The Damaji'ting laid three cards facedown on the floor between them. She produced a knife and handed it to Melan, who cut her own hand and let the blood coat her dice. As she did, the wards began to softly glow.

Kenevah pointed to the first card. Melan shook the dice until they glowed fiercely, then threw them to the floor, scattering them in the precise method the girls had been taught. Inevera strained to see the markings, but the angle was wrong for any but Melan and Kenevah to read the pattern.

'Seven of Spears,' Melan said after a moment.

Kenevah pointed to the next card, and again Melan threw. 'Damaji of Skulls.'

Again. 'Three of Shields.'

Kenevah nodded, her face still unreadable. 'One of the Brides announced to me this day that she carries a daughter. Which?'

Melan threw again. This time she took longer, studying the dice carefully. She glanced at the assembled dama'ting, and sweat trickled from her brow.

'Dama'ting Elan,' she said at last, naming one of the younger Brides who had yet to produce an heir.

Kenevah said nothing, turning over the first card. The nie'dama'ting gasped as the Seven of Spears revealed itself. Inevera felt her heart clench.

The next card was turned. The Damaji of Skulls. Inevera's heart moved into her throat.

Kenevah turned the third card, and there was a gasp from all. It was the Damaji'ting of Water.

Suddenly Kenevah lashed out, smacking Melan hard on the face. 'No Bride is pregnant, you idiot girl!'

She snatched the dice from Melan's hand, holding them up and studying them in the wardlight. 'Sloppy! Wasteful! Good enough for light, but naught else. Your dice of wood, carved when you were barely in your bido, were better! Where is your eighth?'

Melan's face was a mask of shock and horror, her centre lost. Numbly, she reached into her hora pouch, producing her eighth bone and handing it to the Damaji'ting.

Even from her vantage, Inevera could see it was a twisted ruin.

Kenevah held the dice under Melan's nose. 'Each of these is a year of your life. They will be shown the sun, and you will return to ivory. When you have made three perfect sets, you may return to the Chamber of Shadows, and carve one hora each year until you have completed a new set. Each die will be examined before you are given another, and Everam help you if there should be the slightest flaw.'

Melan's eyes widened, and the shocked look left her face as her shame and fate dawned on her fully. Inevera breathed deeply, finding her centre and suppressing the smile that threatened to pull at her lips.

Kenevah thrust the dice back into Melan's hands and pointed to the exit. Melan was weeping openly now, but she rose and stumbled out. Asavi gave a wail and tried to go to her, but Qeva caught the girl's arm and threw her roughly back.

Outside the chamber, the younger nie'dama'ting were waiting. They gasped as one to see Melan weeping, and all fell in line as Kenevah and every other Bride and Betrothed followed the procession.

They walked to the highest tower in the Dama'ting Palace. When Melan failed to climb fast enough, Kenevah shoved her with surprising strength. More than once the girl stumbled, and Kenevah kicked her until she rose and continued on up the spiralling stairs, coming at last to a high balcony that gave a view of all the Desert Spear.

'Hold out your hand,' Kenevah ordered, and Melan did so as the others all crowded behind her, some on the balcony and others in the topmost chamber of the tower. The girl's fingers were clenched tightly around her precious dice, the result of half a lifetime's work.

'Open your hand,' Kenevah said. It was late in the day, the sun low in the sky, but still it flooded the balcony with Everam's bright light. Weeping, Melan did as she was bade, uncurling her fingers and letting the sunlight strike the dice.

The result was immediate. The bones sparked and caught fire, burning with white-hot intensity. Melan screamed.

In an instant, it was over, Melan's hand smoking, the flesh blackened where it wasn't melted away. Her three largest fingers were fused together, and Inevera could see bits of scorched bone amid the ruin.

Kenevah turned to Qeva. 'Treat and bind her hand, but use no magic. She must always bear the mark of her failure, as a reminder to herself ...' She turned, and her gaze took in the other Betrothed. '... and to others.' All the nie'dama'ting save Inevera gasped and stepped back at the words.

With Melan broken, Inevera put the politics of the nie'dama'ting from her mind, finding her centre and focusing on her studies. She continued to thrive in her training, mastering herbs and hora magic, teaching classes in sharusahk and pillow dancing, as well as indoctrinating the younger girls, whose training normally began at five.

On the following solstice, she glimpsed Soli again, and threw him a return wink that crinkled his eyes in pleasure. She floated for six months on the memory.

