The pyres of the Dominion go through a complex and little-understood life cycle. A pyre’s connection to the life-giving sun cannot be maintained indefinitely, and must be replenished by the sacrifice of its priest—the ensi—every ten years. This process is known as ‘kindling.’ After each ensi’s death, his kinsman, the en, inherits the priesthood. The cycle is regular and invariable; the oldest pyres have maintained it for millennia.

But the pyre also gives back; once per year, at the summer solstice, it ‘blooms,’ emanating thousands of frail offspring in the form of haranu fire-spirits. By their indwelling, handmaidens receive their power, and any number of useful artifacts are produced. It is the nature of a haranu to strengthen its host, in a manner depending on the host’s own nature, and to bind it irreversibly to the parent pyre.

Ram sat blindfolded, in a chair, in a dark room. There was nothing keeping him there; he wasn’t tied down. But he knew better than to get up. He’d been waiting for some time already, and would probably wait some time longer.

Shennai had prodded him up the Temple’s monumental stairs in a hurry, and scooted him past the guardian murrush without a word. He hadn’t tried to track their path from there, except to note that it was generally upward, involving several flights of stairs, and ended in a small, undecorated chamber with nothing in it but a single chair. Shennai had tied the cloth around his eyes, told him to wait, and left, taking her light with her.

So he waited. He might, at some point, have fallen into a light sleep—he couldn’t be sure. Certainly he felt tired enough. But with nothing to see and nothing to do, he had no way to mark the passage of time, until the indeterminable moment he heard footsteps, and raised his head to hear a male voice say, “Good evening, Rammash. I’m sorry … to have kept you so long.”

It was not, he noted with surprise, an old voice; if he had to guess, it belonged to a man in his twenties, grown but not mature. A tenor. He was breathing somewhat heavily as well, as if he were still winded from climbing the stairs. Even so, they were in the Temple, and this man apparently had authority, so Ram said only, “I don’t mind, sir.”

“As for the … blindfolding, it’s better that you … don’t see me just yet. For safety.”

“I understand, sir,” he said, though he didn’t. Why was the man panting so hard?

“You don’t understand anything … Rammash. But that’s not … not your fault. It’s mine. I won’t apologize. It had to be. But it’s … my fault.”

“And who are you, sir?”

“Rammash, please. We’re in … the Temple. Do I sound like a woman? Or a eunuch?”

It was an obvious question. Ram ought to have thought of it himself, if it hadn’t been too absurd to consider. Now that it was said, there was only one appropriate response. It was surprisingly difficult to get down on his knees while blindfolded, but once he was there, touching his face to the floor was simple enough.

The man—the Ensi? The En? With ten blooms between generations, Ram couldn’t guess—said nothing for a time, only took several deep breaths. At last he remarked, “That can’t be comfortable.”

Could he see in the dark? Possibly. Ram rose to a kneel, then awkwardly felt his way back onto the chair. The man waited for him to get back in place, then went on, “We’ve been watching you, Ram. Since the day you arrived at the pyre. Trying to decide … if we could trust you. I still don’t know. But I trust … the God. The question is … can you trust us?”

“I don’t know, my lord. Trust you for what?”

“I wouldn’t trust us,” the voice fretted. “I wish we could do this openly. But we can’t. We really … can’t.”

“What do you want from me, lord?”

“You’ve noticed, haven’t you, that … things are wrong?”

That question could cover an awful lot of ground, but however he took it, there was only one answer. “Yes, you could say that. My lord.”

“We want to set them right.” A pause. “I’m not … explaining this well, am I?”

Ram was not sure if it could be considered blasphemous to tell the vessel of mankind’s salvation that he was being incoherent, even if you were agreeing with him. Mother had taught him what she could about propriety, but she couldn’t possibly have planned for this. At a loss, he settled for, “I’d like to hear more, my lord.”

“There’s a lot … I can’t tell you. It’s not safe. Better not to know. Better not to see. But there has been … usurpation. Theft. Karagi’s line does not control the pyre. That must change. But do you have the … the courage to change it?”

“Courage to do what, my lord?”

“For whatever needs to happen. For setting things right.” Pause, pant. “I’m sorry, I … feel poorly this evening.”

It was a terrifying, on multiple levels, to reflect that the Ensi, or the En, might keel over and die in a sudden fit. Especially while the two of them were alone. “It’s all right, my lord. Don’t strain yourself. But, uh, you hired Ushna to take me on? Is that right?”

“A test, Rammash. A test. You don’t know … how important this is. We need a, a special kind of man. We don’t know if it’s you. But we’ve seen … no better. The God points the way. We follow.”

