“It was the bell for services, wasn’t it?” Rosethorn was hunkered down close by, a shadow among shadows. She spoke with a trace of a slur.

Briar scrubbed his face on his knees before he looked up. “Bells?” he asked.

Rosethorn had her own share of bad dreams from the last two years. “You slept fine on the ship, with hardly any nightmares. But now you’re in temple walls, surrounded by temple sounds, including the calls to midnight service. It started the dreams again. You won’t even be able to stay here a few days, will you?”

If she was anyone else, maybe I’d lie, Briar thought. But she was there. She knows. “I jump just seeing all the different color robes,” he said wearily. “Doesn’t matter that the folk here are different races for the most part. We even use the same kind of incense they did back there.” He shrugged. “Evvy will be all right,” he said. “Once the stone mages here start teaching her, she’ll be busy. And I’ll be around.” Briar sighed. “So I’ll tell her when she gets up. I’ll see tomorrow if Daja’s got room for me.”

Rosethorn got to her feet with a wince and offered Briar a hand. “I doubt that Daja would write to say she has a floor of the house opening onto the garden set aside for you if she didn’t mean for you to live there,” she said dryly as she helped him to his feet. “And Briar, if the dreams don’t stop, you should see a soul-healer about them.”

Briar shrugged impatiently and picked up his things. “They’re just dreams, Rosethorn.”

“But you see and hear things sometimes, and smell things that aren’t there. You’re jumpy and irritable,” Rosethorn pointed out.

When Briar glared at her, she shrugged, too. “I’m the same. I don’t mean to put it off. Terrible events have long-lasting effects, boy. They can poison our lives.”

“I won’t let them,” Briar said, his voice harsh. “That’s one victory the Yanjing emperor don’t get.”

Folding blankets over her arm, Rosethorn looked at him. “There’s something I don’t understand,” she remarked abruptly. “We’re having a perfectly clear conversation right now. Before we journeyed east, if I wanted to talk to you, I would have to slip every word in between five or six from the girls in your mind. The four of you were always talking.” She tapped her forehead with a finger to indicate what she meant. “Now, all your attention is right here. And another thing. Why weren’t they on our doorstep the moment we came home? Tris and Daja are back; Lark said as much. Did you tell them not to come? You aren’t the only one who would like to see them, you know.”

“I’m not speaking with them,” Briar muttered, avoiding her gaze. “Not in my mind. I didn’t tell them we’re coming, or we’re here.”

Rosethorn’s eyebrows snapped together. “You haven’t linked back up with the girls? In Mila’s name, why not? They could help you so much better than I can!”

Briar stared at her. Had Rosethorn run mad? “Help me? Boo-hoo and wail and drape themselves all over me and treat me as if I was a refugee, more like!” he said tartly. “Want me to talk about it, like talking pays for anything, and cuddle me, and cosset me!”

Rosethorn’s delicate mouth curled in her familiar sarcastic curve. “Did some imperial Yanjing brute knock you on the head ten or twelve times?” she wanted to know. “That doesn’t sound like our girls. If you’ve shut them out for that reason, boy, you took more of a beating than I guessed.”

Briar hung his head and ground his teeth. Why does Rosethorn always have to cut through any smoke screen I put up? he asked himself. It’s unnatural, the way she knows my mind. He steeled himself to say the truth: “I don’t want them in my mind, seeing what I saw. Hearing what I heard, smelling…I don’t want them knowing the things I did.” Sure of Rosethorn’s next objection, he quickly added, “And I don’t know if I can hide that away from them once they get in. It’s everywhere, Rosethorn. All that mess. My head’s a charnel house. I have no way of cleaning it up yet.”

To his surprise, Rosethorn had no answer to that but to hug him tight, blankets and all. After a moment’s hesitation, he hugged her back. With Rosethorn, hugging was all right. She had been in Gyongxe, too.

The 26th day of Storm Moon, 1043 K. F.

Market Street to Number 6 Cheeseman Street

Summersea, Emelan

As a way to build up her defenses against being overwhelmed by sights on the wind, Tris had begun to journey farther afield in her marketing, controlling the drafts that touched her face and the images she chose to inspect. On this day she had offered to go to Rainen Alley to buy Daja’s metal polish. It meant she would take Market Street on the way home, spending three blocks on a direct line with the East Gate, able to catch whatever wind came through.

She had barely stepped into that wind when it showered her with pictures. She walked along, discarding or ignoring most as useless, dull, or meaningless, until a solid one gleaming with the silver fire of pure magic brought her to a complete halt.

A young man five feet nine inches tall walked through the slums beyond the East Gate, leading a pack-laden donkey. Atop its more usual burdens the donkey carried boxes with an assortment of shakkans, or miniature trees. The young man was a handsome fellow with bronze skin, broad shoulders, and glossy black hair that he wore cropped an inch long. His eyes were gray-green, turning darker green as he returned the admiring glances of the women who passed him by. Those eyes were set over a thin blade of a nose, a sensitive mouth, and a firm chin. He wore a Yanjing-style round-collared coat and leggings in tree green, and rough leather boots with fleece linings. A closer examination revealed what looked like flower tattoos covering his hands. Very close examination showed that the flowers lay under the young man’s skin and nails. They also moved, grew, put out leaves, and blossomed.