After a year, Melan completed her three sets of ivory and returned to the Chamber of Shadows. Qeva's ministrations had been skilled, but her daughter's hand was still a twisted ruin with little of its former dexterity. She grew her nails long and sharp on that hand, giving it the look of an alagai's clawed appendage. The sight struck terror in the other nie'dama'ting both of Melan and of the risk taken by all who aspired to the white veil.

But while the other girls were intimidated by Melan and her claw, she was nothing to Inevera a pile of camel dung she had already stepped around. Blocking out all distraction, she continued her slow, methodical work on her dice. The fact that she worked in utter darkness was now common knowledge, whispered at mealtimes and in hallways as she passed. Rumour was that none of the dama'ting, not even Kenevah, had done the same. Many seemed to think this was a sign that Inevera was indeed the chosen of Everam, meant to take the place of the aging Damaji'ting.

But the talk was just wind, and Inevera ignored it, keeping her centre. Working in the dark meant nothing if she grew overconfident as Melan had.

'I have ruined him for his wives,' Dama'ting Elan told Inevera one evening while Inevera served her tea. Just that morning, Elan had whisked away a handsome kai'Sharum to bless her with a daughter.

Each dama'ting was expected to produce at least one daughter to succeed her. The fathers were selected carefully, chosen for their intelligence and power, the choices and timing sanctified by the dice. When a dama'ting selected a man, a palanquin was sent for him, taking him to a private pleasure house the Brides kept outside the sacred palace where no man could set foot with his stones intact.

No man was fool enough to refuse a summons from the dama'ting, and with their skills at herbs and pillow dancing, compliance with their wishes was assured, even if the man were push'ting. The men stumbled away drained and dazed, having no idea they had just fathered a daughter they would never meet.

Few of the Brides were above gloating about it. 'His jiwah will never satisfy him again,' Elan sneered. 'He will dream of me for the rest of his days, praying to Everam that I will dance for him once more.'

She winked. 'And I may. His spear was hard and true.'

Many of the dama'ting had warmed to Inevera in this way, taking the girl into their confidences and making efforts to befriend her. Since Melan's failure, it was widely accepted by the Brides that Inevera was to be Kenevah's heir. Some, like Elan, tried to impress her. Others tried to dominate, or offer gifts with strings attached.

Inevera kept her eyes down, her ears open, and her words noncommittal. While she had put the politics of the Betrothed behind her, the politics of the Brides were a weave she was still learning one that made tying the bido seem like braiding one's hair.

'Even among the dama'ting,' she told Elan, 'your pillow dancing is regarded.'

Regarded poorly, she added silently, but she had her centre, and the dama'ting saw no sign of her true feeling.

'He will never again see the like,' Elan agreed.

Inevera turned away, only to see Asavi coldly glaring at her from across the room. Older than Melan by two years, Asavi had recently taken the veil, and Inevera stepped lightly when she was about, giving her no excuse to take offence. With the Vault doors between them, Asavi and Melan could no longer hold each other in the night, but Melan was summoned frequently to Asavi's new quarters during the daylight hours, and Inevera did not doubt their pillow friendship continued.

One dawn in her fifth year as Betrothed, Inevera was in the dama'ting pavilion when a familiar shout heralded a group of Sharum rushing in their wounded. It was the morning after Waning, and casualties had increased in recent years.

'Let me through, push'ting scum! That's my son!'

Inevera felt her blood run cold. Even after half a decade, she knew her father's voice.

Lifting her robes, she ran without a shred of dama'ting composure to the surgery, where a familiar crowd of sleeveless Sharum stood in their black steel breastplates. Cashiv's face was wet with tears as he faced Kasaad, each of them with warriors at his back. Kasaad's eyes were bloodshot, and he stood unsteadily, likely still feeling the effects of the couzi he drank for courage in the Maze.

Several warriors were being treated, but Inevera only had eyes for one, running to Soli's side with a shout. Her brother's handsome face was covered in sweat and dust, his eyes glazed, and his skin pale. His good right arm was slashed at the bicep by alagai talon, nearly severed. A tourniquet had been tied just below his shoulder, and though the sheet below him was soaked with blood, Inevera imagined much more lay on the Maze floor, and the path from there to the pavilion.

She was Betrothed to Everam now, with neither family nor name, but Inevera didn't care, taking her brother's head in her hands and gently turning him to meet her eyes.

'Soli,' she whispered, brushing the sweat-soaked hair from his face. 'I'm here. I will care for you and make you well. I swear it.'

A dim recognition came to his eyes. Soli tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough that flecked his lips with blood. His voice was a wet wheeze. 'It is my duty to care for you, little sister, not the other way 'round.'

'No more, brother,' Inevera whispered, feeling tears begin to well.

