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and took a savage bite. He gazed out from his weighing shed at the vast commune’s fields and its bent-backed harvesters. “It’s not so much loyalty as practicality.”
    “Did Marco demand this training?” Mitlik asked.
    Savitu gave him a cool glance. “I do not accept instruction from rats.”
    His cousins grinned.
    Savitu finished the apricot, spat out the stone, and gulped the goat’s milk. In two days’ time, when the commune took a rest day, he and his cousins could slip back out to the Huku Hills, where the rain fell aplenty and the horizon was never flat. He had played in those hills as a child, but all his childhood friends were dead, castrated, or shamed into menial work for their conquerors. He and his cousins had each other to rely upon. But his sister’s fate? At the complex where the Waarden eunuchs had tried to train the Aklaa out of him, he’d been punished regularly for demanding her release. Eventually, he fell silent and kept his guilt tucked close to his rage.
    Now, the Waarden would pay. Pay for his father’s death. Pay for his own castration, and pay most dearly for making his sister’s life a cold and miserable hell.

    ~~~

    Bayan and Kipri waited in the carriage outside the walls of the Marghebellen town of Renallen while Philo had a short conversation in the guard house at the Pinamuyoc Gate. Lotte had taken another road earlier in the morning, heading directly back to the Kheerzaal now that Philo was safely back among his favorite foods. Already, Bayan missed Lotte and her secret stash of Bantayan spices. He looked out the carriage window at the orange stone of the city walls, which bore intimidating black streaks, as if they had long ago repelled a rain of fiery missiles. “Frits?”
    The rider eased his mount closer to the carriage.
    “Do all the cities in the old empire have walls like this?”
    Frits grinned. “All the older cities do. Your people must be very peaceful not to need walls around your cities.”
    Bayan lifted the corner of his mouth. “We use swamps instead.”
    “Renallen was originally a Waarden fishing village. When the Tuathi began raiding, the walls went up, but eventually Renallen, and all of Marghebellen, fell to them. They settled here, expanded the city, and eventually joined the empire. You’ll see once we’re inside: the city’s sectioned like an orange, each with its own walls.”
    Philo returned to the carriage, his weight pulling it off-center as he stepped onto the runner. “Nic, it seems we have another passenger to pick up. Drive to the North Keenaght duel den.”
    The carriage pulled forward through the city gates and turned onto a broad street crowded with horses, people, and wagons. Not all the odors that wafted through the window were pleasant, but Bayan did discern warm bread and fresh-cut flowers from among the less-savory aromas.
    “You’re going to have company at the Academy, Bayan,” Philo said. “There’s another young man here whose magic revealed itself recently. When the gate guards learned where we were bound, they asked if I could take him.”
    “Why hasn’t he gone already? It’s much closer from here than from Pangusay.”
    “Apparently he was badly injured, and the chanters have only recently restored him to health.”
    “Chanters?”
    “Yes, they chant their healing magic.”
    “Oh, them. We call them tagawiti.”
    “Their enclave is far to the north, but one is assigned to every duel den. I believe there is a small collection of them at the Academy, too. Don’t want our duelists killing each other off before they can perform their duties, now, do we?”
    Bayan grimaced at the idea of being hurt and then healed in an endless cycle.
    Soon, Nic pulled the carriage to a stop under a pale green awning next to a broad, curving wall. A young boy of perhaps twelve jogged over, eyes on the official seal on the carriage door, and opened Philo’s door for him.
    “Good morrow, Surveyor,” he said. “Have you need of the