The camp is quieter now than it was at sunset. Children have collapsed into piles of furs, mouths open, dreams full of shouting and eagles. Older cousins still circle the fires, picking at bones and gossiping as if gossip is a sacred duty.

  Inside one of the larger yurts, Jinhuang sits very still in a heat that feels almost accusatory.

  The space is too warm, too crowded with objects that suggest expectations—bundles of cloth, a low table, a mirror that has seen too many nervous faces. She has changed into a plain under-tunic, hair unbraided and falling in dark sheets to her collarbones, and she is holding herself in the posture of a Moukopl court portrait: shoulders squared, chin level, hands folded as if they’ve signed treaties.

  The problem is the steppe does not respect portraits.

  Her fingers keep smoothing invisible wrinkles in her lap, as if fabric will obey if she stares hard enough. She has been staring hard for years.

  Behind her, on the felt wall, an old Jabliu bridal veil hangs from a peg—sheer as breath, embroidered with spirals meant to confuse jealous spirits. It looks like something you could throw over a girl and turn her into a myth. Jinhuang eyes it like it might bite.

  The yurt flap snaps.

  Naci pushes through and immediately regrets existing.

  The air inside smells like wool, old smoke, and anxiety. Horohan comes in right behind her, arms crossed, hair loose down her back, expression suggesting she would rather take a cannonball to the thigh than touch a needle.

  And in the middle of the room stands Tseren with a basket of spools, looking eager in the way a man looks when he is about to perform an act of heroism that will make everything worse.

  “I brought thread,” he announces, holding the basket up like a victory banner.

  Horohan stares at him as if he’s just unsheathed a snake. “You brought danger,” she says.

  “It’s thread,” Tseren protests. “It’s harmless.”

  Naci’s gaze goes to her father and she feels a brief, savage affection that makes her throat tighten.

  Then she says, flatly, “Father, you are too clumsy.”

  Tseren’s face crumples, offended. “I am not clumsy.”

  Horohan’s eyes flick to the basket. “Last time you tried to ‘help,’ you tied a knot so tight we had to cut it.”

  Naci steps closer and takes the basket from his hands before he can demonstrate further. “You can help,” she says, gentle like a blade being sheathed. “By sitting. Over there. And not touching anything that can puncture, spill, or ignite.”

  Tseren opens his mouth to argue, glances at Horohan’s expression, and decides he has survived enough wars for one lifetime. He sits.

  The stool creaks in relief, as if it too has opinions about this arrangement.

  Jinhuang watches all of it with wide eyes that want to laugh and cry and are trying to do neither, because she has decided tonight is not for weakness. Tonight is for… whatever a Tepr wedding requires. Stubbornness. Noise. Possibly blood. She isn’t sure yet.

  Naci drops to her knees beside her niece. The motion pulls at the stitches in her ribs; her face tightens for half a breath, then smooths out again. She has become frighteningly good at swallowing pain whole, the way some people swallow pride and call it wisdom.

  “You’re awake,” Jinhuang says, accusing her, as if sleep is a betrayal.

  Naci’s mouth quirks. “It’s hard to sleep when the camp is vibrating with pre-wedding doom.”

  Horohan snorts. “And because you refuse to let anyone else do anything wrong.”

  “I let people do wrong things,” Naci says. “I just prefer to supervise the wrong.”

  Jinhuang’s gaze flicks to Horohan. “You’re helping,” she says, tone skeptical.

  Horohan lifts her chin. “I am here to provide moral support.”

  “You look like you’re here to strangle embroidery,” Jinhuang says.

  Horohan’s mouth twitches. “Also that.”

  Jinhuang looks down at her plain under-tunic, at the empty space where a bride’s offerings should be stacked, where stitched symbols and woven proofs of competence should sit like a wall between her and judgment.

  There is nothing there.

  She lifts her chin, pride and shame braided together. “I didn’t prepare,” she admits, and hates how small the words feel.

  Naci’s expression softens, quick and controlled. “I know,” she says. “You were raised in stone halls where women prove themselves by not sweating. No one handed you a needle and said, ‘This is your worth.’”

  Horohan adds, immediately, “And if they did, you would have stabbed someone.”

  “I would not—” Jinhuang starts, then remembers herself at fourteen and closes her mouth.