'We will not be able to save the arm,' Qeva said at her back. 'Not with herb or hora. It will have to be amputated.' If she was bothered by Inevera's lack of composure, she gave no sign.

'No!' shouted Kasaad. 'Bad enough Everam has cursed me with a push'ting for a son, but I will not have him a cripple as well! Send him down the lonely path now, and pray Everam forgives him for wasting his seed!'

Cashiv gave a shout of anguish, leaping on Kasaad and easily wrestling him to the floor, pressing his head down savagely. Kasaad's friends moved to intercede, but Cashiv's warriors blocked their path. 'Soli never meant anything to you!' Cashiv cried. 'He is everything to me!'

'You have twisted him with your push'ting ways!' Kasaad growled. 'A true Sharum would not suffer life as a cripple!'

Qeva tsked and shook her head. 'As if their opinions matter a whit.' She clapped her hands, a loud crack that sounded like thunder. 'Enough! Out, all of you! Any unwounded Sharum still in this pavilion by the count of ten will be khaffit before the sun sets!'

That got everyone's attention. The excess warriors scrambled outside, and Cashiv released Kasaad immediately, getting to his feet and bowing deeply. 'I apologize for bringing violence to this place of healing, Dama'ting.' He cast a pained look at Soli and fell to his knees, pressing his forehead to the floor. 'I beg you, honoured Bride, please do not hold my actions against Soli. Even one-armed, he is worth a hundred other men.'

'We will save him,' Inevera said, though it was not her place. 'I will not let my brother die.'

'Broth ...' Kasaad looked up. 'Everam's beard, Inevera?!'

Recognition lit his face, and he moved with surprising speed, grabbing his spear off the floor and kicking his daughter aside. Caught off guard, Inevera hit the floor hard, looking up just in time to see Kasaad bury the point in Soli's chest. 'Better dead than a push'ting cripple spared by his sister's soft heart!'

Cashiv had him in an instant, standing behind Kasaad with one iron arm around his throat and a long curved knife at his belly. Inevera rushed to Soli, but her father's thrust had been true, and her brother was dead.

'You do not deserve to die by alagai talon or spear,' Cashiv growled in Kasaad's ear. 'I will gut you like a khaffit guts a pig, and watch as the life bleeds out of you. You deserve a thousand deaths, and in Nie's abyss you will have them.'

Kasaad laughed. 'I have done Everam's will, and will drink from his rivers of wine in Heaven. The Evejah tells us, Suffer not the push'ting nor the cripple!'

Qeva approached. 'It also says, Drink not of fermented grain ... and It is death to strike one of Everam's Betrothed.'

It was true. The punishment for striking a nie'dama'ting was the same as for a dama'ting the striker was made khaffit, then executed. Only the offended woman could spare him.

Qeva took her own curved knife and began cutting the blacks from Kasaad. He screamed and thrashed, but she struck swift, precise blows to shatter his lines of power, and his limbs fell weak.

'You are khaffit now, Kasaad of no name worth mentioning. You will forever sit outside Heaven's gates, and should Everam in His wisdom one day take pity on your soul and send it back to Ala, pray you are less stupid in the next life.' She turned to Inevera, handing her the knife. Cashiv pulled hard, arching Kasaad's back and presenting her an easy target.

Kasaad wailed and begged, but there was no sympathy in the eyes around him. Finally he calmed and looked at Inevera. 'If you will waste a true warrior for the sake of a one-armed push'ting, then so be it. Make it quick, daughter.'

Inevera met his eyes, rage boiling in her veins. The silver knife handle was hard and warm in her hand, moist with her sweat.

'No, I will not kill my own father,' she said at last. 'And you do not deserve for it to be quick.'

She looked at Qeva. 'The Evejah says I may spare him, if I wish.'

'No!' Cashiv shouted. 'Nie take you, girl, you will give your brother justice! If your flesh is too pure to sully, only say the word and I will be your striking hand.'

'You understand what sparing him means?' Qeva asked Inevera, ignoring Cashiv completely. 'Everam must be paid in blood for the offence given him.'

'He will be paid,' Inevera said.

Qeva nodded and took a tourniquet, wrapping it firmly around the leg Kasaad had kicked Inevera with. She looked to Cashiv. 'Hold him tightly.' The warrior nodded, tightening his iron grip.

Inevera didn't hesitate, taking the sharp knife to her father's knee like a butcher working a joint. Hot blood poured over her as his lower leg was severed with a pop right where the bones met. Kasaad's screams carried all through the pavilion, but it was a place used to such sounds, and it seemed not amiss.