Ram wondered who we were, but didn’t ask. Instead he said, “Does Gelibara know about this?”

“Gelibara … was the one who suggested you. Selected you. On the day you met.”

“Oh.” This was a lot to expect in return for four coppers. “So, uh, what do I do now? I don’t think I can join the Damadzus anymore.”

“The who?”

“Damadzus, lord. Ushna’s group.” Who had almost certainly never met this man in person, come to think of it. At least, Ram devoutly hoped nobody was stupid enough to allow blackbands direct access to the sacred lineage that kept the pyre alive.

“They’re done,” the man said flatly, with more confidence than Ram had heard from him before. “Gone. Over. We’ll be … revoking their countenance. They betrayed us.”

“I think only Ushna knew about me, lord.” He didn’t think he owed Imbri anything, exactly, after what her father had done, but he wanted to be fair.

“They might have been useful. No longer. We’ll find … another way.”

“Another way? To do what?”

“To get you out. Leave the pyre. You’ll have to go … far away, and not come back. But not yet. Not just yet. Wait.”

“Wait for what? What are you talking about? Did you know that my family needs me? If I don’t keep sending—”

“I know. I know. Gelibara told me all. We will … look after them. If you help us. We will have to. They will use them, if they can. The … enemy. To get you.”

Ram took a deep breath. “I don’t understand. Can you at least tell me who the enemy are, lord?”

“Men like Lashantu. The Lugal. Usurpers. All of them. All enemies.”

You could pick worse people to hate. And Ram didn’t disapprove of the way Shennai had dealt with Lashantu. All the same, this man didn’t seem like the sort to take down Dul Karagi’s elite, even if he was Karagi’s own heir. “My lord, I’m sorry, but I’m only a mason’s son from your pyre’s farthest hearth. I don’t know anything about this. I think you want someone else.”

The voice took a long time to answer. At last he said, “I know that I am not … a strong man. I have never left the Temple. I know nothing, nothing but … the fire. You do not. You know war. Do you know war?”

How could he answer that? “I have been in battle, my lord.”

“It will do. Haranduluz … knows the way. But can you trust? Not me. I am only a man. I don’t … trust myself, barely. But can you trust the God?”

A harder question still. “I don’t know, lord. I have tried to. I don’t think I’ve done a good job of it, really.”

“Nobody does … very well. I have it easy.” He chuckled weakly. “Are you willing to try more? I don’t know … what will happen. You could … you could easily die before your time. It will not be easy. Will you trust the Father of Fires … to point the way? One step at a time?”

Ram’s head still hurt where Ushna had struck it. “Let me make sure I understand you, my lord. You want me to agree to do something for you, but you won’t tell me what, except that it’s dangerous and involves leaving the pyre. You will protect my family—“

“Yours, and Erimana’s.”

“Our family,” Ram amended, “and it will, ah, what will this accomplish, lord?” He didn’t think it would be in good taste to ask what he was going to get out of it.

“Kill the usurpers. Drive them out to die in the wild, and have the reshki suck the marrow out of their bones.” He said it with no hesitation at all. “Is this your wish?”

“Yes, lord. But, please. Let me think it over. I am very tired, and I’ve just learned of all this. Can you give me time to consider your request?”

“I … think so. You will see … the next step of the road ahead of you. In the next few days. You will not understand it. But you … will know it, for what it is. Take what is offered, if you accept.”

“Very well, my lord.”

“Then … good evening, Rammash. Thank you. And … I am sorry.”

He was gone before Ram could ask him just what, exactly, he was apologizing for. Shennai came back into the room scarcely a minute later, tearing off the blindfold and hauling him out with the same mad haste as before. Before he knew it, he was trudging down the Temple steps, feeling dizzy. It was well past sunset, the moon high in the sky.

He returned to barracks to find that he had not been missed. All the talk was of the fire at the north end. Old man Lashantu’s house, they said, was a gutted wreck, and half the family missing. Even Busu seemed to have forgotten the shock of meeting Ushna earlier in the day.

Ram lay down in his bunk and stared at the bottom of the bed above. Ushna was dead, and he would shed no tears. That probably freed him from his obligation to the Damadzus—but also removed his countenance from them. Not that it’d do anything, if Kamenrag ever learned that Ram had been involved in his grandfather’s death. Even if he didn’t, what about Gelibara’s protection? Would that still be good, if he refused to play into whatever wild scheme the man in the Temple was after? The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if he had any choice in the matter at all.

At the moment, he couldn’t have agreed more with Father; damn that yellow god and his meddling, anyway. What had Ram done to deserve this?