The yurt is too warm. Too many bodies, too much wool, too much smoke caught in felt and refusing to leave. The air tastes like lamb fat and tea that has been boiled too long. A braid of garlic hangs near the door. A ceremonial spear leans in the corner.

  Horohan’s cloak is tossed over a trunk. Naci’s boots are half under a pile of blankets. Someone—no one will admit who—has left a child’s wooden horse on the floor in exactly the place a ruler would step if she wanted to keep both knees.

  Naci sits cross-legged on a low cushion, her back against a folded saddle, and uses her hands like puppets.

  “No,” her right hand says in a squeaky voice, index finger bent like a snout. “Do not eat the sun-seed. It is imperial property. It will give you a stomachache and a tax bill.”

  Her left hand—wider, knuckles scarred—answers in a deeper voice. “I am a fox. I cannot read. I will eat the tax bill.”

  The three-year-old in front of her leans forward with the solemn concentration of a priest watching a ritual. Her hair is tied up in a topknot that keeps falling sideways as if even her own scalp refuses discipline. She smells like the kind of sweet Horohan bribed her with earlier.

  Horohan sits behind, pretending not to watch. Her eyes follow the story anyway, amused.

  “And so,” Naci says, letting her hands fall still, “the fox sits at the gate and watches the grass beyond. The grass is free and cold and honest. The iron lanes are warm and… tidy.”

  “Tidy,” Horohan repeats, disgusted.

  The child frowns at the word, considers it, then points a small finger at Naci like an indictment.

  “Did the fox win?” she asks.

  It’s the only question that matters.

  Naci pauses.

  For a heartbeat, the fire pops, and the yurt’s shadows twitch like listening spirits. Naci’s mouth lifts—sharp, quick, a smile like a knife catching light.

  “The fox lived,” Naci says instead, softly.

  “Lived,” the child repeats, rolling it around like a pebble.

  Naci nods as if this is a victory. “Yes. The fox lived long enough to learn.” She tilts her head. “And the fox did something clever at the end.”

  Horohan’s blade stills. “Oh?” she says, and there’s a warning in it: Don’t change the story.

  Naci ignores warnings by profession.

  “In the last winter,” Naci tells the child, “when the iron branches try to knit the sky shut… the fox doesn’t fight the orchard. Not with teeth. Teeth are for wolves and fools.”

  The child’s eyes widen. She likes wolves. She likes fools too.

  “The fox teaches the pups—your age, little tyrant—how to listen for wind between the branches. How to find the thin spots.” Naci’s fingers make a delicate gesture, like parting threads. “The fox shows them how to crawl out when the guards are busy counting. One by one.”

  “Like stealing,” the child whispers, delighted.

  “Like stealing,” Naci agrees, entirely too pleased with herself. “And when the masked men come back with their papers and their circlets, they find… empty warmth.” She makes her voice dramatic. “A beautiful camp. Neat lanes. Fires burning. No people. Only collars left behind in the snow, like shed skins.”

  The girl claps once, a small sound swallowed by wool. “Again,” she demands.

  “Tomorrow,” Naci says, already bargaining like a stateswoman. “If you go to sleep without biting anyone.”

  “I bite,” the child says proudly, as if announcing a title.

  “That’s my girl,” Horohan murmurs.

  The child’s face scrunches suddenly, the way it does when small minds trip over large absences. She looks around the yurt.

  “Where is Grandpa?” she asks.

  The question lands like a stone in a bowl.

  Naci’s expression does not break. It threatens to, for a fraction of a breath—something passes behind her eyes, old grief with the bite still in it. Then she smooths it down with the same practiced motion she uses to swallow pain whole.

  “He joined Grandmother,” Naci says.

  The child nods without fully understanding.

  The yurt flap rustles.

  Jinhuang appears at the entrance, face half-lit by firelight, hair braided. Fol ducks behind her, tall and trying to make himself smaller out of instinctive respect for other people’s homes.

  “There you are,” Jinhuang says, relieved and offended at once. She looks at the child. “Khulgana. You disappeared.”

  “I was hunted by aunties,” the child says gravely.

  Fol coughs, trying not to laugh. “That’s… accurate.”

  Jinhuang steps in, bows slightly to Horohan without thinking, then remembers she doesn’t need to bow to anyone, and looks irritated with herself.

  Naci leans back. “I fed her lies and sugar,” she announces. “She’s yours now.”

