property to be claimed the moment her first blood fell. Tuya felt that Darrakh was different, and if farawaylanders could be different, why not tamers too?

“Things will be different for you when we leave the Hollows,” Yaha said. “You will love and be loved in return. I promise you that.”

“My feelings are like a fire burning hot,” Tuya said. “I cannot cool them down.”

Yaha set down her scraping stone and tossed her arm over Tuya’s back. “Come here.” Tuya pulled herself to Yaha, resting her head on the bigger woman’s shoulder. “The fiercest fires fade the fastest, my beautiful empagong, but they also leave behind the worst scars if you touch them. All you must do is stop tossing more fuel into the flames and they will burn themselves out.”

Tuya recognized wisdom in Yaha’s words, but did not want to acknowledge that which she did not want to believe. In her fantasies, the fire burnt steady and it left behind no scars. She sidled away from Yaha and resumed work on her hide. Yaha sighed and scraped at her hide, muttering something in neither Leverian nor Gidiite.

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Tuya stole a glance at Darrakh, as much out of rebellion as out of desire, and found his stream of consciousness flowing toward the Spire. Like all else about him, his taming power too was average. It was not uncommon for tamers to seek the Spire with their minds, but Tuya wondered why Darrakh would do so. The temptation to try to intrude on his link churned her gut, but she quelled it.

“I could tell you many stories about forbidden love forged in the fires of youthful yearning,” Yaha said.

Tuya snorted. “I could tell you about how stories can be lies told by the old to tame the minds of the young, or, if you would prefer, I could tell you about how just because one thing happened one way, one time, in one place, it does not happen that way every time in every place.”

Yaha sputtered for a few moments, her irritation loud in Tuya’s mind. A smug smile crested upon Tuya’s face, like a great bird returning home to its nest. Yaha turned away from Tuya, scraping furiously away at her hide. “I recognize when the wisdom of elders only radicalizes the imprudence of youth. I will speak no more on this, but believe me when I say that when this burns you, I will be there to rub the ointment onto your wounds, and I will be sure to remind you who it was that fanned these foolish flames.”

“Imprudence?”

“Bah! Figure it out yourself if you are so wise, Tuya of the Hollows!”

For a long while, the two women worked on their hides in silence, even though Tuya’s mind was awhirl with noise. An idea implanted within Tuya and she nursed it with hopefulness and desire. The answer to their biggest question was the solution to her greatest desire. Tuya needed both to be true and thus the idea grew and grew until her excitement could not be contained.

“Tamer Darrakh might be exactly what we need to escape.”

Yaha’s head shot up from her work, but she kept her eyes away from Tuya. “Bring your mind to me.”

Tuya linked with Yaha. The Mahagan woman’s curiosity was a pearl resting at the bottom of a sea of skepticism. Tuya dove for the pearl, hoping she could hold her breath long enough to reach the bottom and not drown beneath the weight of Yaha’s doubt. If they think we leave or if they cannot find us, Gurgaldai will be alerted, and the entire Hollows will hunt us. If one of their own escorts us, they will not seek us.

It would be imprudent to trust any of these cretins, Yaha projected.

Tuya assimilated the meaning of this new word as it assassinated her idea in its infancy. Bitterness swelled in her chest and she severed the link. “You refuse to listen to me. It is always me that must change my mind.” She crossed her arms and turned away from Yaha, wanting to scream at her for being so closed. It was always Tuya who had to be openminded, had to listen to what Yaha said, had to explore different ways of seeing, had to move to meet Yaha. For once, she wanted the woman to move toward her, to explore a new way of seeing, to listen to her, to open her mind.

Darrakh sat by the failed fire, his mind returning to him, and Tuya wanted to go to him, to be with somebody who might actually listen to what she had to say and not treat her like a stupid khorota. Divine Seraxa of the flames! She burned with rage and she burned with want.

Tuya launched to her feet, feeling no more fear. Yaha gripped her hand. “Please, my little empagong. Sing your song. I will listen. I will hold my judgment until I hear the whole plan.”

Tuya dared not link with Yaha and feel her skepticism. She spoke in quiet whispers, even though she doubted any tamer understood Yaha’s language. “Numbroot will not stall my first blood forever. When it comes, the tamers will fight for my claim. The winner will be the one responsible for delivering me to Gurgaldai. If they instead lead us away from the Spire, we could escape before Gurgaldai knows we are gone.”

“Or,” Yaha said, in judgment, “we kill the tamers and then run before Gurgaldai knows you are gone.”

Tuya sighed. “Without a tamer to escort us, we would not make it through the next region without drawing attention. Even if the tamers did not recognize us, they would try to claim us as newcomers.”

“Then we can kill them too before they have a chance to signal Gurgaldai.”

“Even if we win every fight, we leave behind a trail of bodies. Eventually, we will miss a tamer and he will alert Gurgaldai. We need a tamer to work with us. We need Darrakh.”

“No, you want Darrakh.” She furiously scraped at her wolf hide. “He is wolf in sheep’s clothing, Tuya.”

Tuya slid away from her. “Is this how you withhold your judgment?”

Yaha ground her teeth and exhaled her annoyance. “So, the boy claims you, promises to take you the Ezen, and then he risks his life leading us away from the Hollows? This is your entire plan?”

“No,” Tuya said, something jumping up and down in her chest, burning in her gut. She gripped it to try to keep it still, this wild excitement. “I get him to love me.”

Yaha took in a deep breath, frowned at her calloused hands, and stared up at the sky. “I cannot stop you from trying this, can I? Nothing I say will toss enough water over these flames you fan.”

That was probably true. Tuya shook her head. This was a thing she would do with or without Yaha’s blessing. At least this first step, this attempt to see whether Tamer Darrakh could love a girl like her.

Yaha chuckled. “That is what I thought.” She patted the top of Tuya’s head. “Well then, if you are set on claiming that boy’s heart, I daresay he is as hopeless to stop you as I am. I only hope, my little empagong, that whatever love a tamer is capable of feeling can be greater than the grip of their Ezen, otherwise you will feed us both to the flames.”