  Naci glances around the yurt like she’s surveying a battlefield. “We need something,” she murmurs. “A sash. A veil. Something that says bride and not… displaced clerk.”

  Horohan steps closer to the veil on the wall, pinches the edge between two fingers, and grimaces as if it’s damp. “This thing looks like it will attract spirits.”

  “That’s the point,” Naci says.

  Horohan’s stare says the point is stupid. “Spirits are just dead people with too much time,” she mutters.

  Tseren clears his throat from his stool, trying to sound like a man of wisdom and not a man who was just banned from touching needles. “In my day,” he says, “brides made offerings to show they could keep a home.”

  Jinhuang’s eyes flick to him. “In your day, gods still roamed the earth,” she says politely.

  Tseren pauses. “That is also true.”

  “And you were still terrible with thread,” Horohan adds.

  Tseren bristles. “I can sew.”

  Naci turns to him slowly. “Father,” she says, “the last time you ‘sewed,’ you stitched your own sleeve to your pants.”

  “That was—” Tseren begins.

  “And then mother had to fix it.” Naci continues.

  Tseren glares.

  Jinhuang exhales, a tiny laugh escaping despite herself, and then looks at Naci with sudden suspicion.

  “Auntie,” she says.

  Naci meets her gaze, already bracing.

  Jinhuang’s voice goes sharp. “How are you not surprised,” she demands, “that I want to marry Fol?”

  Horohan’s brows lift. Even Tseren leans forward, drawn by the gravity of gossip.

  Naci’s mouth twitches. “Why would I be surprised?”

  “Because,” Jinhuang says, counting on her fingers as if presenting evidence in court, “for years we hated each other.”

  Naci’s eyes gleam.

  Jinhuang presses on, cheeks warming. “He annoyed me. I told him he looked like a goat.”

  Horohan coughs. “Romantic.”

  “And now,” Jinhuang finishes, glaring, “you’re all acting like this was obvious.”

  Naci’s smile becomes unbearable. “It is obvious,” she says, smug as a cat in a sunbeam.

  Jinhuang’s eyes narrow. “Explain.”

  Naci sits back on her heels, hands folding in her lap with the calm of someone confessing to a crime she is proud of. “Because,” she says lightly, “I’ve been putting you together.”

  Silence.

  Jinhuang blinks. “What.”

  Horohan’s head snaps toward Naci. “You did?”

  Naci nods once, serene. “You think you just kept running into each other? You think you ‘coincidentally’ ended up paired for every task? That the same horse always ‘happened’ to be tied next to yours?”

  Jinhuang stares at her, slowly horrified. “You assigned him to guard me on my first winter.”

  “He was good at it,” Naci says.

  “He complained the entire time.”

  “He was trying to impress you,” Naci replies.

  Jinhuang stares at Naci like she’s seeing her for the first time. “You’ve been… matchmaking.”

  “I’m a Khan,” Naci says. “I matchmake entire regions.”

  Jinhuang’s face does something complicated—outrage, embarrassment, gratitude, and the reluctant realization that, yes, she did always feel safest when Fol was nearby.

  “That’s—” she manages.

  “Manipulative,” Horohan supplies, approving.

  “Strategic,” Naci corrects.

  Tseren shakes his head, half amused, half resigned. “Your mother would have laughed,” he says quietly.

  The words land soft and heavy. For a heartbeat, the yurt is too still.

  Naci’s eyes flick to the veil, to the spirals stitched to confuse jealous spirits. She inhales once, steady. “Yes,” she says, and then—because she refuses to let the air become grief—she adds, “She would also have stabbed me for doing it badly.”

  Horohan snorts. “Your mother would have stabbed you for doing it well too.”

  Horohan leans against a support post, watching Jinhuang with a look that is almost fond and almost feral. “If it helps,” she says, “I also pretended to hate Naci when we first met.”

  Jinhuang’s head snaps up. “You did?”

  Horohan shrugs. “I said she was arrogant.”

  “You said I was a ‘Jabliu flea with delusions,’” Naci lies.

  Horohan smiles. “I did not say that.”

  Naci’s mouth twitches. “You see?” she tells Jinhuang. “We all have traditions.”

  Jinhuang looks between them, then gestures wildly at the empty pile where her offerings should be. “My tradition apparently is arriving unprepared and being bullied by warriors.”

  Horohan says, “Correct.”

