‘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!’