“Will the princess ever go back?” a new voice asked.

I looked up to my left, startled. Four more children had slipped in and crouched on their knees at the entrance of the tent.

“I think she’ll try,” I answered.

Effiera breezed in from behind, clapping her hands and shooing them off.

“Here we go,” she said, and I turned to see three more women standing at the back of the tent, their arms piled with fabrics. Among them were soft leathers of every shade—tans, browns, and fawns, and some dyed in purples, greens, and reds. Another woman held accessories like belts, scarves, and scabbards in her arms.

My heart pounded, and I wasn’t sure why, but then I knew—before they even unfolded them.

Barbarian clothes. These weren’t like the ones Calantha wore, made of light and delicate fabrics, brought in on Previzi caravans. I looked at Effiera uncertainly. Her expression was resolute. I was sure it wasn’t what the Komizar had in mind, but somehow these fabrics seemed right. It was the same strange feeling I had felt the first time I rounded the bend and saw Terravin. A feeling of rightness. Clothing, of course, was not the same as a home, I reminded myself. “All I need is something simple, trousers and a shirt. Clothes I can ride in,” I said.

“And that you’ll have, and a simple change of clothes as well,” Effiera answered, and with a quick wave of her hand, the women moved in, a whirl of motion, and began measuring and pinning together a basic riding outfit.

*   *   *

Kaden and I walked back toward the Sanctum. Effiera promised to send the two outfits I had ordered with Aster later today after a few alterations had been made. The fear I had carried ever since I had crossed the bridge into Venda was momentarily lifted. My brief time in the tent, first with the children, and then with the women as they held up fabrics, vests, shirts, and trousers, was a soothing balm. I felt less like an outsider, and I hoped I could hang on to that feeling.

“It seems foolish to spend money on clothing when there’s so much need elsewhere,” I said, still questioning the Komizar’s loose purse.

“How do you think Vendans go about their everyday lives? They have jobs and professions and mouths to feed. I gave Effiera twice what she would get from anyone else. Making clothing is how she survives.”

“Effiera? Do you know every shopkeeper’s name in Venda?”

“No. Just hers.”

“So you’ve brought other young ladies to her?”

“As a matter of fact, I have.”

He didn’t elaborate, and his silence made me wonder who they were. More visitors of the Komizar’s or young ladies of his own fancy?

“Why are we going back already?” I asked. “It’s still early. I thought you wanted me to see your city. I’ve seen only a small part.”

“The Komizar has some matters for me to look after in the Tomack quarter.”

“Isn’t that what the quarterlords are for?”

“Not this matter. It has to do with soldiers.”

“I could go along with you.”

“No.”

His reply came hot and clipped and not like Kaden at all. I turned and gave him a long dissecting stare.

“I’ll take you back another way,” he offered. “Past some of the more interesting ruins.”

A compromise, because whatever was in this Tomack quarter, he didn’t want me to see it. Again we traveled down narrow lanes, alleyways, and some paths that seemed little more than rabbit trails, jumping over rain-washed gullies and slipping on trampled dead grass. We came at last to a wide, well-traveled street, and Kaden walked me over to a large cauldron bubbling over a fire. There were rough wooden benches scattered in a circle around it, and an old man offered mugs of the brew for a modest price.

“It’s thannis,” Kaden said. “A tea brewed from a weed.” He bought one for each of us, and we sat down on one of the benches. “Thannis is another thing that Venda has in abundance,” he explained. “It grows almost anywhere. Ledges, cracks, the rockiest of fields. Sometimes the farmers curse it. Once it takes hold, it’s hard to stop it from spreading. Thannis is a survivor, like a Vendan.” He said the leaves were purple, sprouting bright above the snows of winter, but in late autumn, for only a few days before seeding, it changed to bright gold. That was when it turned sweet, but also to poison. “A drink of the golden thannis will be your last.”

I was glad to see ours was a strange purplish brew and not golden. I took a sip and spit it out. It tasted like dirt. Sour, horrible, moldy dirt.

Kaden laughed. “It’s an acquired taste but a tradition in Venda, like the bones worn on our belts. It’s said that thannis was all that kept Lady Venda and the early clans here alive those first few winters. In truth, it’s probably all that kept me alive more than one winter. When other supplies run out, there’s always thannis.”

I braved another sip and forced a swallow down, then immediately tried to summon saliva to my mouth to wash the taste away. I was sure it wasn’t a taste I’d ever acquire, not even in the bleakest of winters. I glanced up at the old man stirring the cauldron, singing a chant to passersby: Thannis for the heart, thannis for the mind, thannis for the soul, thannis, live long the children of Venda. He repeated it over and over, a snaking song with no beginning or end.

Hovering above the steam of the cauldron, I spotted someone standing on a distant high ledge watching me. A woman. Her figure seemed to ripple through the steam, hazy, fading, and then she vanished. She was simply gone. I blinked and looked down at my steaming cup of brew.