  The child scrambles into Jinhuang’s arms. Jinhuang holds her tightly, and for a moment, her face softens into something that looks like peace.

  Fol nods at Naci. “Thank you,” he says, earnest.

  Naci waves him off. “Pay me in grandchildren who won’t try to overthrow me.”

  Horohan laughs. “Too late,” she murmurs, eyes on the child.

  Jinhuang gives them both a look that says: If she becomes a tyrant, it’s your fault.

  Then they’re gone, yurt flap falling shut behind them, the night air rushing in for a second like a cold witness.

  Naci exhales.

  Horohan sets her blade down. “You changed it,” she says.

  “I softened it,” Naci replies.

  Horohan’s gaze is sharp. “Why?”

  Naci looks into the fire as if it might answer.

  Horohan doesn’t argue. She only reaches out and hooks two fingers through Naci’s sleeve.

  ...

  Morning comes without apology.

  Something heavy thumps against the yurt wall. Once. Twice.

  A sharp cry cuts the air—eagle, offended, theatrical.

  Uamopak’s shadow flickers through the smoke hole like a thrown blade.

  Naci sits up, hair a mess, and sees the shape of Horohan already half-dressed, moving with quiet purpose.

  Horohan’s back is to her. She’s outside the yurt, one knee bent, shoulders hunched against the cold as she tends to Khatan—her eagle—checking jesses, smoothing feathers, murmuring something that sounds like a scolding and a blessing tangled together.

  Uamopak hops into the yurt with the entitled stomp of a creature that has never once paid taxes and still expects worship. The great bird’s head tilts, one golden eye fixing on Naci with the intensity of a lover demanding attention.

  “You,” Naci croaks, voice thick with sleep. “Good morning to you too.”

  Uamopak answers by snapping its beak near her ear, not quite biting. A warning. A complaint. A love letter in the language of predators.

  Horohan’s voice floats in from outside, dry. “He’s jealous.”

  “I notice,” Naci mutters.

  Uamopak flares its wings, feather tips brushing the yurt wall. It makes itself huge, as if size can replace affection. It stares at Horohan.

  Naci reaches for the pouch of dried meat near her bedding—the kind cut thin and salted until it could survive a siege. She offers a strip to Uamopak.

  The eagle accepts it with delicacy. It tears, swallows, then immediately leans closer to Naci’s face, demanding more.

  “You are not a state,” Naci tells it. “You don’t get unlimited tribute.”

  Uamopak taps her cheek with its beak. Lightly. Then harder, as if reminding her that empires also start with entitlement.

  Outside, a Banner clears his throat with exaggerated politeness.

  “Khan,” he calls. “Updates.”

  Naci sighs, drags herself upright. Her body complains in small, precise ways—old bruises, old cuts, the lingering stitch of a rib that never quite forgave her. She pulls on clothes that smell like horse and smoke: a heavy coat, a belt, the soft weight of authority.

  Horohan steps in with Khatan perched on her arm. Uamopak immediately puffs up like a rival spouse.

  “Oh, for the love of—” Naci begins.

  Uamopak interrupts by hopping onto her shoulder, claws digging through fabric just enough to remind her who owns her skin.

  Naci winces. “Gentle,” she warns.

  The eagle softens, barely.

  Horohan’s mouth curves. “He’s learning diplomacy.”

  “By threat,” Naci says.

  “That’s most diplomacy,” Horohan replies.

  The Banner begins reading from outside, voice steady as if he hasn’t delivered these kinds of reports with arrows still falling.

  “Tepr: three clans dispute grazing rights near the Bitter Lakes. No blood yet. The elders request arbitration.”

  Naci nods once, chewing on a piece of dried meat herself.

  “Yohazatz: caravan road from Kamoklopr to Qixi-Lo is stable. Two bandit groups were—” the Banner hesitates— “persuaded to become toll collectors instead of thieves.”

  Horohan snorts. “We’re civilizing crime.”

  The Banner continues. “Seop archipelago: Fort repairs progress. Boat-post routes hold. Lang requests additional timber and—”

  “—more patience,” Naci finishes, because Lang always wants that and no one can ship it.

  She reaches for the felt map spread across a low table, its edges weighted with stones. Ink lines stitch the world into something understandable: the Tepr steppes like a broad hand, the Yohazatz desert networks like veins, the Seop islands scattered like broken teeth in the sea. Tiny dots mark forts. Curved arrows mark boat routes, water turned into road.

