Dorje sighed, exhaling a frosty cloud. “I am being foolish, I know. If Tashi Rinpoche is not afraid for you, I should not be. But a monk is not a man with daughters. A man with daughters knows what it is to be afraid. And after seeing you playing with mine, I am afraid for you.”

“I’m afraid for me, too,” I said. “But I still have to go.”

“I know.” He handed me a soft, cloth-wrapped bundle. “Tsampa,” he said, referring to a roasted barley-grain mixed with lumps of butter that was a Tufani staple. “Nyima packed it for you in case Manil Datar does not feed you well enough. It is enough to last a few days.” He smiled ruefully. “For a trader’s wife, she does not understand the distances between places very well.”

I tucked it in my pack. “Thank her for me.”

“I will.”

And then Manil Datar gave a sharp whistle and a gesture, indicating that we were ready to depart. He beckoned to me with a pleasant smile, indicating that I should ride beside him. Before I mounted, I gave Dorje a warm hug. “Thank you, my friend. Whenever I need to remember there are good people in the world, you and your family are among those I will surely recall.”

He returned my embrace. “Be safe, Moirin. I hope you find your young man, and if fate wills it, our Laysa, too.”

And with that, I was off once more.

Although the journey would grow more arduous in the days to come, the road leading southward out of Rasa was easily wide enough for two to ride abreast. True to his word, Manil Datar set about teaching me to speak Bhodistani, pointing at objects and naming them in his native tongue, making me repeat the words until I got them right. Horse, yak, saddle. Eyes, ears, nose, mouth. Sky, mountain, path. I had learned a bit of Tufani, which he spoke fluently, and it made the process easier.

I was grateful for his kindness, and he seemed pleased to offer it, although truth be told, given my preferences, I would rather have ridden alone, left to my own thoughts. The encounter with the boy monk Tashi Rinpoche had unsettled me.

When I had set out from Shuntian a year ago, my quest had seemed a simple one. All I wanted to do was cross the steppe and find Bao. And although I’d vastly underestimated the rigors of a Tatar winter, in a way, it had been that simple.

Now…

Now I felt like a pair of dice, swept up and shaken in a cup, cast on the gaming table over and over, the stakes growing higher each time.

It seemed like it never ended.

The quest I had undertaken in Ch’in to free the princess and the dragon should have been enough for anyone’s lifetime. But oh, no! Not for Moirin. The Great Khan had betrayed me, the gods had scooped me up and tossed me back onto the gaming table, sending me to Vralia, where the Patriarch of Riva dreamed of destiny, dreamed of a Yeshuite empire built on bloodshed and loathing.

I had put an end to his dream.

I had armed my sweet boy Aleksei with the courage of his convictions that he might continue the fight against his uncle’s vile legacy, raising a voice in favor of love, compassion, and understanding, altering the course of his world.

And yet it wasn’t enough.

No, now I must be shaken and rattled and tossed once more, hurled back into the fray, pitted against this legendary Falconer and his bedamned Spider Queen with her unknown charms that held grown men in thrall. And it was not enough that I find the missing half of my soul, no. A boy-monk with kind, gentle, ancient eyes was depending on me to rescue the reincarnation of one of the Enlightened Ones.

And that, he had informed me, was only the beginning of my journey.

I had further oceans to cross.

It was a considerable weight to carry, a considerable weight to place on the shoulders of a young woman who had grown up in a cave in the Alban wilderness. And I felt very, very alone beneath my burden.

It wasn’t that I failed to recognize the aid I’d found along the way. I did. And I was grateful to all of them: to kindhearted Batu and Checheg, to poor Valentina and my sweet Aleksei, to steady Vachir and his wife, Arigh, to stormy Erdene, to my young friend Dash, to gentle Dorje and Nyima.

And yet…

Again and again, the dice were cast. Swept up on the tide of my fate, I left them behind and carried on alone.

“Moirin?”

I realized that Manil Datar had spoken my name several times over, and blinked at him. “Aye?”

“You were far away,” he said in Tufani, and then repeated it in Bhodistani, slowly and carefully. “You were far away.”

I echoed it back to him, memorizing the words. “Yes. I was far away.”

“Where?” Leaning over in the saddle, he stroked my braided locks, setting the coral and turquoise beads to rattling.

Lacking words, I shrugged. “Far.”

His fingertips brushed my cheek. “Do not go so far.”

I felt a tickle of alarm at the base of my spine. I made myself smile at him. “Not so far, no. I am sorry.”

Manil Datar smiled back at me, a smile that did not reach his eyes. “Good.”

FIFTY-FOUR

I did not like Manil Datar.

It was not that he wasn’t a good caravan-master. He was. He was as solicitous of me as he had promised. When we made camp, he ensured that my tent was erected securely, that I had ample food to eat and my mounts were provisioned and watered. He listened to his porters, who knew the terrain better than he did. He insisted that they escort me on foot through the worst passes, through the narrowest defiles, where all of us stretched our ears, listening for the fearful sound of ice cracking, portending an avalanche of snow and rock.

It happened more than once.

The scarred fellow who had disturbed Dorje seemed to have the keenest senses. Twice, he called for a halt moments before an unholy cascade broke loose from the mountains, barring our path.

While the porters dug us out, Manil Datar further instructed me in the Bhodistani tongue.

Snow, ice, avalanche.

Coat, hat, mittens.

Even though I did not like him, I listened and learned, repeating words back to him. In Vralia, the Patriarch had kept me ignorant and unable to communicate. I never wanted to be that helpless again.

Slowly, slowly, we crept our way across the Abode of the Gods. Beneath the ever-present shadow of mountain peaks, we scaled heights where little grew save tough juniper shrubs. I learned to string simple sentences together in Bhodistani. We descended into forested valleys where cedar, blue pine, and larch grew with hardy exuberance, and Manil Datar began teaching me more abstract terms. We traversed narrow paths clinging to the side of a mountain gorge above fierce, rushing rivers. We crossed unexpected meadows, where we sometimes encountered nomads pasturing their yaks.

It was in one of the meadows that Manil Datar revealed his true colors.

Between Dorje’s distrust and my own unease, I’d never fully trusted the man-all the more so when I realized that it was largely due to the scarred porter, whose name I had learned was Sanjiv, that the caravan’s animals were so content and well tended. But I had passed many days in Manil Datar’s company, and although he took the liberty of touching my hand or my cheek from time to time, he offered no further impropriety.

That changed in the meadow.

I was asleep in my tent, swaddled in woolen blankets with the heavy sheepskin atop them. I was awakened by an additional weight pressing on me, a hand clamped hard over my mouth, and a sharp edge against my throat.

A jolt of terror ran through me as I lurched from deep sleep to full wakefulness. Dim lantern light and the musky scent of perfume filled the tent. Manil Datar’s face hovered inches above mine.

“Moirin,” he whispered. “It is time.” I struggled ineffectually, but he had me pinned beneath my blankets. He leaned harder on the knife against my throat. “Be still. I will not hurt you if you are good. Do you understand?”