"It was ruined already."

Ghan sighed. "No—it was damaged but repairable. Now it is ruined."

Hezhi looked up from what she was doing—pasting the fragments of a Second-Dynasty plate to a new backing—and met the old man's hard gaze.

"You don't pay attention, that's your whole problem. You don't pay attention to what you are doing, but to whatever happens to be running around in your silly little head."

One day, she thought, keeping her face neutral. One day I shall be an adult, adult nobility, and you shall disappear in the night, Ghan. I will have Tsem take you and stuff you down a sewer pipe.

"Like that!" Ghan snarled. "Like that, eyes gone all dreamy and stupid." He stepped swiftly up to the table. "Here is what you are doing." He gestured at the plate. "This. Keep your fingers and your brain together, for once."

"I've been doing this for twenty days," Hezhi muttered, trying not to snap. "Couldn't I do something more interesting?"

"Like?"

"I don't know. You mentioned something called 'indexing.' "

"You can't do that, Princess. You cannot read well enough."

"Well, I'm tired of this."

"But you've yet to do it well," Ghan replied. "Why should I waste my energy teaching you another task when you have not demonstrated the ability to do even the simplest with proficiency? To teach you to index, for instance, I would first have to teach you to read, and I have no intention of wasting the kind of time that would take."

"But I can already read some," she began. Read? If the side effect of this bondage was that she would learn to read, it would be worth it.

"Be still. Add a little more water to that paste. When you can paste a simple page together without ugly, overlapped seams, then we can talk about you doing something else. Or…" Ghan looked sly for a moment, calculating. Then he leaned heavily on the desk, stooped forward, so that their eyes were quite close together. "Or you can leave here this afternoon. But you must not come back, ever. I have gotten poor work out of you, but you have not yet paid your debt. Being here, you do more and more damage each day. So I will report your bondage satisfied. Just don't come in tomorrow—or any day after." He smiled wanly, straightened, and walked off without a backward glance. That evening, when she finally unkinked her back, put her paste and thread away, he did not acknowledge her. She left in silence.

Qey met her at the door, anxious. "You must take a bath," she explained. Her fingers fluttered like butterflies lighting on her hands.

"I'm tired," Hezhi replied. She had no time for Qey's timid mothering.

"It matters not. Your father sends for you."

"My father?" What could he want?

Qey nodded vigorously. "You must attend court this evening."

Hezhi frowned. "Must I? Send Father my regrets."

"Oh, no, Hezhi, not this time," Qey sighed, shaking her head. She glanced past Hezhi, presumably at Tsem. Suspicious, Hezhi turned, as well. Tsem's face was carefully blank, but she could sense tension there. His neck muscles were drawn taut; he was grinding his teeth. "This time, little one, you must go. The messengers your father sent were very insistent."

She digested that silently. She had managed to avoid court for the better part of a year. But perhaps—just perhaps—if she went to court, she could actually speak to her father or mother. Convince them to take away Ghan's power over her. Just thinking about the old man made her furious. For two days after Ghan showed her the writ, Hezhi didn't go to the library at all. Four men in the dress of the palace guard came and got her, forced her to the library and Ghan. Hezhi had to restrain Tsem; she saw the dangerous look in his usually mild eyes. None of the guards ever knew how close they came to having their necks broken or long bones splintered. But if she had allowed Tsem to defend her, he would have been mutilated or killed later. She could not stand the thought of that.

Yes, perhaps she could reach her father's ear, if only for a moment—if he even knew who she was, at a glance. He had, after all, not spoken directly to her for something more than a year.

"What are the colors in court today, then?" she asked. Qey looked relieved, almost happy.

"They sent a dress along," she said.

"This is just the revival of a style from a century ago," Hezhi complained as Qey helped her struggle into the monstrous dress.