  Uamopak leans down and pecks at one of the ink dots—the Bo’anem harbor—hard enough to leave a tiny tear in the felt.

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  Naci stares at it. “Do not,” she tells the eagle, offended. “That one is expensive.”

  Uamopak pecks again, as if insisting.

  Horohan watches, amused. “Maybe he doesn’t like islands.”

  “Maybe he senses future trouble,” Naci murmurs.

  Uamopak flutters, flaps once, and snatches Naci’s braided cord from her shoulder—yanks it like a child tugging a parent’s sleeve.

  Naci swats at him lightly. “I am listening.”

  Horohan steps closer and, with zero warning, offers Uamopak a strip of meat.

  Uamopak accepts.

  Then immediately turns and presses its head into Horohan’s palm as if to say: I tolerate you. For payment.

  Naci stares. “Traitor.”

  Horohan’s eyes gleam. “He has good taste.”

  The Banner finishes the last of the updates and withdraws, relief audible.

  Naci exhales, scratches Uamopak’s neck feathers absentmindedly. The eagle closes its eyes like a cat receiving worship.

  “You’re ridiculous,” Naci tells it.

  Uamopak leans into her fingers as if agreeing.

  ...

  By midmorning, the camp is awake in full.

  The three adult white tigers move through it like living myths that have learned how to behave around children—mostly.

  Khanai’s pups are no longer pups. They are sleek, scarred, enormous, their coats bright as bone under the sun. Their eyes hold the ancient confidence of apex predators who have never once had to justify their existence. They have been divided among the camp.

  Jinhuang’s tiger lies near her yurt, tail curled around the entrance like a territorial line. Khulgana sits against its shoulder with a piece of bread in her hand, feeding it crumbs as if she is feeding a pet dog instead of a creature that could unmake a man in seconds.

  Jinhuang stands nearby, arms crossed, wearing the expression of a mother who has realized she is competing with a tiger for her own child.

  “Come here,” Jinhuang calls, sweetly.

  The child glances up. “Why?”

  “Because I am your mother,” Jinhuang says, as if this should be enough.

  The tiger’s ear flicks. It shifts, very deliberately, so its massive body blocks Jinhuang’s path by accident that is not an accident.

  Jinhuang’s eye twitches.

  Naci watches from a distance and murmurs to Horohan, “The tiger is doing it on purpose.”

  Horohan nods solemnly. “He inherited it from me.”

  Jinhuang steps closer anyway, refusing to be outmaneuvered by a cat with no concept of law. The tiger lowers its head, presses its forehead into the child’s side in a gesture that is both affection and claim.

  Jinhuang exhales slowly. “I carried you,” she says to her daughter, like she is arguing with the universe. “I fed you. I taught you words.”

  The child looks up, considering. “Tiger taught me bite,” she says proudly.

  Jinhuang makes a strangled noise.

  Naci laughs and immediately regrets it when Jinhuang’s gaze snaps toward her like a spear.

  “Do not,” Jinhuang warns.

  Naci raises her hands. “I am innocent. I did not teach the tiger biting.”

  Horohan, under her breath: “She taught the child biting.”

  Jinhuang’s glare deepens.

  Across the camp, Puripal’s tiger moves like a pale ship through grass. Puripal sits on its back as if he has always belonged there—blind eyes covered with a cloth wrap, posture relaxed, one hand resting on the tiger’s neck. He looks like a dethroned god being carried by his last worshipper.

  Dukar walks alongside, watching the tiger’s careful path as it avoids children, avoids fire pits, avoids people with the annoyed competence of a creature that knows it is stronger than everyone and still chooses restraint.

  “How does it know where you want to go?” Dukar asks, genuinely puzzled. “You don’t speak.”

  Puripal tilts his head toward Dukar’s voice, mouth curling. “I do speak.”

  “You don’t speak to her,” Dukar clarifies.

  Puripal pats the tiger’s shoulder. The tiger turns left without hesitation.

  Dukar stares. “That’s—”

  “—either magic,” Puripal says, “or attention. Both are rare commodities. I recommend them.”

  The tiger pauses briefly, then steps around a cluster of Banners as if navigating a crowded street. Puripal’s hand shifts subtly, fingers tightening once against fur.

  The tiger adjusts course.

  Dukar’s brows rise. “You steer it with… touch.”

