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the smaller towns have been hit very hard, since the farms that feed them have essentially shut down. This is the first time they’ve seen rain here in a quintile.” His mouth twisted into a sardonic smile and he added, “I could wish its timing was better, since it has slowed our journey to an intolerable pace, but I am glad to see it.”
    Zoe swallowed a mouthful of a deliciously flavored meat-and-rice dish. “You must welcome bounty whenever it comes, hunti man. It is often inconvenient. But if you insist on accepting it only when it suits your schedule, you will find yourself very poor.”
    He laughed and then crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, watching her. “I knew Navarr Ardelay a little, and that sounds like something he would say.”
    She nodded. “All the time.”
    “So are you like him?” Darien pursued. “You have been so quiet that I have not been able to form a sense of your personality. Your mother was a woman of blood, your father a man of fire. Which personality do you favor, or have you developed an entirely different one on your own?”
    “I am coru ,” she offered.
    “And when did you decide that?” he asked.
    In Welce, it was believed that all children came into the world receptive to one of the elements. Most often a child would take after a parent, or perhaps a grandparent, who exhibited a certain set of traits. But, really, there were no sureties. All children were encouraged to discover their own internal sympathies. A girl born to two sweela parents might find herself drawn to air; a boy with primarily hunti relations might be entirely torz . It was assumed that, at some point in his ancestry, there would be a torz forebear, and the affinity had merely skipped generations. It was just a matter of discovering what kind of longing was in the blood, what kind of certainty was stamped into the bone.
    “Very young,” she said. “I cannot remember a time I did not consider myself coru .”
    “So you are a woman of blood and water,” he said. “But what else is there to know about you? Is there curiosity in you? Kindness? Greed? I cannot tell.”
    Zoe took another bite before answering. “I’m not sure I can answer that.”
    He leaned forward. “Why not? Was your father such a strong personality that you had no room left to form your own?”
    She raised her eyebrows, her expression sardonic. “Would that please you if it were so?” she asked. “Wouldn’t that be the right personality for the fifth wife of a king?”
    He settled back against the chair again, his gray eyes even more intent. He was clearly finding her more of a puzzle than he had expected, Zoe thought. It would have been amusing if she had been trying to confuse him, but she hadn’t even made that much effort.
    “It might make life simpler for you ,” he said slowly. “The king’s second and third wives have strong personalities—very—and there is much subtle feuding between them. A new wife who was scheming and ambitious might find herself with two seasoned enemies.”
    Zoe knew the prospect should be alarming. She knew she should feel dread and uncertainty about her new position; she should ask this court insider for advice on how to navigate the treacherous palace waters. But she merely shrugged. “I am not at all ambitious,” she said. “I don’t think they will find me much of a threat.”
    “Alys sees everyone as a threat,” he replied. “And Seterre is not much better.”
    “I don’t think anyone has ever hated me before,” she said. “It will be an instructive experience.”
    He watched her for a long time in silence. “I believe I am seeing glimmerings of it,” he said at last.
    “Glimmerings of what?”
    “Your true personality. There is humor in you, is there not? A deep appreciation of the ridiculousness of the human condition. And a certain tolerance for the vagaries of human nature.”
    It was hard to know if his assessment was accurate or not. She had never spent much