It had a laminated spine of rivershark cartilage that ran from the nape of a stiff collar down her back. The dress's backbone parted company with her own at the pelvis—there it lanced out and back, supporting a stiff but mercifully short train that resembled the tail of a crawfish. This "spine" had to be held on, of course, so the rest of the dress worked at concealing the tight straps beneath her breasts and across her abdomen. It was lime and gold, spangled with purple mother-of-pearl sequins.

"Was it considered as ugly a century ago?" Qey asked, and she actually giggled—as if it were years ago, before she became so serious. Suddenly a bit happier, Hezhi modeled the dress for Qey, walking smartly, lampooning the ladies at court. Qey watched her with eyes full of wonder.

"You may grow up into a woman yet," she said. "How did this happen so quickly?" Hezhi heard the obvious pride, caught the hidden sadness, the worry.

The dress finally on, Qey applied the thick, burgundy makeup presently popular in court, filling the hollows of Hezhi's eyes, drawing a fine line down her forehead to the bridge of her nose.

Looking at herself in the glass, Hezhi was mildly surprised. She looked like a princess—not like the bondservant of a bald old librarian, not like the dirty little girl skittering about the hallways of the abandoned wing. No, she looked like the other women at court. Like her elder sister, whom she had met once. A princess; something she was used to calling herself, but had no sense of how to be.

Qey was still watching her. "Certainly you will have suitors now, whether you want them or not," she remarked. Hezhi nodded glumly at the older woman, wished suddenly that she had Qey's worn square face and thick limbs. But even those would not ward her from suitors; she was the daughter of an emperor. Her ambiguous feelings over her appearance settled more certainly toward disapproval; the taunting voice of Ghan seemed just in her ear, dismissing her as some pretty palace creature.

But what did she care what Ghan thought, anyway? She sighed and followed Qey from her room, out into the courtyard. Tsem was there, waiting, and Hezhi smirked openly at him. He was lashed into a black cotton kilt, a lime shirt, and an open, brocaded vest. His hair was oiled and braided, the braids piled on his head and tucked beneath a little square felt hat. He was trying hard to maintain a dignified, nonchalant air.

"You look beautiful, Tsem," she remarked. "With your size and that vest, perhaps no one will notice me."

Tsem snorted. "Shall we go, Princess?"

"I don't want to."

"Neither do I," Tsem muttered fervently.

A room should seem diminished when full, but the Great Leng Hall was as imposing as ever. Though its floor thronged with people—more people than she had been in the presence of in more than a year—it still seemed as vast as the sky. Indeed, its vaulted roof imitated the sky, deep azure at the rims, paler toward the meridian. The great buttresses seemed like the pillars holding up the heavens. She noticed a bird up there—a pigeon, a swallow? It was lost in the immensity, the apparent size of a mosquito.

And the noise! Drums were pattering somewhere, but that was nothing. It was the voices, chattering laughing voices that roared in Hezhi's tender ears, accustomed to the quietest corners of the palace. She felt buffeted by them, standing at the royal entry. When she was announced—Princess Hezhi Yehd Cha'dune—her name flew out into the din and was eaten, gone.

When her father came in, on the other hand, the voices dropped away, as if a hundred doors had been shut between her and them—one or two cackled on for a moment and then died, embarrassed.

The Chakunge of Nhol was an imposing man; Hezhi saw little resemblance to him in herself. He was tall, strikingly so, not thin or gangly. His shoulders were broad, his face sharp-boned but with no hint of femininity. Power swirled about him, power beyond that conveyed by his rich robe of saffron and umber, his turban and the golden circlet that held it in place. It was like the wavy outline of a ghost, or the burning of air above the hot tile roof in the summer. It made one's nape tingle just to look at him. Sorcerer, king, child of the River—all of that one could see even if he were naked. When he was announced, every person in the room dropped to their knees. Those nearest the central fountain reached for it, to wet their foreheads.

Hezhi's heart sank. She could never go near him, her father or no. And she felt… ill. There was a tightness, a weirdness deep in her stomach. It had been there before, all day, lurking, but now it redoubled. What was wrong with her?

