After moons beneath the open sky, grass her seat and raw fire her warmth, Ilati could not have felt more out of place in the resplendent hall of Tudhaliya, King of Sarru. White plaster painted with intricate murals covered the bricks of the walls and thick rugs woven in far Elenu, the north-east corner of the world, covered the floor in patterns of emerald accented with thread spun of real gold. The tables gleamed red-brown in the light of twenty bronze braziers, lovingly oiled and polished cedar taken from the sacred forest so thickly cut that they were worth their weight in gold and capable of bearing the vast feast laid out across them. The drinking bowls used even by his guests were fashioned of beaten silver with the images of winged bulls around their rims. 

For this event, the King had spared no expense: whole oxen were roasted alongside geese and chickens, dates and figs joined melons by the cluster on the table, loaves of smooth leavened bread stacked in baskets beside each place, sweet wine flowing like the waters of the joining rivers. Laughter and merriment seemed the soul of the evening and the plucked strings of a lyre added a pleasant melody to accompany the general joy of celebration. 

Ilati stopped at the doors where a servant waited, head bowed, with a basin of water for her hands. She felt her stomach knot as she obediently washed, taking the soft cloth from him to dry her hands instead of permitting him to dry them. It was a breach of etiquette, but minor and clearly one he expected after contending with Shir Del and Roshanak. Sarhad would be at this feast, so she had her role to play. 

Another servant, a quick young man with skin as dark as Menes’s, guided her towards the table and her seat at Zidanta’s right hand. It was a coveted place of honor, even if he was the younger prince, and no doubt she would have envious eyes upon her for occupying it. 

A rasping, authoritative voice cut through the sounds of jubilation. “That is far enough! I would have a look at this granddaughter of Eigou.” The voice quavered at its end, devolving into a nasty, gurgling cough. 

Ilati stopped before the center of the U-shaped tables, standing straight as a cedar before the King of Ulmanna, fully aware that she was on display for all to see. Beneath the bandages on her arm, her promise to K’adau burned on her flesh. He was here too, waiting and watching like any serpent. Still, she turned her focus solely on Tudhaliya.

Seated in a throne of cedar and gold draped in purple cloth, the great king of Sarru looked like death warmed over, pallid cheeks and burning, sunken eyes telling the truth of his nature even as he wiped bloody sputum away from his lips with a dark cloth meant to hide the bright crimson clinging to his mouth. He was tall, almost as tall as Artakhshathra, but rail-thin beneath his rich robes. His many rings flashed like embers in the firelight as he drummed his fingers against the arms of his chair, taking her measure with a gaze equal parts proud and fascinated. The kohl he wore around his eyes only served to make them seem more hollow and shadowed. Tudhaliya was ancient, old enough to be a grandfather’s father, his hair and beard like ivory: white and grey together, yellowed slightly by age or illness.

Once Tudhaliya had been a warrior-king almost worthy to call himself Ilishu’s rival, the kind of man who could dominate an army with his physical presence. Now he was a withered wreckage of a man, clinging to life with tooth and nail, hiding behind the facade of old glories. 

“You are bold, child of the desert, to look upon me so brazenly with head unbowed. If you were not the granddaughter of a friend, I would have you humbled,” Tudhaliya said, lip curling as he met her gaze head on, burning with the intensity of a mountain’s fiery heart. 

Ilati did not correct herself or apologize as once she would have, unflinching in his presence. Whether or not he could put her to death hardly mattered at this point: she had to prove on some level that she was worthy of the legacy of Ilishu and K’adau both. “I have heard it said the great King of Sarru is a man who scorns humility and those who keep its company.”

Tudhaliya’s lips curled away from his teeth in a rictus grin as he leaned forward. “You are not cast in Eigou’s mold, Hedu of the Desert of Kings. Though I suppose the scars upon your face and arms could have told me that much. He is much the hound and yet you, you prowl and roar like a lioness.” 

The priestess forced herself to stay confident and grounded in her power, even as parts of her yearned to curl up and disappear. She focused on the burning in her arm, the phantom touch of scorpion legs on the side of her neck. “You have most assuredly not heard my roar, o great king.”

Wizened hands relaxed slightly on the throne and Tudhaliya laughed until it became another fit of consumptive hacking. “Such a proud creature!” he crowed when he had regathered himself, voice raw from the force of his coughing. “You would think her roar might shake even exalted Ulmanna on its foundations with how she speaks!” 