  Puripal smiles faintly. “I have to do something with my hands now that I can’t glare people into obedience.”

  Dukar snorts. “You still do.”

  “I can feel them flinch,” Puripal says calmly, “when I turn my head. It’s satisfying.”

  Nearby, Temej’s tiger emerges from behind a yurt like a snowstorm with teeth.

  And immediately, it sees Kuan.

  Kuan is walking across the camp with the casual swagger of a man who has survived palaces and wars and still thinks the greatest thrill is annoying people. He holds a small pouch of dried fish, presumably stolen from someone who will later swear it walked away on its own.

  The tiger’s lip curls. A low growl vibrates the air.

  Kuan stops, looks at it, and beams. “Ah,” he says brightly. “My favorite critic.”

  Temej, standing a few steps away, rubs his forehead. “Don’t,” he says.

  Kuan ignores him. He kneels slightly—just enough to look respectful without actually being respectful—and offers the tiger a piece of fish.

  “Snack?” Kuan says, voice gentle like he’s bribing a judge. “For you, fur judge. You look like you’re about to sentence me for crimes against dignity.”

  The tiger stares at the fish.

  Then it looks at Kuan.

  Then it closes its jaws with a quiet click that says no.

  Kuan’s smile falters as if he has been personally betrayed.

  “You refuse?” he whispers, scandalized. “In front of witnesses?”

  Temej’s mouth tightens. “It doesn’t like you.”

  “I am lovable,” Kuan argues.

  “You are loud,” Temej corrects. “There’s a difference.”

  The tiger takes one slow step forward. Its eyes do not leave Kuan’s face.

  Kuan straightens, offended now on principle. “Fine,” he says, stuffing the fish back into the pouch. “I see how it is. I offer peace and you choose hostility. Very well.”

  He points at the tiger like declaring war. “I swear a vendetta,” he says solemnly, “against the concept of feline integrity. It is unnatural. It is a lie. A proper predator should be corruptible.”

  Temej stares at him, expression flat in the way only someone deeply tired can manage.

  “You are ridiculous,” Temej says.

  ...

  Lang arrives in the camp. The Seop Banners behind him look slightly wrong under the steppe sky. They walk with sea-people balance—hips loose, knees ready—like the ground is always moving beneath them. A few of the older Tepr women watch them the way they watch unfamiliar horses.

  Lang bows, not low, but clean, respectful, with that Seop discipline that says he will not kneel to anyone’s ego, only to their position.

  “Khan,” he says.

  “Banner,” Naci replies, and the word is not a title here so much as a welcome.

  Respect moves through the camp in small gestures. A warrior taps his fist to his chest. A few children stare wide-eyed at the Seop guests, already deciding which accent sounds funniest.

  Naci motions him closer, toward the map. “How are the boats?”

  Lang taps a line of stitched thread across the little islands. “Boats-as-postal-desert is fully operational,” he says, tasting the phrase like he’s chewing on a rock. “We run routes like caravans. Pirate suppression holds. The surviving crews either submit or vanish into myth. Tax collection… works. It’s like trying to milk eels, but the coin arrives.”

  “And the coastal militia?” Naci asks.

  Lang’s eyes go slightly distant, remembering a hundred arguments and the smell of harbor blood. “Integrated,” he says. “Delicately. Like stitching a wound while the patient keeps biting you. Half of them want to be heroes, half want to be forgiven, and all of them want to be paid on time.”

  “Do they hate you?” Kuan calls from somewhere behind a stack of firewood, voice bright as theft. “Be honest. Hate is the most stable currency.”

  Lang doesn’t even turn. “They hate me a manageable amount.”

  “Excellent,” Kuan says. “That’s the sweet spot. Any less and you’re not doing your job.”

  Naci claps Lang once on the shoulder. “You’ll eat,” she says. “You’ll drink. And you’ll tell me later what you’re not telling me now.”

  Lang’s mouth twitches. “As you command.”

  ...

  Borak patrols the perimeter like he’s expecting an assassination attempt from the concept of celebration itself. He checks blades, checks knot-tying on tents, checks the faces of people he’s known since childhood as if any of them might suddenly become an enemy in disguise.

  A young Banner tries to smile at him. Borak stares until his smile dies of embarrassment.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, weakly.

  “I’m checking your soul,” Borak replies without blinking.

  “My soul?” he squeaks.

