licked the tips of her wands and wound them back up in her thick black hair. She
soothed his body down, arranged it decorously, donned her party clothes, and
kissed him once on the tip of his nose before heading, humming, back down the
stairs to where Lastel and the party still waited. As she passed the bar, she
snatched a piece of citrus and crushed it in her palms, dripping the juice upon
her wrists, smearing it behind her ears and in the hollow of her throat. Some of
these folk might be clumsy necromancers and thrice-cursed merchants with store
bought charms-to-ward-off-charms bleeding them dry of soul and purse, but there
was nothing wrong with their noses.
Lastel’s bald head and wrestler’s shoulders, impeccable in customed silk velvet,
were easy to spot. He did not even glance down at her, but continued chatting
with one of the prince/ governor Kadakithis’ functionaries, Molin Something-or
other, Vashanka’s official priest. It was New Year’s holiday, and the week was
bursting with festivities which the Rankan overlords must observe, and seem to
sanction: since (though they had conquered and subjugated Ilsig lands and Ilsig
peoples so that some Ran-kans dared call Ilsigs “Wrigglies” to their faces) they
had failed to suppress the worship of the god Ils and his self-begotten
pantheon, word had come down from the emperor himself that Ran-kans must endure
with grace the Wrigglies’ celebration of Ils’ creation of the world and renewal
of the year. Now, especially, with Ranke pressed into a war of attrition in the