A little hiss went up from the crowd, surprise. The Chakunge had not stopped at the dais upon which he usually sat; rather, he descended the steps onto the courtyard floor itself. The crowd parted away from him, like a mass of pigeons keeping well away from the feet of a pedestrian. His two bodyguards, hulking full-blooded Giants, walked ponderously on either side of him, massive gazes searching ceaselessly for any danger to their master. They were dressed like Tsem, but they looked even more ridiculous; they were less manlike than Tsem, longer of arm, very hairy, with brutal, flat faces and no chins.

Thus the floor emptied before the emperor until he stood at the very base of the fountain. Hezhi watched him carefully, her father, saw his sardonic face register some deeper, stranger sentiment as he approached the water.

It is the Blood Royal I need to understand, she reminded herself.

He brushed the tips of his fingers through the cascading water; that was all, and then he stepped back, eyes closed. The fountain was a simple one, a single jet rising thirty feet into the air of the hall and then roaring back down into a broad, alabaster basin. Now the water began to shimmer, though. Hezhi was still watching her father, and his figure seemed blurred, as if he were some-how vibrating like the plucked string of a lyre. The shimmering in the water increased, and suddenly the column was soaring up, up toward the vaulted roof of the hall. It grew like a great, watery palm, colors scintillating from it. Dark figures struggled in the water—fish? They were carried up, up the waterspout. Near the ceiling, the water suddenly ceased to shower down to its source, but instead spread out in a pool, a pool floating in the air. The pool quickly spread, shimmering and rippling, until the dome of the ceiling was obscured by it. Then the most peculiar thing of all; something about the water—not its wetness or its density, but something else, like the ghost of water, shimmery, feeling of depth—settled down upon the court. A little gasp went around the floor; it was as if they were underneath the River, staring up at the surface of the water. The dark things were still there, but now they began to acquire a nimbus, black images limned in glowing colors, jade, white, aquamarine, topaz. They swam down from the ceiling, in and among the courtiers, brushing against them. Hezhi saw one swim through a woman near her. Hezhi felt a terrible chill that started in her abdomen and flashed out, and yet at the same time she was captivated. They were lovely, these things. They were all creatures of the River; some were weird fish, the length of a person, armored in plates as if they were warriors. Some more resembled insects or crawfish, but were not the insects or crawfish Hezhi was familiar with. No, these were the things that lurked as shadows in the waters of the River; ghosts of things that once lived and died in his waters, however long ago. Now they swam and pirouetted at her father's whim.

"Princess!" Tsem tugged at her, pointing. Three of the things were "swimming" about her feet, gradually rising higher. One was a fish; the other was like a scorpion built for swimming; the third resembled a squid. These three were joined by four more, and they swirled all around Hezhi, like a cloud. She heard those nearest her gasp, and more than one whispered "Royal Blood."

Soon she could see nothing but the creatures enveloping her.

She should have been frightened, but instead she felt weirdly elated; the queasiness in her stomach seemed more like a glow now, as if there was something warm and strong in her. She laughed softly, reaching out her hands to touch the insubstantial fish. They seemed to suck at her, as if feeding, but she felt nothing.

Then they rose away, rushed back up to the watery pool above their heads, which was shrinking; with a sudden roar—the room had been nearly silent, save for awed whispers—the water began returning to the fountain, rushing down like torrential rain. The Riverghosts lost their shine, became shadows, less than that. In a matter of moments, the court was as it had been before her father came down. Save that now the people began to shout, shout her father's title. Chakunge!

The warm feeling in her gut had begun to feel "wrong" again by the time her father reached his dais. Hezhi noticed that during the strange performance, her mother and sisters had emerged from their rooms and were already seated on the benches. As the Chakunge joined them, he turned and clapped his hands briskly. The cleared place on the floor—where he had stood so recently— grew wider as many young boys in the dress of priestly acolytes ran about, ushering everyone back. Hezhi watched, interested despite herself. Her father had demonstrated his kinship with the River, shown that he could speak to it, bend it to his will—or more likely, beg its indulgence. What now?