  Naci reaches out and taps Jinhuang’s knee, grounding her. “We’ll fix it,” she says. “We’ll steal something.”

  Jinhuang’s eyes widen. “Steal?”

  Horohan looks delighted. “Now we’re talking.”

  Tseren stands halfway, alarmed. “You are not stealing from your own tribe.”

  Naci pushes him gently back down with one hand on his shoulder. “Sit,” she says. “You’re too clumsy for crime.”

  Tseren sputters. “I am—”

  “Clumsy,” Horohan and Naci say in unison.

  Jinhuang stares at them, then—finally—laughs. It’s a bright, shaky sound, like a kettle learning it can sing.

  Naci watches her laugh, and for a moment she looks older, not with years but with responsibility: the strange motherhood of keeping people alive long enough to be ridiculous.

  “Alright,” Naci says, rising carefully. “We hunt embroidery.”

  Horohan cracks her knuckles. “If I die by thread tonight, tell people I died in battle.”

  Jinhuang stands too, squaring her shoulders again, but now it’s less portrait and more person. “If you die by thread,” she says, “I will write it on your grave in the most humiliating script possible.”

  Horohan bares her teeth. “Good. Threats build character.”

  Naci opens the yurt flap. Cold air knifes in. The camp waits outside, dark and full of sleeping mouths and quiet fires.

  They pass Aunt Tali’s yurt first, because of course. Aunt Tali is outside, arm-deep in a sack of grain, yelling at a child who is trying to eat fermented berries like they are candy.

  “You will see spirits,” Aunt Tali warns. “And not the good ones.”

  The child pauses, considers this, then eats another berry.

  Naci calls, “Auntie. We need embroidery.”

  Aunt Tali doesn’t look up. “I need peace.”

  Horohan says, “Jinhuang has nothing.”

  Aunt Tali finally turns, wiping her hands on her skirt. She takes one look at their faces and cackles. “Oh,” she says. “So the mighty Dragon-Tiger Khan and the White Tiger Khatun are defeated by thread.”

  Naci bares her teeth. “Help us. Remember how you helped me back then.”

  Aunt Tali strolls back into her yurt and emerges with a bundle of cloth that smells faintly of smoke and old pride. “This,” she says, slapping it into Naci’s arms, “is one of my wedding sashes.”

  Naci looks down. The sash is embroidered with a scene of a man being dragged by a horse.

  Horohan leans in. “Is that… your husband?”

  Aunt Tali smiles sweetly. “He annoyed me once.”

  Naci snorts. “Perfect.”

  Aunt Lura appears from nowhere, like she’s been summoned by the scent of incompetence. “Not that one,” she scolds immediately. “It’s cursed.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “It’s not,” Aunt Tali argues.

  “It’s cursed,” Aunt Lura repeats, and then, to Naci: “Come.”

  They follow Aunt Lura to Lizem’s yurt, where Lizem is boiling water and staring into the steam like she’s reading the future.

  Lizem looks up as they enter and says, without surprise, “You look like people who are about to do something foolish for love.”

  Horohan says, “It’s for a wedding.”

  Lizem hums. “Same thing.”

  She opens a chest and withdraws cloth—cleaner, finer. A veil with delicate stitchwork along the edge: spirals and small eagles, the pattern subtle enough to not shout, present enough to mean something.

  Naci’s fingers tighten around it. “Thank you,” she says, and the words carry more weight than the veil.

  Lizem’s gaze holds hers a heartbeat too long. There is a shared absence between them that doesn’t need naming.

  “Use it,” Lizem says softly. “Let the girl have something beautiful.”

  Horohan clears her throat, the sound suspiciously rough. “Thank you, Mother. But we’re still missing embroidery gifts,” she says briskly.

  Naci nods and turns toward another fire.

  Kelik’s voice reaches them before her yurt does, loud enough to intimidate wolves.

  “Temej!” Kelik roars. “Borak! If I find out you did anything stupid overseas I will tan you into boots!”

  Temej, seated near the fire with his injured arm propped on a cushion like an insult, says mildly, “Hello, Mother.”

  Borak lifts a hand in greeting, grin too wide, like a man who has absolutely done something stupid overseas.

  Kelik’s eyes narrow. “Why do you look… proud?”

  Borak says, “Why not?”