  Borak leans in. “It’s small,” she says. “But it’s there. Congratulations.”

  Kuan hears two elders begin to debate Seop “softness” and Tepr “barbarism” and immediately interrupts with a story about a horse that fell in love with a cooking pot. By the time he’s done, both elders are laughing too hard to remember why they were angry.

  Yile supervises tea with the solemnity of a priest preparing a funeral rite. He sits with a kettle like it’s a weapon. His hands are steady. His expression is calm.

  Sen watches him from across the fire and murmurs to Pragya, “He’s too serene.”

  Pragya hums thoughtfully, testing broth temperature with the seriousness of a surgeon checking a pulse. “Is he planning something?”

  Yile doesn’t look up. “Yes,” he says. “Tea.”

  Pragati, who has claimed the knives like a warlord claims territory, points one at a boy who reaches for a blade with the wrong grip.

  “Touch it incorrectly,” Pragati says sweetly, “and I will remove your hand and label it ‘preventive medicine.’”

  The boy freezes. “That’s not how medicine works.”

  Pragati smiles wider. “It will, if you bleed enough.”

  Sen is everywhere without ever seeming to hurry, coordinating food safety like she’s triaging an army. She sniffs stew, pokes dough, mutters to herself about fermentation the way some people mutter prayers.

  Long cloths are spread on the ground. Platters of roasted meat are dragged in. Bowls of fermented milk are placed like offerings. Fires crackle. Stars sharpen overhead.

  Seating becomes a power diagram.

  Naci sits central because everyone keeps orbiting her as if she’s the only sun available. She tries to pull people closer, to blur ranks, to make it look informal.

  Lang sits near her, close enough to speak without shouting. Horohan sits close enough that anyone with eyes can see her claim without needing words. Borak sits angled toward the perimeter, still half on guard. Dukar sits with the easy sprawl of a man who can relax only because he has decided no one here can kill him without permission. Puripal arrives carried by his tiger like the parody of a saint on a pale altar. He slides off with practiced familiarity, lands with a hand on the tiger’s shoulder, and aims his head in the direction of voices like he’s listening for lies. Ta drops down near him, already chewing something, already smirking at nothing in particular.

  Kuan sits where he pleases, which is to say wherever annoyance will be most effective. Temej sits a few steps away from Kuan’s radius, his tiger planted behind him like a white, judgmental wall. The tiger’s eyes follow Kuan as if tallying sins.

  Kuan lifts his cup toward it. “To our mutual hatred,” he says solemnly.

  The tiger blinks once, slow. Disapproval distilled.

  Kuan shudders theatrically. “It judges my karma.”

  Temej doesn’t even look. “It judges your smell.”

  Yile pours tea with careful grace. He offers cups in a deliberate order, as if rank still matters in the small rituals. When he reaches Lang, Lang accepts with a nod that is almost respectful, then realizes what he’s doing and looks annoyed at himself.

  The fermented milk makes its rounds.

  Lang takes a sip because refusing is rude and also potentially suicidal in a steppe camp.

  His face holds for three heartbeats.

  Then his expression collapses like a siege tower.

  “It’s…,” he says carefully, searching for diplomacy.

  Naci’s eyes gleam. “Say it.”

  Lang swallows like he’s making peace with his own death. “It tastes like bathwater,” he says, voice strained.

  Silence. Then laughter explodes around the fire.

  Naci lifts her bowl, unoffended. “That’s our national fragrance,” she declares. “You get used to it. Or you die. Both are traditional.”

  Lang coughs, still choking down the taste. “I didn’t expect dairy to be my downfall,” he mutters.

  Somewhere across the circle, a young Banner—too brave, too foolish—tries to flirt with Naci casually, offering her a skewered piece of meat like it’s a poem.

  “Khan,” he says, “this cut is the best. Like you.”

  Naci opens her mouth, ready to mock him.

  Horohan smiles politely.

  The temperature around the fire drops by a degree, as if the world itself has decided to remember primordial winter.

  The young Banner’s hand trembles. He sets the skewer down in front of Naci like an offering to a dangerous god and backs away without making eye contact.

  Kuan watches, delighted. “Horohan,” he murmurs. “Your smile is a weapon.”

  Horohan takes a slow sip of tea. “Everything is a weapon in the Kamoklopr desert,” she replies.

  Kuan looks around as if to make sure they are not in the desert without his knowing.