The drums began again, a slow, powerful rhythm like a heartbeat. The dancers came out.

They seemed fragile creatures, men and women alike, until they began to move, to swirl to the ponderous drumbeats; then they became as strong as the drums, as supple as drumheads. This Hezhi had seen before; it was the more standard court performance. Still, the dancers were beautiful to behold, with their sleek muscles and their costumes of silk and feathers. The crowd around her began to squat, or sit cross-legged. Tsem rolled out a little mat for Hezhi—had he been carrying it all along?—and she sat, too.

The story was an ancient one; Hezhi knew it well. It was the story of the first Chakunge, the man born of water. Now the dancers portrayed his mother, Gau, bathing in the River, and now she was heavy with child. Others portrayed the People, harried by the terrible monsters who once inhabited the River valley. A monster under each stone, living in each tree. They were terrible, tyrannical. They captured the daughter of the headman, surrounded her with ugliness and pain.

Hezhi studied the woman portraying the daughter; she was slim, a slip of a girl no older than herself. Sad, she was, bereft of kin, surrounded by monsters. Without hope, for none of the People could save her or even themselves. Hezhi felt a little glimmer of identification. It was easy to guess how she might have felt: alone, threatened, unable to understand the monsters surrounding her.

Now came Chakunge, the Riverson, laughing, full of power. He was clad in the rainbow, in armor of shell and fishbone, in plates from the giant Rivercrabs. His weapons were wit and water, swords and spears formed of the very substance of the River. First he tricked a few of the monsters, one by one. He convinced the first of them—the Black-headed Ogre—that his power came from bathing four times a day in the waters of the River. The monster emulated him and was drowned.

Soon enough, Chakunge was done toying with his foes, however. He went among the monsters who held the chief's daughter and slew them all, turned them into stones and sharks, ground them into sand. He took the captive woman away, asked her to be his queen.

Who will take me away? Hezhi wondered. She had never considered such a thing. But it would be so nice, if a hero like Chakunge would come, free her from her problems, her worries. Perhaps that was where D'en was, off becoming a hero, so that he could come back and rescue her.

After the dance, the people in the hall lined up to file past the fountain; each drank from the water in their cupped hands, praying for their city, their emperor, themselves. Hezhi followed dutifully, and when she came to the fountain her mind was still picturing the dashing dancer portraying Chakunge, laughing, full of power. When she drank, she prayed silently. Send me a hero, she prayed. She felt weak, doing so. She felt as if she were betraying something. But at that moment, it was the foremost thought in her. Send me a hero, she beseeched, and she drank the water.

She had taken only a score of steps, and the water reached the hurtful place in her belly, and there it seemed to erupt, like pine knot thrown on a fire. She gasped and fell, saved only by the quick arms of Tsem from cracking her skull open on the hard marble floor. The water roared in her, rushed out into her veins, fiery. It made her skin feel like dough, like something soft and barely real; reality was the heat, the insides of her.

A hundred times she had taken sacred water, and it had always been just drinking. Now she thought she would die.

Her senses returned soon enough, though. No one but Tsem seemed to pay her much heed; he picked her up, carried her to a bench near the wall, and the two women occupying it leapt up hastily at the look he jabbed at them.

Perhaps Tsem, is my hero, she thought, but no, Tsem was as surrounded by the monsters as she; he was like one of the men the chief sent who failed. But he was a comfort.

Tsem laid her on the bench, and after a few moments the flame became a tingle, an itch, was gone. But something was different, changed.

"I should take you back home now, Princess," Tsem whispered.

"No." Hezhi shook her head. "No, I'm better now. It was just the water… I'm better. I should stay for the rest of this."