“Perhaps it would, great king.” Sarhad’s voice was all too familiar, as smooth as oil and sleek as a jackal. Ilati caught every nuance of it, the amusement and contempt mixed in equal measure beneath a thin veneer of civility. “Nothing good comes of a land where only the night winds howl.” 

“My granddaughter may be proud, but she is no demon.” Eigou spread his hands in a supplicating gesture to Tudhaliya, bowing his own head deeply. “I apologize for her wildness. I entreat the great king only to allow her a seat in his most venerated of halls and to dispense with any consideration of her rudeness. She is not accustomed to the manners of such a grand court.” 

“I will indulge you on this account, Eigou, but you might see fit to remedy her insolence quickly. My patience has its limits.” Tudhaliya leaned back again in his chair and turned his attention to the contents of his drinking bowl, dismissing Ilati with a simple removal of his gaze. 

The servant ushered the priestess to her seat at Zidanta’s side on a cushioned bench, clearly nervous to even be near her after that comment. It reminded Ilati of the way shepherds treaded carefully near the tall trees favored by thunderbolts. Zidanta turned in his seat to regard her, a quiet wonder in his expression. “Quite the dangerous first impression you have made, Hedu. My father will not soon forget it, nor will Sarhad.” He smiled faintly. “May I pour your wine?” 

“Is that not the job of a servant?” Ilati murmured, softening ever so slightly. “People will talk.”

Zidanta shrugged. “Is that not the purpose of idle court tongues: to wag?” He picked up a silver pitcher full of wine set on the table by a currently absent servant. “I do not care what is said. I know only that it would please me to be a proper host.” 

Ilati inclined her head, a brief smile flitting across her face. “Judging by your brother’s expression, such consideration is not customary.” 

Across the way, Hattusa watched their interaction with a furrowed brow and something approaching confusion in his eyes. 

“You are one of a kind, o lotus.” The second-born prince of Ulmanna poured wine into her bowl and then offered various dishes of food until her plate was full with all the attentiveness of the finest servants, his scarred face difficult to read here in the chaos of the feast hall. He was still very much guarded, but his actions spoke volumes to Ilati. Tudhaliya didn’t seem to notice his younger son’s unusual behavior, but Zidanta’s brother and many other people certainly had. Ilati made a sign to ward off the envious eye under the table when she realized several court ladies were glaring in her direction. 

“Have a care, mighty prince,” the priestess warned quietly. “You have made me several more vipers to concern myself with.” 

Zidanta arched an eyebrow without bothering to look in the direction of the women in question. “Eagles do not snap at flies. Why should the incomparable concern itself with the ordinary?” 

Ilati felt a hint of heat creep up into her cheeks. No man had really glanced her way with such open admiration since K’adau scarred her face. Once upon a time she had been the desire of many, but that was to be expected for Zu’s high priestess. This was new. “Is this because of the girl you saw between the rushes or the woman who just slighted your father?”

That comment caught the prince off guard enough to spark a bark of a laugh in him. “Perhaps it is envy of my own,” he said after a moment, barely managing to conceal his own surprise at the sound that had slipped out. “Would that I could defy him and his expectations so brazenly.” 

Ilati softened slightly. “There is still time, mighty prince.” 

His glance turned rueful. “I am the man that he has made me. Without Zidanta the Cruel, who would slit his enemies’ throats in the night or lead his armies into battle? Hattusa? He does not have the spine for what must be done to preserve a kingdom.” 

“Your father will not be king forever.” 

Grimness twisted Zidanta’s lips, as if he had tasted something bitter. “And when he is gone, necessity will make me even more that man,” he muttered darkly. “Ulmanna’s celebrations may be sweet, but it dances across the edge of a razor, poised to fall to either side. I will not allow Sarru to collapse, whatever the cost.” 

Ilati knew she had touched a nerve. She touched the inside of Zidanta’s elbow with her fingertips from behind his arm, the gesture hidden by their proximity and the angle. He would feel it, but it wasn’t obvious to onlookers. “Forgive me. I should not have soured your mood. Tonight is a night for wine and honey.” 

He gave her a brief smile, coming back into their shared moment from the evils of the thoughts of looming war. “It is not a wrongness of your making, o lotus. You are forgiven.” 

The priestess relaxed slightly and removed her hand. “So tell me about this hunt you have planned.”

“And ruin the surprise of it? That is half the joy.” 

Ilati flicked his arm with one finger, like she would a misbehaving child, smiling when he laughed again despite himself. For a moment, a single precious moment, she almost felt like her old self.

“Your torture is ineffective, o wild one,” Zidanta retorted. “I have been stung more fiercely by wild nettles.” 

