It was unthinkable. Unheard of.

And yet it was Waning, and the dice had said Ahmann was to meet his zahven. Had the greenlander killed him? What if they had not been speaking of the greenlander? What if Alagai Ka had indeed risen this night and Ahmann was facing him this very moment? Was he ready if Sharak Ka began tonight?

It seemed the next morning that it had, and he was. A rock demon had smashed open the great gate, slaughtering warriors by the score and clearing the way for hundreds of other alagai. Such a thing had not occurred in the history of the Desert Spear, a calamity great enough to chill the blood of the bravest man.

But Ahmann had beaten them back, resealing the gates and rescuing countless warriors. He and the greenlander had faced the rock demon together on the Maze floor and trapped it for the sun. It was only by sheer luck it had escaped.

But the price had been high. Over a third of Krasia’s warriors dead in one night, and the demon, it happened, was a personal foe of the greenlander. The Andrah had wanted him dead, and Ahmann had put his reputation on the line to save the man in open defiance of his leader, calling him Par’chin, the brave outsider. It was only the broad support of the Sharum and key dama that had saved the Northerner and kept Ahmann’s head on his shoulders.

‘I will need more of the Par’chin’s blood,’ Inevera said.

Ahmann laughed. ‘Easily done. The Par’chin bleeds often in the Maze, but always at great cost to the alagai.’ The next time he brought her a rag so soaked in the greenlander’s blood that it filled an entire vial when squeezed. Inevera had attached a piece of hora to the glass under layers of opaque glaze and warded it for cold to preserve its essence.

Inevera herself served the Par’chin tea the night he brought the spear. Ahmann looked at her incredulously, but she wanted to get as close to the item as possible. The greenlander said nothing of its origins as the other Sharum gazed at the spear in wonder, but he had privately admitted to Ahmann that he had taken it from the ruins of the holy city of Anoch Sun.

The heavy curtains of the dining chamber were pulled tight, and she wore her warded circlet. It was years since she last served tea, but the precise movements of the ritual had been ingrained in her as nie’dama’ting, letting her focus on the spear. It glowed like the sun itself in Everam’s light – power that could only come from a demon bone core. The hundreds of interconnected wards were beauty beyond belief, and the metal was something she had never seen before.

‘You honour me, Dama’ting,’ the Par’chin said when she bent to fill his cup. His Krasian was flawless, his manners impeccable. His smile was without guile. Either he was a master thief, every expression sheer artistry, or he did not realize what her people did to grave robbers.

‘The honour is ours, Par’chin,’ she said. ‘You are the only Northerner ever to add your spear to ours.’ And to dare look us in the eye as you attempt to steal from us, she added silently.

She looked back to the spear. She longed to examine it properly, but dama’ting were expressly forbidden to touch weapons. A great irony, as this spear had unquestionably been made by one.

That it was a genuine Sunian artefact with a demon bone core was already beyond doubt. Regardless of its origin, the spear would bite the alagai like no weapon in millennia. But in the time of the Shar’Dama Ka there had been many such weapons, carried by the sons and lieutenants of Kaji. Was this one of those, or was it truly the Spear of Kaji, made from the sacred metal by the Damajah herself? There was one way to be sure.

It took only the slightest flick of her arm to hook the flowing white silk of her sleeve on the point of the spear. It came up with her as she straightened, then tore the cloth.

Inevera gasped and pretended to stumble, spilling the tea. Around the low table, kneeling Sharum averted their gazes that they not witness her embarrassment, but the Par’chin was quick, catching the teapot with one hand and steadying her with the other.

‘Thank you, Par’chin.’ Inevera looked to where the spear had rolled on the floor, seeing what she had hoped. Along its length was a thin, almost imperceptible seam. Without her wardsight, it might have been invisible.

The seam where the Damajah had rolled the thin sheet of sacred metal about the core.

The Par’chin had brought back the Spear of Kaji.

‘Tonight is the night,’ Inevera said, pacing in excitement. She had known the Par’chin would find power, but this was beyond her wildest dreams. ‘Long have I foreseen this. Kill him and take the spear. At dawn, you will declare yourself Shar’Dama Ka, and a month from now you will rule all Krasia.’

She was already plotting his ascent. The Andrah would move to have him stopped or killed, but the Sharum were already more loyal to Jardir. If the warriors witnessed Ahmann killing alagai on the Maze floor, they would flock to him in droves, starting with those most beholden to him.

‘No,’ Ahmann said.

It took a moment for the word to register. ‘The Krevakh and the Sharach will declare for you immediately, but the Kaji and Majah will take a hard line against … Eh?’ She turned back to face him. ‘The prophecy …’

‘The prophecy be damned,’ Ahmann said. ‘I will not murder my friend, no matter what the demon bones tell you. I will not rob him. I am the Sharum Ka, not a thief in the night.’

Inevera’s flash of anger was more than even she could bend against. She slapped him, the retort echoing off the stone walls. ‘A fool is what you are! Now is the moment of divergence, when what might be becomes what will. By dawn, one of you will be declared Deliverer. It is up to you to decide if it will be the Sharum Ka of the Desert Spear, or a grave-robbing chin from the North.’

‘I tire of your prophecies and divergences,’ Ahmann said, ‘you and all the dama’ting! All just guesses meant to manipulate men to your will. But I will not betray my friend for you, no matter what you pretend to see in those warded lumps of alagai shit!’

Inevera felt as if everything she had built for over twenty years was crashing down around her. Had she come so far only to fail because her fool husband had not the spine to kill a man who had defiled the grave of Kaji? She shrieked and raised her hand to strike him again, but Ahmann caught her wrist and lifted it high. She struggled for a moment, but he was stronger than her by far.

‘Do not force me to hurt you,’ he warned.

Now he dared threaten her? The words brought Inevera back to herself. A lifetime of training with Enkido had taught her strength could be taken with a touch. She twisted, driving stiffened fingers to break the line of energy in his shoulder. The arm holding her went limp and she twisted out of his grasp, slipping back a step to straighten her robes as she breathed back to centre.

‘You keep thinking the dama’ting defenceless, my husband, though you of all people should know better.’ She took his numb hand in hers, twisting the arm out straight as she pressed her other thumb into the pressure point in his shoulder, restoring the line of energy.

‘You are no thief if you are only reclaiming what is already yours by right.’

‘Mine?’ Ahmann asked.

‘Who is the thief?’ Inevera asked. ‘The chin who robs the grave of Kaji, or you, his blood kin, who takes back what was stolen?’

‘We do not know it is the Spear of Kaji he holds,’ Ahmann said.