  Kelik throws a ladle at him. Borak leans aside; the ladle thunks into the dirt. Someone laughs. Kelik’s glare silences them immediately.

  Naci steps into the circle. “Kelik.”

  Kelik’s face shifts—still fierce, but affection flashes in it like a blade caught by firelight. “Naci and Horohan,” she says, then adds, “don’t tell me you need something.”

  Naci lifts the veil bundle. “Embroidery.”

  Kelik’s mouth twists. “I raised idiots,” she says. “None of them is a seamstress.”

  Horohan says, “Same.”

  Kelik huffs. “Fine.” She points at Borak. “You.”

  Borak blinks. “Me?”

  “Your father’s sister was a weaver,” Kelik says. “You used to watch her.”

  Borak opens his mouth, then closes it. “Mother,” he says carefully, “I watched her because she gave me sweets.”

  “I don’t care,” Kelik snaps.

  Temej looks up, eyes tired and amused. “We can’t conjure gifts,” he says.

  Kelik jabs a finger at Naci. “She conjures empires,” she says. “You can conjure a sash.”

  Naci leans in. “We made a deal with spirits,” she says solemnly. “It costs one embroidered horse.”

  Borak looks genuinely pained. “I can draw a horse,” he offers. “With charcoal. On someone else’s cloth.”

  Kelik’s hand lifts. Borak flinches preemptively.

  “Stop,” Naci says quickly, laughing. “He’s useless. We’ll find someone else.”

  Kelik mutters something about men being a punishment from the gods and turns back to yelling at her sons anyway, which is also a form of prayer.

  As Naci and Horohan leave, a sudden low snarl ripples through the grass.

  Horohan stops dead.

  Her head snaps toward the dark beyond the outer ring of yurts. Her shoulders go tense, not with fear but with that sharp predatory focus that makes people step out of her way.

  “Khanai,” she breathes.

  The tiger arrives like a moving shadow. White fur ghost-pale under moonlight, stripes like ink, eyes reflecting fire. She slips into camp with the quiet arrogance of a queen returning to a throne.

  Horohan’s expression floods with fury and relief so violently it’s almost comic.

  “You—” she starts, then seems to remember language exists and chooses violence anyway. She strides up, grabs the tiger by the scruff with both hands—an act that would get most people turned into meat—and yanks her close.

  Khanai blinks slowly, unimpressed.

  “You disappeared,” Horohan hisses. “For a whole season!”

  Khanai sneezes into Horohan’s face.

  Naci chokes on a laugh.

  Horohan wipes her cheek with a grimace. “Where have you been?” she demands of the tiger, as if expecting a confession.

  Khanai shifts, and something small moves beneath her belly.

  Horohan freezes.

  Then, very slowly, she crouches and peers.

  There are babies.

  Tiny white-and-gray lumps pressed to Khanai’s underside, squirming, blind, making faint hungry noises that sound like little mice learning to be tigers.

  Horohan’s face does something strange. Her fury falters. Awe creeps in, unwillingly.

  Then the fury returns, hotter.

  “Who,” Horohan says, voice deadly, “is the father.”

  Naci straightens. “Oh no.”

  Horohan rises like a storm. “I will kill him,” she declares.

  Khanai yawns.

  “It’s an animal,” Naci says quickly, stepping between Horohan and whatever unfortunate male tiger exists in Horohan’s imagination. “This is how it works. The father doesn’t—”

  Horohan’s glare could split stone. “Eagles are loyal to each other,” she says, as if presenting evidence in court.

  Naci stares at her. “Tigers are not eagles.”

  Horohan’s jaw works. “Then eagles are better.”

  “Probably,” Naci concedes. “But you cannot execute the concept of tiger biology.”

  Horohan looks genuinely offended by this limitation.

  Jinhuang’s voice cuts through, sharp with the kind of panic only a bride can muster. “Are you two arguing with a tiger again?”

  Jinhuang stands at the edge of the firelight, arms crossed, veil bundle hugged to her chest like a shield. Her hair is half-braided by Aunt Lura’s assault of the yurt, beads already threaded in. She looks like she might cry, or bite someone, or both.

  “We’re helping,” Naci says immediately.

  Horohan points at Khanai. “She abandoned me.”

  Khanai’s babies squirm.

  Jinhuang stares, then exhales. “Oh,” she says, softening for a heartbeat. “Babies.”

