The guardsman Pradeep clapped heels to his mount, sprinting across the meadow. On the far side, the Falconer’s party halted to confer. In short order, one of their men rode forward to fulfill the exchange.

It wasn’t Bao. I wished it had been; I wished we could have grabbed him and fled, summoning the archers to ward our retreat. But no, it was some southern Bhodistani fellow with thick brows, a hard mouth, and a sword-belt with two empty scabbards. He scanned our company with a shrewd gaze, then gave a sharp nod, wheeled, and retreated, passing our returning guardsman Pradeep on the way.

“So?” Hasan Dar raised his brows.

“They have honored the terms, commander,” Pradeep said breathlessly, leaning on his pommel. “No visible weapons. And their twelfth person… it is not an extra guard. It is Jagrati the Spider Queen herself.”

A chill crawled over my skin. That had not been part of our plan; but Pradeep was right, it was not a violation of the terms, either. It had simply not occurred to any of us that the Spider Queen would leave the safehold of Kurugiri.

Hasan Dar gave the Rani an inquiring look. She frowned, then nodded in assent. Her commander raised one arm, beckoning the Falconer’s company forward.

Once again, they began to advance.

Slowly, slowly, the distance between us narrowed; and I felt my awareness narrowing, too. I tried to fight it, and couldn’t. I was at the mercy of my diadh-anam, and nothing else in the world existed for it save its missing half. My vision dwindled to a tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel was Bao.

Closer and closer he rode, until I could make out his face. His gaze was fixed on me as surely as mine was on him… and there was nothing, nothing at all glad or joyful in it. Instead, his expression was fixed with a mix of fury and anguish, his dark eyes glittering with something that looked very much like hatred.

It struck me like a blow, hard enough that I wrenched my gaze away, breathing slowly and shivering. My vision expanded again; now it was my heart that contracted painfully, thudding in my chest.

The company reached us and drew rein a few paces away. There were ten men including Bao, each looking more deadly than the next. Mountain-folk, southern Bhodistani… others I didn’t know, Akkadian, mayhap. There was even a fellow with reddish hair and grey eyes.

Tarik Khaga, the Falconer of Kurugiri, had deep-set eyes and a strong prow of a nose, black hair streaked with iron-grey. He looked to be somewhere in his fifties, a muscular fellow with the beginning of a slight paunch that didn’t make him look any less dangerous.

Jagrati.

I stole a glance at the Spider Queen. Her face was gaunt and striking, dark-skinned, high cheekbones with hollows beneath them, but not so terrible a beauty as I had expected. The rest of her was draped in a black cloak fastened high around her throat.

The Rani Amrita broke the silence. “Greetings, my lord Khaga,” she said, pressing her hands together, her voice clear and sincere. “I thank you for consenting to this meeting. Shall we unhorse ourselves and speak as civilized folk?”

His gaze flicked briefly to Jagrati, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. “As you wish, little Rani,” he said in a dismissive tone.

Both parties dismounted. It would give our mounted archers waiting in ambush a few more seconds of time to close the distance between us; still, I felt uneasy. I kept glancing at Bao, and away from the seething hatred in his gaze. He didn’t even look like himself. With the ban on weapons, his ever-present bamboo staff was missing. The unruly shock of his black hair had grown longer, caught and tamed by a clasp at the nape of his neck, and there were gold hoops in his earlobes.

“So, my lord-” the Rani began.

The Falconer cut her off with a gesture. “You shall have what you came for.” He beckoned. “Bao!”

Like his master, Bao looked to Jagrati for assurance; and she nodded at him, too, her expression softening briefly. For a second, he looked grateful; and then the mask of hatred returned to his face as he moved toward me.

“Bao, please…” My voice shook as I took a step forward. My diadh-anam roiled and blazed in anguish.

“No!” His voice cracked like a whip. “Whoever you are, whatever you are, I want no part of you or whatever sick game you play! Do you understand? Go, and leave me to the service of my lord and lady Khaga!”

“Bao, it’s me! Moirin!” I touched my chest, my heart aching. “How can you not know me?”

He leaned forward, nostrils flaring. I could feel the heat of his fury rolling off him, the hot-metal forge smell of his skin. His pupils were too wide, his eyes fever-bright and wild. “Because Moirin mac Fainche died almost a year ago!” he shouted at me, his hands clenching and unclenching. “Do you think I did not feel it? Whatever foul spirit has stolen her face, stolen the very spark of her soul, I want nothing to do with it!”

Tears blurred my eyes. “Bao, it’s me! I wasn’t killed, I was bound by magic! That’s why you couldn’t sense me!”

“No.” Bao shook his head. “No, that is the lie the Great Khan told me, and I will not believe it twice. In Kurugiri, I learned the truth.”

“No, you didn’t!” I cried in frustration. “The lord and lady of Kurugiri never had anything to do with it! It was Vralian priests who took me prisoner, using Yeshuite magic! Chains, like the one the Circle of Shalomon tried to use to bind the demon-spirit they summoned, the one you and Master Lo helped me banish. Remember?”

Bao hesitated, frowning.

“The Great Khan told you a lie to send you in the opposite direction,” I whispered. “But I am here now.”

His diadh-anam flickered.

“You feel it!” I said. “You do, don’t you?”

“Oh, no, no, I’m afraid that is not an acceptable outcome,” another voice said-a woman’s voice soft and sibilant, with a faint rasp like silk drawn over a whetstone. “This has gone on long enough, I think.”

Bao glanced at Jagrati, who smiled tenderly at him.

He smiled back at her, relieved and certain once more.

And then the Spider Queen smiled at me, her long-fingered hands reaching up to undo the clasp of her cloak. It fell away, revealing the collar of gold filigree that adorned her long, slender throat, an immense black diamond set in the middle of it, filled with glowing hues that shifted like embers.

I was wrong.

She was as terrible and beautiful as Kali dancing, terrifying and compelling. She was tall, taller than me, taller than most women, with long limbs that moved with angular grace. I stood frozen as Ja-grati drifted toward me, still smiling. Despite the stark beauty of her hollow-cheeked face, she had very full lips…

… and Kamadeva’s diamond.

It glowed, filled with dark fire, pulsing in time with the beating of her blood. It was made from the ashes of the Bhodistani god of desire, and it called to Naamah’s gift within me, setting it to rise in an endless spiral, filling my limbs with languor, sapping my will.

I opened my mouth to tell Hasan Dar to sound his whistle, to call the archers from their ambush. No words came.

Even if they had, Hasan Dar and his men were gaping, transfixed.

“So it’s true.” Jagrati’s fingertips stroked my face, and I leaned into her touch, helpless to resist the urge. She pitched her voice low, for my ears only, fond and amused. “I thought you might respond to it. Bao has told me so very, very much about you, Moirin. I think perhaps we are not so different.”

“No?” I asked mindlessly.

“No.” She drew a line from my temple to the corner of my lips. “Your goddess Naamah, when she journeyed in Bhodistan, she made no distinctions when she lay down with strangers. Any caste, or no-caste. No one was untouchable to her. It was only desire that mattered. Desire that made a thing sacred. You understand this, yes? Or else you would not have let yourself love a bastard peasant-boy without so much as a family name.”