Temujin goes around the circle and rattles off names, but I don’t remember any of them, aside from Inkar’s brother, Chanar, and the Bone Reader, Borte, who looks surprisingly younger in the strange blue glow of the bonfire. In fact, her face is completely free of wrinkles. She can’t be much older than I am. “You—how did you do that?” I stammer.
“Makeup.” She holds out her hands, which are streaked brown and white. “No one would pay to consult a young bone reader.”
My brow crinkles even further as my gaze sweeps around the circle again, taking in each face. Temujin claimed his followers were scarred and downtrodden like me, but they appear to be the picture of health. I shoot him an accusatory scowl.
“Not all wounds can be seen,” he reminds me.
“Like my and Chanar’s,” Inkar chimes in. “And Oyunna is a courtesan in the Sky Palace.” Inkar motions to a girl sitting in the center of the group. She’s unusually tall, and her raven hair spills across her freckled shoulders. Something inside me stills at Inkar’s words. Oyunnaisa courtesan. Not was.
“She works there still?” I blurt.
Oyunna pins me in place with searing, kohl-lined eyes. “Someone must gather information from the high court. Who do you think sent word to Temujin that the zurig was being wheeled out during the Qusbegi Festival? You didn’t think it was a coincidence he rescued you so quickly, did you?”
Oyunna says all of this with cool nonchalance, as if her task is no different than polishing floors or grooming horses. But her eyes are backlit with fire, and her heart-shaped lips curl into a snarl. “I may provide the Sky King’s pleasure now, but someday it will bemypleasure to chop his manhood from between his legs.”
The group roars with laughter, and I find myself laughing too. The knot in my chest unwinds a fraction.
“I have somebusinessto attend to in Ashkar.” Temujin throws me a meaningful look. “Who wants to take care of Enebish while I’m gone?”
Inkar is the only one who raises her hand, sincetake care of Enebishclearly means babysit. “She can stay with me and Chanar.”
Her brother groans from across the fire. “You can’t just volunteer our tent.”
“Technically, I’m your older sister, which makes me head of the family, so, yes, I can.”
“You’re three minutes older!”
Inkar smiles brightly at him. “And three minutes wiser.” She turns to me. “Don’t mind him. He just takes a while to warm up.”
“That seems to be the case with everyone,” I mutter as the other Shoniin resume whispering and throwing cagey glances at me.
Inkar waves a dismissive hand at the group. “This is how it always is with new recruits. You’d think they’d be kinder, since they’ve all been in your shoes, but it seems to be a rite of passage to intimidate the newest members.”
“Especially when that newest member is Kalima trash,” a boy with muddy-brown hair calls.
“We don’t take kindly to spies,” another girl hisses.
I nearly snap back at her, but I press my lips together because, technically, Iama spy—or was.
“Quit being so paranoid,” Inkar chides. “More than half of you were imperial warriors.” She plunks down on a log next to the crackling blue bonfire and pats the space beside her.
I step back instead of forward. “I’m so exhausted. Perhaps I’ll just head to bed….” I would rather return to my freezing lean-to than wade farther into this den of vipers.
“You think we’re going to let you poke around our tents unsupervised?” Oyunna stands and prowls toward me. “Take a seat, Enebish. The fun is just beginning.” She fists the back of my tunic and tugs me down between her and Inkar.
There’s a long moment of silence. My traitor’s mark tingles as the Shoniin inspect it from every angle.
“No sense wasting time.” Oyunna turns to me with a clap. “I have lots of questions about that frigid harpy you call a sister. And the Kalima.”
“Oyunna!” Inkar reaches around me and smacks the back of Oyunna’s head.
“What?”
Inkar hits Oyunna again, sending her cascade of black hair flying. “Now isn’t the time to interrogate the poor girl. She just arrived. And she’s been through hell today. She needsfriends.”
“Well, she came to the wrong place for that.”
“Ignore her, Enebish,” Inkar says to me. “Oyunna isn’t always so insensitive and insufferable.”