“Tell me at least something.”

“I was planning on hunting from chariot, though you are welcome to hunt from horseback. I hear your beast is a fearsome one, no doubt even more dangerous than what we pursue.” 

“Youtab is a feral beauty,” Ilati acknowledged, a hint of pride in her voice. “So the prey is dangerous?”

“It would hardly be a proper hunt otherwise. I was also hoping to make the acquaintance of your horse on polite terms. Hattusa said she has already almost cost a stablehand his eye and nearly crushed another man’s foot with her hoof. I adore horses, but I would rather not offend her by approaching without both your and her consent.” 

“You are wiser than your stablehands, apparently.” 

“Most assume the bloodthirstiness of Sut Resi horses to be an exaggeration, a comparison to their owners. Yet she is every bit the savage fury the stories tell of. I have had enough close encounters with the Sut Resi to know they do not beat the silver-grass steppe’s wilderness from their beasts. Harsh people breed harsh companions.”

Ilati supposed it made sense that Zidanta had crossed paths with Sut Resi before. They were the main threat to the twin jewels of Sarru and Sebet, a much more pressing and present danger in the minds of most than the Nadaren to the north-east. “You fought them?” 

Zidanta nodded. “It is a commonplace enough occurrence, though not something I can say I have ever enjoyed. I think I would rather fight a summer storm. At least those, when they strike swiftly and leave suddenly, tend to stay gone for at least a few days. We had a campaign where my men and I barely slept for three months trying to repel their roving bands from the border. Even when there was only a sliver of moon, they would harass us with arrows until I very nearly had a mutiny on my hands.” 

“A mutiny against a prince of your reputation seems unwise.”

“I had to win their affections back by taking the head of the Sut Resi chieftain. I do not brutalize my own men.”

Ilati smiled faintly. “Shir Del has a similar story about how her husband-to-be proved his intention to wed her, you know.” 

Zidanta looked over in Shir Del’s direction, where the warrior woman was sitting between her daughter and Menes, deep in conversation with the charioteer of Magan. Knowing the pair of them, Menes was trying to keep her distracted so she wouldn’t stab anyone or pick a fight. “She seems like the kind of woman you would woo with a severed head,” he admitted.

Ilati tipped her wine back, savoring the richness of the taste. As much as she had adjusted to life with the Sut Resi, she preferred fermented grapes to the fermented mare’s milk common among the nomadic people. Her gaze flickered across the table opposite of her, stomach hardening into a ball when she realized she was almost directly across from him.

In the flickering light of braziers, Commander Sarhad had much the same look as he had in the temple, dark eyes gleaming with the firelight. His curling beard was cut into a sharp square in Nadaren style, carefully preened into neatness like the feathers of a bird of ill omen. Instead of his bronze armor, he wore a crimson tunic and an outer robe of charcoal grey, pulled back from his forearms. The ring emblazoned with the serpent of Nysra still sat on his hand and her cheek ached at the memory of the blow that had cut her there. His features were harsh and northern with a hooked nose broken several times over, the only sign of his warrior nature present here. 

As Ilati studied him, she realized he was doing the same to her, as was his companion for the evening. The knot in her stomach started to twist when she shifted her focus to the woman at Sarhad’s right hand. 

The woman wore a dress of linen with square indigo patterns, wrapped around her body and pinned with several jeweled pins, designed to be more modest and conservative in style than the decadent south of Kullah or Sarru. Hair dark as midnight was pulled back in a series of complicated braids pinned up, not long and loose like Ilati’s. She and Sarhad both had foregone the kohl more common in the south, but she had shaded her eyes and painted her lips a bright ruby in the same style as a Kullan priestess. The burning in Ilati’s stomach intensified only when she saw the symbol worn as a pendant around the woman’s neck, a three-fingered hand with a thumb at either side of its palm and a lotus at its palm’s center. 

Zu.

“What god’s sign do you wear, o woman of Nadar?” Ilati asked even though she knew she was better served in silence, her voice cutting through the noise of the feast like a knife. Few paid attention, but both Sarhad and his companion were already watching her. They could not claim to ignore it. 

“This?” The woman smiled, lifting the symbol. “This is the emblem of Ziana, goddess of love and war.” 

“Some would think it foolish to wear the symbol of one who betrayed the last to carry her favor.” Ilati felt Zidanta’s hand subtly on her arm, just as she had touched his, but the bitterness did not ease. “Particularly sitting beside the one who sacked her temple.” 

