"Too much sun can burn you, Princess," Tsem's great voice informed her gently.

"I'll stay here awhile longer, I think," she told him.

"Princess, what of Ghan? You don't want to anger him, do you?"

"I don't care," she said. "I don't care if he is angry. I want to be out here." Away from the darkness, away from the image of D'en that darkness always awoke.

"Princess, you haven't been to the library in days. This isn't like you."

"It doesn't matter, Tsem," she said. "It doesn't matter anymore, don't you see? I found him. I found D'en. D'enata." Her voice trembled on his name; she had never said it aloud as a ghost name, ever. But she said it now and knew it for the truth, though his body—or what it had become—was yet living.

"You and Qey, you were right all along. It was better that I didn't know."

"You would have learned eventually," Tsem pointed out.

"Eventually, when it's all over, when I either join them or join my father. And I wouldn't have had to see him, then. You don't know, Tsem."

"I know I don't, Princess."

"I would have been happier, Tsem, if I had never tried to find out."

"Really?" Tsem said. "What's the point of that sort of speculation? I might have been happier if I'd been born free, among my mother's people. But I might not have. I'll never know."

"It's not the same thing," she snapped.

"You am right," Tsem pronounced thickly. "Tsem not understand what Princess feel."

She fought to be angry at that. Tsem only used his stupid voice with her when he was questioning her perceptiveness. She couldn't find her anger, though. She found sadness instead, and fear, fear of what she would do without her huge friend.

"You're always good to me, Tsem. I'm sorry. Maybe our situations are similar, in that way."

Tsem stroked her head. "No," he said. "I think you're right about that. I only meant that wondering what might have been is not as productive as planning what might be."

"Where does a slave learn this kind of wisdom, Tsem?"

Tsem coughed out a short, humorless laugh. "It is the kind of wisdom slaves have, Princess, if they have any at all."

She pushed thoughtfully at her dress. "I wish I knew when the priests will test me again."

"What good would that do?"

She lifted one hand in an I-don't-know sort of gesture. "In the meantime…" she began.

"Yes, Princess?"

"In the meantime I want you to deliver a message for me."

Tsem raised his eyebrows. "A message?"

"Yes. Please inform Wezh Yehd Nu that I would like to meet him in the Onyx Courtyard this evening, if it is to his liking."

"Princess?"

Hezhi sighed. "I have to go on as if I will have a life," she told him. "Else I will go mad."

Tsem nodded solemnly. "If you will be safe here, I will go inform him at once."

"I think I will sit here a bit longer, but then I will go to the library. You can meet me there this afternoon to escort me to meet Wezh."

"Very good, Princess."

"And thanks, Tsem," she said earnestly.

"You are quite welcome, Princess." He heaved to his feet and lumbered off. She watched him go, let the sun saturate her a bit more. Reaching into the pocket of her skirt, she pulled forth the little statuette, the horse-woman, turned it over and over in her hand. Did the strange, pale man in her dreams ride a horse? She decided that he probably did. Lately, she had come to welcome the dreams of forest and the strange man—they kept away the nightmares about D'en and L'ekezh. Ironically, those dreams of faraway had become less frequent, less forceful. The forest was almost faded entirely, though the man, when she dreamed of him, was more vivid than ever. Reluctantly she rose and set her feet in the direction of the library.

"I'm not complaining, mind you," Qey insisted. "It's just that I thought you didn't like this Wezh fellow."

"Well," Hezhi explained, biting into a plum, "it doesn't really matter whether I like him or not, does it? There are worse men to be courted by, and to hear Tsem tell it, they are queuing up to do so."

"Well, they should be. You are very beautiful, Hezhi."

"Pfah. I could be a sack of grain, for all they care. As long as I was a sack of grain whose father was Emperor."

"That may be true," Qey admitted, "but there are many noble daughters. In you, the young men can see a lovely woman, and in a few years a stunning one. If one must marry, it is better to marry someone pleasant looking."

"They don't see that in me," she protested.

Qey shook her head. "You'll see. You'll have your mother's face and figure, I can already tell that. Even if you inherit from your father's side—his sisters are all quite pretty."

"Not so pretty as his brother," Hezhi muttered.

Qey turned an astonished face away from the stove. "What did you say?"

