Chapter 5
The Prophet said that women totally dominate men of intellect and possessors of hearts, but ignorant men dominate women, for they are shackled by the ferocity of animals.
—Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, thirteenth-century Persian Sufi mystic
House that one day will become Çatalhöyük, Turkey
9539 BCE
She shivers in her corner of the room. Not because it is cold, for he has provided her blankets. Ones he has washed with each change of season. She shivers because of him. The reindeer warrior giant who co-led the attack on her village. Who must have killed her friends and relatives in that rampage. Who might have violated the girls in the village as mercilessly as these giants deem it their right, given to them by their gods, to do.
She is Tallia. The daughter of Sarpani, one of t