  Horohan says, “Yes. Babies. And a coward father.”

  Khanai flicks her tail like a queen.

  They herd themselves back toward the bridal yurt, collecting what they can—veil, sash, bits of cloth. They still need embroidered offerings, which means they need someone who actually knows how to make thread behave.

  That is how they catch Lanau.

  She is outside her parents’ yurt, face flushed, hands slicing the air as she argues. Her father’s voice booms back. Her mother’s voice is quieter but sharper. Around them, cousins hover, pretending not to listen and failing.

  “I chose to become a shaman,” Lanau snaps. “That means I don’t marry. It means I don’t get traded like a horse. Forget it.”

  Her mother says, “You can be a shaman and still have children.”

  Lanau glares. “I don’t want children.”

  Naci pauses at the edge of the argument, amusement and sympathy mixing in her eyes. She waits until Lanau’s father draws breath for another lecture, then steps forward.

  “Uncle,” Naci says pleasantly, which is often a warning.

  Lanau’s father stiffens. “Khan,” he says, forced respectful.

  Naci smiles brighter. “Lanau is correct,” she says, conversationally. “She does not need to marry.”

  Lanau’s eyes widen. “Naci—”

  Naci continues, “In fact, if you force her, she will haunt your dreams and curse your sheep until they grow two heads.”

  Lanau’s father looks horrified. “She wouldn’t—”

  Lanau bares her teeth. “I would.”

  Horohan folds her arms, enjoying this. “I would also,” she offers helpfully.

  Lanau’s mother looks between them, defeated. “She is too stubborn,” she mutters.

  Naci nods sympathetically. “It runs in the clan.”

  Lanau’s father sighs like a man surrendering a fortress. “Fine,” he grumbles. “No marriage. But she must—”

  “She must sell me her broderies,” Naci says smoothly.

  Lanau blinks. “What.”

  Naci turns to her. “Deal,” she says quietly, so only Lanau hears. “You give Jinhuang embroidered offerings. Proper ones. I will make sure your parents stop trying to sell you into a life you don’t want.”

  Lanau’s gaze sharpens. “You can’t promise that.”

  Naci’s smile turns wolfish. “Watch me.”

  Lanau hesitates, pride warring with relief. Then she exhales through her nose.

  “Fine,” she says. “But I’m not making horses. Everyone makes horses. I will make something impressive. Like—”

  “Like a tiger ripping the throat out of a king,” Horohan suggests.

  Lanau’s eyes light up. “Yes.”

  Jinhuang appears behind Naci, horrified. “No.”

  Naci points at Lanau. “We have no time for something like this. Eagles,” she says quickly. “Make eagles. Lots of eagles. Nobody can argue with eagles.”

  Horohan mutters, satisfied, “Eagles are loyal.”

  Lanau rolls her eyes but nods. “Eagles,” she concedes. “Fine.”

  Her parents watch, confused and slightly frightened, as Lanau storms back into her yurt to gather cloth and thread like a woman preparing for war. Naci turns to Lanau’s father and says sweetly, “Thank you for understanding.”

  Lanau’s father mutters, “I don’t.”

  “You will,” Naci says, and walks away.

  Back in the bridal yurt, the air is again thick with rosewater and dread, but now it has a plan. Lanau dumps embroidered sashes and small cloth squares onto the floor—work she clearly has been hiding for months, the kind of hidden competence shamans pretend not to have. The stitchwork is fine, sharp, alive: eagles mid-dive, winds spiraling, a mountain range rendered in thread like a spine.

  Jinhuang stares at it as if witnessing sorcery. “You had this,” she accuses.

  Lanau shrugs. “I’m not helpless,” she says. “I’m just dramatic.”

  Aunt Tali claps delightedly. “Good,” she says. “A dramatic woman is harder to kill.”

  Aunt Lura begins arranging the offerings. Lizem adjusts the veil’s edge, fingers gentle. Horohan hovers near the entrance, occasionally glancing out at Khanai as if still considering vengeance. Naci kneels beside Jinhuang again and helps braid her hair, hands clumsy but careful, the way a warrior handles a blade they respect.

  Jinhuang’s voice, when it comes, is small. “Do I look… right?” she asks.