  Politics weaves in between jokes like thread between stitches.

  Lang reports Seop stability and resentment management without drama.

  Naci speaks about “regional Banner autonomy” like it’s a normal dinner topic.

  “We let regions run themselves,” she says, tearing meat with her teeth because she refuses to become the kind of ruler who needs someone else to chew for her. “Banners oversee. Keep roads safe, keep posts moving, keep taxes consistent. But the law—” she points her knife at the map behind her as if stabbing a concept— “the law is one spine, not ten squabbling ribs.”

  Sen nods thoughtfully. “If the spine breaks—”

  “It doesn’t,” Naci says, simply.

  Dukar smirks. “She says that like she doesn’t break spines for practice.”

  Naci smiles sweetly. “Only when they deserve it.”

  Khulgana climbs into Naci’s lap halfway through the feast like she owns the Khan. She has a piece of bread in one hand and a smear of grease on her cheek like war paint.

  “Story,” she demands, mouth full.

  Lang stiffens, alarmed, unsure if he should ask whose child this is.

  Khulgana leans closer, eyes bright. “Tell tiger story. Tiger who ate tax collector.”

  Naci’s eyes flick to Lang. A wicked grin starts.

  Lang says quickly, “Please don’t.”

  “I will tell it later,” Naci promises the child.

  Dolma sits at the edge of the circle like a shadow that has agreed to behave.

  She watches the fire, eyes reflecting it, and says quietly, “Fate is a road no one walks alone.”

  The line lands too close to prophecy.

  Naci laughs too loudly. “Fate can walk behind me,” she says. “It can carry my bags.”

  A few people laugh with her, grateful for the release.

  Lanau watches Dolma with the stillness of a shaman assessing another shaman. Belief is a weapon. So is doubt.

  Dolma meets Lanau’s gaze and for a moment, something passes—recognition, perhaps, or the faintest respect.

  ...

  After the loudest part, Naci steps away for air.

  The cold bites at her cheeks and feels clean after smoke and laughter. The stars above the plateau are too sharp, too many, like the sky is showing off.

  Dukar follows her without being asked. He stands beside her, hands shoved into his coat, and they look out at the dark grass.

  For a while they don’t speak. They don’t need to. Silence between siblings can be its own language.

  Finally Dukar says, simply, “He would have liked this.”

  Naci’s throat tightens once. She doesn’t dramatize it. “He would have yelled,” she replies.

  Dukar’s mouth twists. “He would have yelled at the stars too.”

  Horohan steps out behind them, joins without interrupting. For a moment, the North Khan doesn’t look like a title. She looks like a woman who remembers being a girl in a torn robe, watching the horizon and wanting to set it on fire.

  Kuan appears out of nowhere, as he always does, like a bad omen with good timing.

  “He’d be furious you’re being sentimental,” Kuan announces.

  Naci exhales a laugh. “He’d be furious I’m not working.”

  Dukar adds, “He’d be furious, period.”

  Kuan nods solemnly. “The only stable emotion.”

  Then, from the perimeter, a sound cuts through the night.

  Hooves. Too fast.

  A Banner scout rides in like he’s fleeing a god. His horse is lathered, nostrils flaring, eyes rolled white. Dust cakes the scout’s face so thick it looks like ash.

  He doesn’t slow properly. He almost falls off when he dismounts.

  Borak is there instantly, knife half out, eyes sharp. Warriors rise around the fires. Hands go to weapons. Laughter dies mid-breath as if someone has strangled it.

  The scout’s voice cracks. “Khan—”

  Naci steps forward, and the camp seems to step with her.

  The scout swallows, struggling to drag the words out of lungs that have been running for days.

  Then they see him.

  Zhou Liwei arrives escorted by Banners. He looks like a man dragged out of a disaster that lasted years and refused to finish. Blood stains his sleeve dark. Sand crusts the corners of his mouth. His eyes are too old for his face, the eyes of someone who has watched cities become machines that eat their own.

  He stops at the edge of the firelight, and for a heartbeat, the flames throw his shadow huge across the ground, as if the camp is being visited by something larger than one man.

  Khulgana—woken by the shift, carried out half-asleep—clings to Naci’s coat, sensing the change the way animals sense storms. Her small voice trembles.

  “Aunt…,” she whispers, “is it war?”

  Naci looks down at her, and her expression softens.

  “It might be,” Naci says gently, without lying.