"Nothing," she quickly amended. "Nothing, just a joke."

"Your father's brother is dead, Hezhi. It isn't something to joke about."

"I know." She wiped the plum juice from her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Anyway," Qey remarked, changing the subject, "how was your meeting with Wezh Yehd Nu?"

"He tried to be pleasant, and succeeded well enough, I suppose." She smiled. "I think he was very surprised to hear from me. He told me he had given up."

"Did he bring a present, then?"

"Oh, yes. I think his mother picked it out." She reached into her bag to show Qey her present, feeling a brief, inexplicable sadness when her hand brushed the statuette. She drew out Wezh's gift and set it on the table.

"Oh, that's a nice perfume," Qey said, examining the crystal bottle.

"So I hear. I'll wear it next time I meet him."

"You'll be meeting him again?" Qey asked, a bit surprised.

"Yes. He's taking me to a drama tomorrow."

"Which one?"

Hezhi cleared her throat. "The Eel and the Lion it's called. A romance, I think." She half sang the title, the way Wezh did. He was quite excited about taking her to it.

"Will you like that?" Qey asked, doubtfully.

"Almost certainly not," Hezhi said. "But I have to learn to tolerate such things. After all, I can't spend the rest of my life in the library, like Ghan."

"Well, but I never expected to hear you say that, little one."

"Everything changes," she philosophized, biting into another plum.

"Yes," Qey agreed. "If there is any truth in the world it is that."

The next day Hezhi went into the library early. Ghan raised an eyebrow and his face puckered into a frown.

"Will I be graced with your presence for the entire day today?" he asked sarcastically.

She blushed. "I'm sorry, Ghan. I've been… I don't know. I'm sorry."

"It's nothing less than I expected," he remarked sourly.

"I'm here now. What do you want me to do?"

"Do what you like. I shelved yesterday. And by the way,"—he frowned up briefly at her before continuing—"a 'friend' of yours came by this morning. One 'Wezh,' I believe. Since you weren't here, he asked if I might deliver a message pertaining to the drama you will be attending tonight."

Hezhi felt her face burning furiously as Ghan went on. "He said you should wear something 'frip' with lots of 'lacies.' It's the style for this show."

"Ah… thanks," she stuttered. Ghan glowered at her.

"You have better uses for your time than that, don't you? Do you even know what 'frip' means?"

"No," she replied. "He says it a lot."

"Does he?" Ghan sneered.

Hezhi felt a surge of anger swarm up through her embarrassment. "This isn't your affair, Ghan."

"Isn't it? I've wasted too much time on you to have you running off with boys who say 'frip' and 'lacies'! By the River and Sky, you can do better than that!"

"What would you have me do, Ghan? I have to make a life here! Soon I will no longer be a child, and people will expect things of me. Maybe it's fine for you, buried here with these books, but my clan isn't banished away somewhere! They're right here, watching me, wondering what to do with me when I come of age. I've denied reality long enough, don't you think?"

Ghan gaped for just a moment, but he quickly shut his mouth so he could form a reply. "Who are you?" His voice was suddenly mild. "Who is this?" he asked the air. "Is this the same girl who lied to me just to get in here? Who taught herself to read— however poorly—in the ancient script? Who came in here, day after day with no help and no encouragement at all, who fell asleep with her nose in my books because she wasn't even sleeping at night but thinking about what she had been reading all day?" Ghan rose off of his stool, and as he did, his voice rose as well. "What have you done with her?" he demanded.

That stung, much more than she was willing to admit. "Everything is different now," she told him, fighting back tears.

Ghan regarded her for a long moment before answering.

"It must be," he finally said, and returned to his work.

She waited for him to say something else—anything else—but he did not. He kept to his pen and paper. Glumly, Hezhi trudged over to the new books, produced her pen—the new one Ghan had given her—and began to make notes for the index. She looked up at Ghan now and then, but he was studiously ignoring her. Unable to bear it, she took her things and went back into the tangle.

She had been working only a moment when someone coughed quietly behind her. Briefly she thought it was Ghan, and she turned, ready to try to explain. It wasn't Ghan, though, but Yen, a gentle smile on his face.

"I guess he isn't in a very good mood today," he commented.

"It isn't his fault," Hezhi replied.