  Naci ties off a braid with a strip of cloth and meets her niece’s gaze in the dim light. She thinks of her own wedding robe once repaired by Gani’s hands. She thinks of scars becoming stories. She thinks of the wind, forever trying to rip things apart, and people insisting on tying them back together.

  “Yes,” Naci says quietly.

  Jinhuang swallows hard. Then she nods, once, fierce.

  The veil is ready. The offerings are stacked. The braidwork is almost done. Aunt Tali declares the bride “acceptable.” Aunt Lura declares her “not doomed.” Horohan declares, “If anyone insults her, I will break their legs.”

  Outside, the camp’s sounds have thinned to the soft chaos of night: a baby’s sudden cry, a snort of a horse, the distant clack of someone still chewing gossip between their teeth.

  A shadow pauses at the yurt flap.

  “May I come in?” a voice asks.

  It isn’t a request so much as an attempt at gentleness. Dukar’s voice carries that careful restraint of a man who has spent his life making himself smaller so other people can be bigger.

  Jinhuang’s head snaps up. Horohan’s eyes narrow reflexively, as if any man entering a bride’s yurt is a threat.

  Naci rises and crosses to the flap. She pushes it aside.

  Dukar stands there. He looks briefly ridiculous in the warm light—too tall, too serious, like someone tried to bring a battlefield into a family room.

  He glances past Naci. “Can I see Jinhuang?”

  Naci tilts her head, studying him. There is a small, cruel satisfaction in making her brother ask permission for anything. Then she steps aside. “Two breaths,” she says. “And if you say anything stupid, I throw you out myself.”

  Dukar’s mouth twitches. “Yes, yes.”

  The instant Dukar steps over the threshold, Aunt Tali and Aunt Lura materialize as if they have been hiding under the floorboards. They are already holding cups, already wearing expressions sharpened for celebration.

  “My nephew!” Aunt Tali exclaims, as if she personally forged him. She grabs his cheek in one hand and tugs, inspecting him like meat. “You’re thinner.”

  Aunt Lura pinches his sleeve. “And dirtier. Good. That means you’ve been useful.”

  Dukar endures their affection like a soldier taking arrows: jaw clenched, eyes resigned, posture straight so he doesn’t show where it hurts.

  “I missed you too,” he says politely, and it comes out like a man reading from a script titled How to Survive Women.

  Then Lizem slips in behind them, quiet as a blade sliding back into its sheath.

  Dukar’s expression shifts—softens, briefly. He bows, not to her title, but to her presence.

  “Madam,” he says.

  Lizem reaches up and touches his shoulder with two fingers, as if checking he’s real. “So this is Dukar,” she replies. “You came back with your face attached. Your mother would be disappointed you didn’t at least lose an ear.”

  The joke lands with a small thud of grief and humor mixed together. Dukar exhales through his nose, a sound half-laugh, half-prayer.

  Jinhuang rises. She doesn’t run to him; she isn’t a child anymore. She steps forward with dignity that wobbles at the edges.

  “Uncle,” she says, and her voice warms in a way it rarely does.

  He looks at her and, for a moment, the war drains out of his eyes. “Niece.”

  There is a beat of quiet where even the fire seems to listen.

  Then Dukar’s shoulders tighten, as if he is bracing for a blow he intends to give himself.

  “I came to apologize,” he says.

  Jinhuang blinks. “For what?”

  Dukar’s voice goes lower. The yurt suddenly feels smaller, tighter, as if it remembers too. “For how… I treated you. How Puripal treated you. We were—” He searches for a word that doesn’t excuse. “Cruel. Careless.”

  Naci stays still, watching, letting him bleed his pride in public.

  Jinhuang’s expression flickers.

  “I forgave you a long time ago,” she says simply.

  Dukar’s eyes widen a fraction. “You did?”

  “Yes.” Jinhuang’s mouth tugs, faintly

  Dukar swallows. “Thank you,” he says, and it sounds like he means it in the way a man means air. He clears his throat, eyes flicking down, then back up. “There’s another question.”

  Jinhuang lifts her brows. “If it’s about goats, no.”

  “It’s about people,” Dukar says. “Is Puripal allowed to be present tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” she says. “He can come.”

  Dukar’s breath loosens.

  Jinhuang’s eyes sharpen. “And Ta?”

  Dukar’s mouth twitches. “Ta will be there.”