“You know much for a feral daughter of the desert, yet so little,” Sarhad said with a savage grin. “Are you Kullan, to be so spiteful towards the one who chose the rightful, winning side? Would you blame a woman for leaving her decaying husband for a conquering hero?”

“I am spiteful towards all the gods too craven to defend what is theirs, and all the people of civilization fool enough to follow them,” Ilati spat. 

“I see now the Desert of Kings in you,” the woman said. “You are as bitter as the wild almond, as the demons who make their home there.” 

Ilati had no interest in denying her bitterness. It felt utterly warranted. “I have known demons more measured than Nadar.” 

“Is that why you bear their scars?” The woman’s tone was sweet like honey when she spoke, even as her eyes viciously appraised what manner of danger Ilati posed. 

Zidanta seemed to sense that it would only escalate if he did not attempt to do something more diplomatic than his usual custom. “You are here as a guest of the king, Yaeeta,” he said sternly. “As are you, Hedu. This is a sacred day for feasting and rejoicing. Let us leave quarreling for tomorrow.” 

Yaeeta dipped her head, offering Zidanta a demure smile. “Forgive me, mighty prince. I should have spoken with more grace and sensitivity. It is not her fault, after all. Feral children of the night winds cannot be expected to keep civil tongues in their head, much to their misfortune. It was wrong of me to slight her, bearing such things in mind.” 

Ilati leaned back in her seat and forced herself to relax, even as she thought of what the priestess would look like with a bloodied face. Her hands had twitched into fists under the table. When she realized Zidanta was looking at her expectantly, she sighed. “I will seal my lips on the matter,” she promised reluctantly, lip still curled with contempt. Her hardness would serve her well in not being recognized by Sarhad, at least. 

She glanced to her right and saw Eigou watching the interaction closely from the head of the table, even as King Tudhaliya whispered in his ear. He seemed…ready, no doubt preparing to intervene if things came to blows. Fortunately the great king himself had not noticed, too absorbed in his own world. 

Zidanta’s fingers against her arm tapped gently, a comforting squeeze, but then he moved his hand away without giving sign to anyone that it had been there. “Good. I would prefer not to have a diplomatic incident so swiftly,” he said. “At least let me get through my only pouring of wine first.” 

“You do not have another?” Ilati glanced over at Hattusa, who was already on his second. “Is it not a night for celebration?” 

“I do not have the luxury of excess, even on sacred days. I must always be a man of moderation in vices.” Zidanta studied her for a moment, the barest hint of a smile on his lips. “In most, at least. There is an intoxicant I would like to indulge in, should you permit it.” 

Ilati arched an eyebrow at him. “And what would that be, mighty prince?” 

“It would please me greatly if you would sing again,” Zidanta said. “It is like draughts of the milk of the poppy, both in its curative powers for pain and the desiring for more that each dose springs.” 

"Here? Now?” 

“I think it would be most pleasing to all, even to my father. You may always refuse, o lotus, if it is too much to ask.” 

Ilati picked up her drinking bowl. “I have no songs left in my heart. Only broken things. This is a night of merriment and I would not poison it more than I already have.” 

Zidanta seemed crestfallen for a moment, but he bowed his head ever so slightly. “As you wish, o lotus.” 

Sarhad’s eyes flashed in the firelight as he turned his attention from Ilati to King Tudhaliya. “Great King of Sarru, I would like to propose a toast,” he said, lifting his own drinking bowl. 

Tudhaliya looked over, forgetting Eigou for a moment. There was a challenge in the old man’s gaze and Ilati realized that he had some inkling of how this was going to go. When he smiled, it was a rictus grin of death as sallow skin stretched across his skull and collected itself in deep wrinkles, little different from a corpse. “I will indulge you, Ambassador.” 

Sarhad grinned fearsomely as he looked around at all the guests gathered at the celebration, at all the eyes focused on him. Hattusa and Zidanta had both tensed, but Ilati wasn’t certain if either knew what to expect. “I toast to the day when peace will come to Ulmanna and indeed all of Sarru. For too long have the four corners of the world been wracked with chaos and strife. May the great ordering to come please the gods and pacify the people. To peace!” 

“That was surprisingly benign,” someone nearby muttered with relief as they finished their toast. Ilati didn’t catch which of Zidanta’s favored military men had spoken. 

“As threats go, yes,” Zidanta muttered mostly under his breath, just loud enough for Ilati to catch it as Sarhad drank and then bowed for the applause.

Ilati was in agreement, though she said nothing. Men like Nysra and Sarhad made orchards into deserts and called it peace.