Yen shook his head. "He shouldn't have snapped at you like that. He should understand."

"No," she disagreed. "He can't understand. No one can."

"I'm willing to try," Yen said softly. "If you want to talk."

She gazed up into Yen's kind eyes. "It's nothing I can talk about," she explained apologetically. "It's just that… have you ever discovered that your life wasn't at all what you thought it was?"

Yen frowned, tapped his chin with his thumb. "No," he finally said. "No, I've always known what my life is. I've had some nice surprises, and some unfortunate ones, but I've always known myself."

"You're fortunate, then," she said. "When you grow up in the palace, you never know. Ever. There's just one betrayal after another, and you never know where you stand. But you think you do anyway, and then…" She trailed off. "I'm sorry, Yen. It's very kind of you to listen, but nothing I can tell you will help me, and it might be bad for you."

"It can't be that bad," Yen soothed.

"My life is like the River," she said. "It flows one way, always downstream, inevitable. I never faced that before. I guess I always believed that I could somehow remain a child, stay in the cracks of the palace—here, in the library, where no one would ever notice me."

Yen sat down across the table from her. "When I was a child, I always wanted to be my father, always wanted to be older than I was. I was impatient to grow up, to captain a boat, to sail up-River and see strange sights. Not at all like you, I guess. You always wanted to be yourself, and I wanted to be someone else." He sighed. "But it was my father who encouraged me to join the priesthood. I joke about him, but he really wants me to succeed at this, to be a great engineer and have my name go down as the one who designed such-and-such a shrine. 'Don't be a sailor like me, boy,' he told me. 'You were cut out for finer things.' "

Hezhi shook her head ruefully. "I was always told what to be. I've never been offered a choice, but I was too stupid to realize that." She attempted a smile. "I should like to meet your father one day. He sounds like a nice man."

"He is," Yen assured her. "Perhaps one day you will meet him."

"Maybe," she doubtfully allowed, but then brightened a bit. "But when I am a woman, when I join my family, then I will be allowed to leave the palace. Perhaps then. I should like to sail in a boat."

"Well." Yen chuckled. "I know more about that than I care to admit. But you will have royal barges at your disposal, won't you? No battered trading scows for you."

"Yes," she said, suddenly feeling very shy. "But royal barges never sail up the River, never visit the Mang or any other strange lands. I envy your father that, even if you do not."

Yen shrugged. "Well. Perhaps someday…"

She shook her head. "No. That's a silly thought. Nobility on a trading boat—that couldn't happen."

Yen ticked his finger against the wood of the table. "No, I suppose not," he admitted. "But if you dream of it…"

She held up her hand. "You have no idea how tired I am of dreams," she said ironically.

Yen nodded as if he understood. "Anyway," he went on, "I hope you find happiness of some kind. And if you ever want to talk about these things, I'm willing. I won't tell anyone." He grinned. "Not that I have anyone here to tell. You're the only person I really know here. Everyone else ignores me."

"You don't have any friends with the engineers?"

"No." He sighed. "It's notoriously hard to become liked among them. The ones who have been here longer delude themselves into believing they are royalty, and of course some of them—the overseers—are. If I make it a year, two years, then some of them will deign to talk to me."

"That's too bad," Hezhi empathized.

"Not too bad. I can still go see my father, now and then."

Hezhi nodded. "That's how Tsem and Qey are to me. They are my only friends."

"Tsem is the big fellow?"

"Yes. He's half Giant. My father ordered his mother to mate with one of his Human guardsmen. He was curious as to what would result."

"Ah," Yen replied. "But what about this Wezh person? The one who came in here earlier, the one the old man was scolding you about? Isn't he a friend?"

She snorted and shook her head. "No. He's just courting me. People are rarely friends with those who court them."

"A shame," Yen remarked. "I don't see that you could enjoy courting much if you don't like the person."

"That's right," Hezhi confirmed.

"Well." Yen coughed. "Well, I should get back to what I was doing. But… if you want to count me a friend, too, I would like that."

She blinked at him. "Thank you," she responded, not knowing what else to say.

Yen nodded and then hurried off.

She returned to indexing, though she remained distracted for the rest of the day, wondering why the only people she could seem to count on were those not related to her.