"As you wish, Princess." Still, he made her remain on the bench long after she was capable of walking. When finally she wobbled to her feet, his face was filled with concern.

"I'm fine, Tsem," she assured him, but her feet felt like wood and she sat back down, as best she could, with her dress's tail hanging off the back of the bench and resting on the floor.

The ceremonies were over; now servants passed here and there, bearing trays of steamed dumplings, fried fish cakes, strange foods that even Hezhi could not identify. She wasn't in the least hungry; she took a small cup of wine when it was offered, however, and the first few sips of it made her feel better.

She was taking another sip when she heard a polite cough.

"Princess? May I?"

It was the boy, Wezh Yehd Nu. He was dressed in as silly an outfit as anyone, a long robe of silk, green pantaloons, a shirt cut to look like a breastplate.

Hezhi reluctantly inclined her head in assent. The boy sat down. Tsem seemed to have withdrawn to some distance.

"You seem to be feeling unwell," Wezh remarked. "I thought I might ask if there was anything I can do."

"It's nothing," Hezhi said. "I felt a little faint, but I am much better now."

"I'm glad to hear that," Wezh said gravely. He moved his mouth as if to say more, but instead turned his attention back to the crowd. The two of them sat in awkward silence for a few moments.

"My father says these gatherings are the lifeblood of our society," Wezh said at last. "Don't you think that's true?"

Hezhi remembered her father, a blurred image with the River at his beck.

"I suppose," she replied.

There was another awkward silence, during which Hezhi began to feel well enough to be rude. Still, she held her peace. Perhaps those near her—Tsem, for instance—might be a little less annoying if she indulged their wishes just a bit. And of course, her father had probably been so insistent that she come for just this reason. Daughters were best married off early.

Wezh was not unkind or unpleasant looking. Perhaps, if not a hero, he could be a friend. She flinched at that thought—the thought of having another person as dear as D'en to lose—but it was no longer unbearable, as it had been a year or even a few days ago.

"I have a boat," Wezh said cautiously. "A little barge with a cabin on it. My father gave it to me for my fifteenth birthday. Do you like to go boating?"

Where had that come from? Hezhi wondered. From the lifeblood of society to his boat?

"No, I have never been boating," she told him.

"Oh, it's great fun," Wezh told her enthusiastically. "You can imagine that you're one of those pirates from the Swamp Kingdoms, you know, like in the romantic plays? You do like the plays, don't you? Most girls do."

Hezhi had seen a few of the plays he spoke of. Pitiful, debased things compared to the great epics like the one they had just witnessed.

"I liked the dance just now," she told him. "It was a wonderful rendition of the Chakunge epic."

"I found it a little boring," Wezh said diffidently. "You know, old-fashioned. Now the other day I saw this drama about Ch'üh—he's a pirate, you know…"

"That means 'mosquito' in the old speech," Hezhi informed him.

Wezh glanced at her, his eyes a bit wider than before, if such were possible. "Indeed?" he said. "That might explain why his sword is so long and thin, mightn't it? Well, how illuminating! I'm sure that you would have many such observations, if you were to attend such a play. Ah, with me perhaps." He looked around the room nervously.

"Are you searching for pirates?" she asked with mild sarcasm. "I don't think my father would admit them, you know."

"Oh, no, of course he wouldn't," Wezh said. "No, I was…" He closed his eyes and cleared his throat.

"Umm… Whither goes her brilliant beauty/My tongue cannot hold her name …"

The words were so rushed they were nearly incoherent, and so it took Hezhi nearly two stanzas to realize that Wezh was reciting his—or more likely somebody else's—poetry to her.

"Oh," she interrupted, standing abruptly. "I'm sorry, Wezh Yehd Nu, but I must bid you good day."

Wezh stuttered off, looked a little puzzled and forlorn. "Are you feeling unwell again, Princess?"

"Yes, Wezh, that is it precisely."