  “Good,” Jinhuang says, and there’s something stubbornly affectionate in it.

  Dukar nods once, like a vow.

  Naci steps in abruptly, like a door being shut.

  “That’s enough,” she declares.

  Dukar blinks at her. “What?”

  “You,” Naci says, pointing at him, “are a man.”

  Dukar looks down at himself as if checking. “Yes?” Then he points at Tseren who is still sitting in the corner, “so is he.”

  “And you,” Naci continues, voice sharpening into mock outrage, “have been inside the bride’s yurt longer than tradition allows. He is her grandfather and an elder, so he is allowed.”

  Aunt Lura gasps theatrically. Aunt Tali clutches her chest. “Scandal,” she whispers, delighted.

  Dukar’s eyebrows rise. “Since when do you care about tradition?”

  “Since it benefits me,” Naci replies.

  Horohan adds, deadpan, “Since she enjoys ordering you around.”

  Naci glares at Horohan, then turns back to Dukar. “Out,” she says, making a shooing motion like he’s a stubborn chicken. “Go. Before the spirits decide you’re bad luck and eat your eyebrows.”

  Dukar’s lips twitch. “Spirits don’t eat eyebrows. And I was going to ask her if she wrote to Sister Kai Lang.”

  “She did,” Naci says. “Go check on Fol.”

  Dukar pauses mid-step, genuinely thrown. “I don’t even know him.”

  “You will,” Naci says with complete confidence, as if she has already read their future like a battle-map. “Don’t worry. You’ll get along.”

  Dukar gives her a look that says: That sentence has killed men.

  Naci smiles sweetly. “He’s kind.”

  Dukar mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like a prayer to any god willing to intervene. Then he bows to Jinhuang, nods to Lizem, endures a final cheek-pinch from Aunt Tali like a man paying a toll, and ducks out into the cold.

  The flap snaps shut behind him.

  The yurt exhales.

  Jinhuang sits again, hands smoothing her lap, but now her shoulders sit a fraction lower. Something has unknotted.

  Naci turns and points at Lanau, who has been hovering near the edge of the yurt like she’s debating whether family gatherings count as a form of warfare.

  “Lanau,” Naci says. “Bless her.”

  Lanau’s face scrunches. She is all sharp lines and stubborn eyes, her braids threaded with little bones and carved beads that clack softly when she moves.

  Lanau tilts her head. “We should call Konir to be sure.”

  Naci’s mouth tightens. “No.”

  Lanau’s brow lifts. “He’s a better shaman than I am.”

  “He’s also a man who is not from the family,” Naci snaps.

  Horohan’s mouth twists into a grin. “He is a shaman,” she says, “and a eunuch. Which means he’s half a man. It’s fine.”

  Naci glares at Horohan.

  Horohan adds, helpfully, “Also he’s funny. Weddings need comedy or they start bleeding.”

  Tseren clears his throat. “Weddings can bleed regardless.”

  Naci shoots him a look that says: Not helping.

  Lanau’s eyes glitter with mischief. “So it’s fine if he’s only half a man?”

  Horohan shrugs. “It’s fine if he’s useful.”

  Lanau smirks, victorious, and slips out.

  A minute later the yurt flap opens again and Kuan—Konir to the polite, Kuan to everyone who has ever been irritated by him—slides inside like a fox that has learned to wear human clothing.

  He is draped in furs and charms and the smugness of someone who knows he is invited to annoy people. His eyes sweep the room, taking in Jinhuang, the veil, the tension.

  “The bride,” he says, delighted. “Excellent. Nothing says ‘new beginning’ like everyone panicking in wool.”

  Naci’s eyes narrow. “Be respectful.”

  Kuan puts a hand to his chest. “I am always respectful,” he lies.

  Horohan’s mouth twitches. “If you say anything obscene, I will throw you into a snowbank.”

  Kuan grins at her. “Threats are foreplay where I’m from.”

  Horohan’s expression does not change. “I am not flirting.”

  Kuan sighs. “Tragic.”

  He steps toward Jinhuang, tilting his head. “You,” he says, “are too clean. It’s unsettling. You look like you’ve never had to pry blood out of your own fingernails.”

  Jinhuang stares at him. “I have.”

  Kuan’s eyes brighten. “Good. Then you’re qualified.”