Inevera grabbed her father by the beard, cutting off his screams as she yanked his agonized face to look at her. 'You will go to Manvah and serve her. Serve her like she is the Damaji'ting. Do this for the remainder of your days, and I may take pity and let you die in black.

'But if you ever strike my mother again, or fail to obey her slightest whim, I will hear of it and take the other leg, and your arms as well. You will live a long life with no limbs to get you into trouble, and when you die as khaffit, you will be left for dogs to gnaw upon and shit onto the streets.'

Cashiv dropped Kasaad to the floor, bringing a fresh scream of anguish. He pointed a finger in Inevera's face. 'A limb? The limb of a worthless, drunken fool? That is how you value Soli?'

Inevera moved quickly, grabbing his finger and breaking it as easily as she broke the line of energy in his leg with a single raised knuckle. The limb collapsed and she caught him in a throw that put him heavily on his back. 'You presume to judge my love of my brother? You think my ties of blood weaker than yours of semen?'

Cashiv looked at her, his eyes cold. 'My soul is ready for the lonely path, Inevera vah Kasaad. I have killed many alagai, fathered a son, and I have not struck you. It is your right to kill me if you wish it, but you cannot deny me Heaven as you did your father. I will sit in Everam's great hall by Soli's side, and comfort him under the camel's piss his sister pours on his memory with every breath that pig-eater takes.'

He sneered. 'Strike. Do it!' A madness came into his eyes, and Inevera realized he wanted her to. He was begging for it.

Inevera shook her head. 'Begone from here. I will not kill you for loving my brother, even if it has made you a fool.'

After she returned to the palace, Inevera went quickly to the Vault. Few girls were there at that hour, and those hurrying to get ready for classes. Inevera was due to teach one herself before entering the Chamber of Shadows later that afternoon.

She saw nie'dama'ting Shaselle weaving her bido after a bath and snapped her fingers, getting the girl's attention. Though older, Shaselle jumped at the sound. 'I have matters to attend,' Inevera said. 'Take over teaching basic herbs to the second-years.'

'Of course, nie'Damaji'ting.' Shaselle bowed and scurried away to attend the matter.

Nie'Damaji'ting. Kenevah's heir apparent. It was no formal title likely any girl caught using it would be punished severely.

Inevera had never ordered another girl to teach for her, nor did she have any right to, but at the moment she didn't care. All that mattered was she was alone at last. She threw herself onto her tiny cot and cried. She sought to capture the water in tear bottles she might offer to Everam with prayers for her brother's soul, but her hands shook with her sobs, and the task was impossible. She buried her face in her pillow, letting the rough cloth soak up the tears.

Soli was gone. She would never again see his easy smile or handsome face, never again be comforted by his words, or feel the safety of his presence. In an instant, all those futures had vanished. She wondered if the dama'ting had seen it in the dice at the end of his Hannu Pash.

And Kasaad? Had she done the world any favours by sparing him, or would he be an even greater drain to the Desert Spear? Was Cashiv right? Had she failed to avenge her brother as he deserved?

Time passed, and the afternoon bell was rung. The Chamber of Shadows beckoned, but still Inevera did not rise. Since her admission, she had never missed a session, but there was no law forcing her attendance. If she wished to take a lifetime to carve her dice, it was within her rights.

At last, the Vault door opened and Qeva entered, standing by the door. 'Enough, girl, you've had your tears. There isn't water enough to spare in the Desert Spear for you to gush all day. Find your centre. Kenevah has summoned you.'

Inevera drew a deep breath, then another, subtly wiping her eyes on the cuff of her sleeve. When she rose, she had regained her composure, though her insides still felt torn to shreds.

Kenevah was waiting in her office when Inevera arrived. The teakettle was steaming, and at a signal Inevera poured for them both and took a seat across from the Damaji'ting.

'You never told me your brother was one of Baden's men,' the old woman noted.

Inevera nodded numbly. 'I feared you would keep me from him each year if you knew.' The confession was tantamount to admitting lying to the Damaji'ting, but Inevera found she lacked the strength to care.

Kenevah grunted. 'Likely I would have. And perhaps he would be alive today if you had.' Inevera looked up at her, and she shrugged. 'Or perhaps not. The dice can let us glean much of the future, but on the past they are silent.'

'The past is gone,' Inevera said, quoting the Damajah, 'it is pointless to chase it.'

'Then why have you spent the day weeping?' Kenevah asked.

'My pain is a mighty wind, Damaji'ting,' Inevera said. 'Even the palm must bow before the wind, straightening only when it passes.'

Kenevah lifted her veil just enough to blow steam from the surface of her tea. 'Sharum do not bend.'