She turned and gestured to Tsem, who shot her a small expression of chagrin. She turned once to survey the hall again, before she left. The fountain was in its normal state, the water rising no higher than usual. But among the sparkling droplets she thought she saw something dark rising, as well. With an involuntary shiver, she took her leave without another word to the anxious Wezh.

"That was rude, Princess," Tsem told her, when they were back in the Hall of Moments and out of earshot of anyone. The hall was lined with guards in armor today, and a lone priest was sweeping, smoke rising from his spirit-broom, a little acolyte behind him with a mundane broom and dustpan, gathering the ashes. None of them were close enough to hear what the princess and her bodyguard were saying.

Hezhi shrugged. "He is an idiot, Tsem, stupid and unlearned. What use do I have for a boy like that?"

"You will find a use for men someday, or you will live as a spinster—or more likely have a marriage imposed on you."

"I think marriages must always be imposed, if Wezh is the common sort of man."

Tsem shook his head, then bowed it, in respect, as they passed the old priest and his novice.

"Anyway, I'm really not feeling well. You know that."

Tsem was about to reply, but there was a strangled cry behind them; Hezhi felt the hackles rise on her neck, experienced yet another terrible shuddering. She stumbled and turned to confront the source.

Something had emerged from the hall. Its outline wavered, and so she knew it for a ghost, but it was like no ghost she had ever seen, save only in the fountain earlier that day. It was huge, twice Tsem's size. It had legs like a crab's, or a spider's, and its body was long, twisted, like a crushed centipede. A flared tail— horribly like the one on her dress—swept around frenetically behind it. Its head was a grotesque mass of chitin and tentacles, and yet there was something—its eyes—that seemed appallingly, undeniably Human. Human and hungry. She knew instinctively that it was hungering after her.

The guards seemed frozen, and for one terrible moment, Hezhi feared that no one could see the thing except her. Then it was in motion, a scuttling mass of limbs and tentacles. One of the soldiers leapt at it then, his curved sword finally flashing out, and he was in its path, a tiny creature compared to the ghost. His sword chopped but once, slicing unhindered through the thing, clanging with great force and noise onto the marbled floor. Then the ghost passed through the guard and he fell, writhing, clenched up in a little ball, a jabbering kind of noise issuing from him the like of which Hezhi never imagined a Human Being could make. The beast lunged forward, and another guard—attacking more hesitantly—went down. She had the dull realization that, like a ghost, the thing wasn't solid—but it could certainly cause harm to men. She saw the second guard die very clearly; his skin puffed and split, exuding vapor—as if the blood in his body were suddenly steam.

That was the last she saw of it. Tsem had her in both arms and was running. Her last glimpse was of the priest, broom blazing furiously, standing between them and the apparition. The rest was nightmare flashes of this corridor and that, of Tsem's pounding heart—and the images of what she had seen burning on the surface of her eyes. Tsem did not stop until they reached one of the far shrines, a place that no ghost would ever dare enter. Placing her inside, he waited at the door, fists clenched. After a long while—when nothing happened—Tsem pointed a finger at her.

"Stay here," he said simply, and then he was gone, loping back up the way they came.

"Tsem! No, Tsem!" she shrieked, but it was too late. The half Giant was gone.

It wanted me. And it would kill Tsem as easily as it would anyone; it had no neck to snap, no body to bludgeon. She recalled the first guard, so young and brave.

Frustrated, afraid, she sat with her knees drawn up to her chin. The tail on her dress was broken, she remembered not how.

Taking deep, slow breaths, she tried to calm herself. It was then that she noticed the blood.

Her first thought was that it was Tsem's, that he was injured somehow, for surely it couldn't be hers. But there it was, little smeared drops on the floor, on her dress. Not much blood. She touched some clinging to her legs. It was sticky, certainly blood.

She understood then. It was her blood, and she was not wounded. She had begun bleeding.

She was a woman.