“You have pleased me,” she told him. “You have pleased the gods.”
The artisan thud
ded hard to the floor, water dribbling from his eyes. “Empress! To serve you, to serve the gods, I am a fortunate man!”
She nodded. “Yes. You are.”
He gave her a soft bag for the gold-and-crystal weapon, she put that bag into her satchel and left him alive. Outside his workshop it was once again night, the quiet time. How many highsuns had passed since she came here? She was uncertain. It might be four. Slowly, painfully, she walked back to the palace, unseen by the Tragots in the gods’s eye.
She went straight to Zandakar’s chamber and slipped inside. Breathing softly she stood by his bedside and watched him sleep, as she had watched him sleep when he was a small boy, riding with the warhost throughout