  He reaches into his pouch and pulls out a bundle of dried herbs and a little carved bone charm shaped like a bird with its beak open.

  Yile stands just outside, his silhouette framed by cold starlight. He doesn’t step in. He stays in the threshold like he’s unsure whether he’s allowed to exist in warmth.

  Kuan glances back. “Ah,” he says. “He followed.”

  Naci stands up and flaps the yurt. She looks at Yile. “Are you not cold?” she asks.

  Yile’s mouth opens. He closes it again. Then, he says, “I am.”

  “Come in,” Naci says.

  Yile freezes.

  He had expected rejection. He had expected her to remember eight years ago with a sharpness that could cut him. He had expected her to treat him like poison in human form.

  Instead she just… invites him inside like he’s a person.

  He steps in carefully, as if the yurt’s warmth might burn him.

  Kuan hums. “Look at that. Mercy. Disgusting.”

  Naci ignores him. She looks at Yile, really looks: the old elegance sanded down into something quieter, the trauma sitting behind his eyes like a second pupil.

  “You think I would refuse you,” she says, not accusing, just observing.

  Yile swallows. “It would be reasonable.”

  Naci snorts. “I am not reasonable.” She sits back down beside Jinhuang, motioning Yile toward the fire. “You’ve already paid for your crimes,” she says. “And you did nothing to me personally. In fact, you helped me.”

  Yile’s brow furrows. “Did I?”

  “You made me submit,” Naci says, blunt. “You made me bend instead of breaking my neck head-on against the Moukopl Emperor. I hated it. It was also correct.”

  Horohan’s mouth twists as if tasting something sour and true.

  Yile’s gaze lowers. “I was always an enemy of the empire,” he admits softly. “Even when I wore its titles. Even when I served its monster.”

  Naci’s eyes flick to the pot at the edge of the hearth, where someone has left water warming. “You offered me tea once,” she says.

  Yile looks up, startled.

  “I didn’t drink it,” Naci continues. “Because I thought it was poisoned.”

  Kuan makes a delighted sound. “Of course you did.”

  Naci shoots him a look. “And I was wrong,” she says, to Yile. “So. Make it again.”

  Yile blinks. “Now?”

  “Yes,” Naci says, like it’s an order she can give and not a small, strange apology. “And I’m sorry.”

  The word hangs there, rougher than any curse. Naci doesn’t say sorry often. When she does, it’s usually because someone is already dead.

  Yile’s throat works. “I would,” he says carefully, “but I need Moukopl green tea leaves.”

  Horohan pushes off the post. “Wait,” she says, and disappears out of the yurt without another word.

  She returns almost immediately, tossing a small tin into Yile’s lap like she’s throwing ammunition. “Leaves,” she says.

  Yile stares at the tin as if it’s a miracle.

  His hands move to work. They are steady in a way that suggests muscle memory from a thousand nights where tea was the only peace left in a palace full of knives. He sets water to boil, measures the leaves with care that borders on reverence, warms the cups with practiced swirls.

  The act becomes a small ritual against the chaos of their lives.

  Kuan watches with exaggerated solemnity. “Ah yes,” he says. “The ancient art of making hot leaf-water while pretending the world is not on fire.”

  Jinhuang’s lips twitch. “It’s been on fire,” she says.

  The yurt flap lifts again and three figures slide in like gossip given legs: Meicong first, eyes bright with mischief; then Meicao and Meibei.

  They take one look at Yile making tea.

  Yile’s shoulders stiffen. His jaw tightens. He keeps pouring.

  Naci watches him closely. Horohan watches too, the way a predator watches a wounded animal deciding whether it will live.

  Meicong leans in, eyes glittering. “Don’t cry,” she sings, because she can feel it—that tremor under his composure, that fragile place where joy and relief are too close to grief.

  Yile sets the first cup down in front of Jinhuang with a formal little bow of the wrists. Then one for Naci. Then Horohan. Then, reluctantly, one for Kuan, because even demons get tea apparently. Then the others.

  His movements are perfect. His face is composed.

  But his eyes go glassy for half a breath, like a man staring at a door he never thought would open.

  He lifts the final cup to his own lips, inhales the steam, and the scent of green leaves and old memory hits him hard enough to buckle something inside.

  He swallows it down like he has swallowed down so many things.

  He smiles—small, almost invisible—and fights not to tear up from relief.