ushered her inside. Inside, the furnishings were minimal. A few unhandsome blankets had been tossed around the floor as rugs. A cot with a thin pillow was set up on one side. A washbasin stood on a stand in a corner next to a pot. It all smelled faintly of urine. She wondered if she was a prisoner.
He dropped to sit cross-legged on one of the blankets. “Come. Sit. I apologize for not offering you tea.” He smiled broadly at her in what she was certain he meant to be a reassuring manner, and he patted the blanket next to him.
Liyana lowered herself onto a blanket several yards away from Mulaf. She wished she had her sky serpent knife.
“Tell me, my dear child . . . Liyana, is it? How did you escape your clan?” he asked. His eyes were as bright as a desert rat’s, and he leaned forward eagerly.
She stuck to the truth, or at least part of it. “My goddess didn’t come, so my clan exiled me.”
He clucked his tongue. “What a shock that must have been.”
“Yes, it was.”
He bounced to his feet and paced in a circle around her. “Bayla of the Goat Clan did not come. What a pity. What a tragedy.” Without warning he dropped to a squat in front of her. There was something about him that made her think of a bird fluttering with a broken wing. Instinctively she pulled her knees toward her chest and shrank away. “You are a lucky girl, you know.” He reached out and stroked her cheek with a fingernail. “You have an opportunity that no other vessel has ever had. You can make your own life in the empire. You can change your fate!”
She wanted to bolt out of the tent. The tarp walls felt as if they were pressing inward. She inched backward, away from Mulaf. “When did you escape
He laughed like a hyena. “Years ago, my dear. Would you believe that I am over one hundred years old? I am from the Cat Clan. I was once their magician.” Popping to his feet, he paced again.
She’d heard of the Cat Clan. One hundred years ago, the clan had become extinct. An abnormal number of disasters had befallen them, one after another. They had been hunted by sand wolves, attacked by sky serpents, caught in quicksand. Stories about the Cat Clan were whispered late at night when the camp’s fire burned high enough to stroke the stars. If he were truly from the Cat Clan, then it was no wonder he saw the empire as a sanctuary. “It must be difficult for you to live with people who aren’t the turtle’s children.” She tried for a note of polite sympathy while she calculated the distance to the tent flap—she could reach it in three strides.
He snorted. “Turtle. Another lie told by the parasites. Oh yes, the desert people are the special chosen ones. Chosen to be prey for the parasites!” He squatted again in front of her. His face was too close. “You don’t believe me. I can see it in your eyes. But you will, once you have tasted the freedom that the empire has to offer.”
She shrank back. “When will I be able to speak with the emperor again?”
“The emperor will grant you sanctuary, I can assure you,” Mulaf said. “In time you will understand that you are safe here.”
“Am I?” She breathed the scent of his breath, sour as rancid goat’s milk.
“Oh yes, Bayla’s vessel. You never need to fear your goddess again.”
She forced herself to sit still while everything inside her shrieked.
The magician rose to his feet. “Welcome to the Crescent Empire, Liyana.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Alone, Liyana huddled in the center of the tent.
She didn’t know how much time had passed while she had been trapped inside her own fear, but minutes or hours later, a soldier shoved the tent flap open and strode inside. He wore the white uniform with a red scarf, but his shoulders were decorated with swirls of gold. His face had the same pinched look as the others she’d seen, but he was older, so the flesh hung on his cheeks like loose cloth. Based on his age and the gold on his shoulder, she guessed he was an officer, perhaps even a high-ranking one. He bowed. “The emperor requests that you join him for dinner.”
She tried not to look as surprised as she felt. Standing, she smoothed her skirt. “I’d be delighted.” He led the way out of the tent, and she followed.
She couldn’t imagine why the emperor had requested her. Had he connected her with Pia and Raan? Or Korbyn and Fennik? If so, why honor her with dinner? Reaching the emperor’s golden tent, the officer raised the flap. As the guards watched her, she was shepherded inside and then, again to her shock, was left alone with the emperor.
Surrounded by embroidered pillows, the emperor sat on a gilded chair. “Please, join me,” he said. He indicated a second chair across a table.
She sat, feeling like a bird on an awkward perch. She was far more used to pillows or, lately, sand. The table between them was inlaid with a mosaic of smooth stones. It depicted a river running through green farmland. It was an utterly impractical item for a tent. “You are usually a stationary people?” she asked. She gestured at the table, as well as the massive wood desk and the shelves with the glass sculptures.
“Indeed,” the emperor said. “Our land feeds us where we live—or did until the Great Drought began.”
“I hadn’t known the drought touched the empire too. I . . . am sorry to hear it.” Liyana wondered if Raan had seen the gaunt faces of the soldiers and realized what they meant. She’d wanted so badly for the empire to be the answer.
“My empire and your desert . . . We are all one land. The Great Drought affects us all.” He leaned forward. “But together, we can survive it. We are here to offer . . . cooperation. The desert people cannot survive alone.”
“We are not alone,” Liyana said. “With our deities, we will survive it.” Raan had been so hopeful when they had neared the border. The truth must have crushed her.
“And you would have given your body to your deity to ensure that?”
She wondered what the magician had told him and whether the emperor believed she had escaped and wanted sanctuary. She chose a cautious answer. “I was chosen to do so.”
“A shame,” he said.
In that one word, she heard the condemnation of her people’s choices, their stories, and their way of life. It was worse than Raan’s condemnation. This stranger with his silk robes and jeweled fingers dared pass judgment on her people, when her people had survived the harsh desert for a thousand years. “My clan deserves to live, and I was honored to grant them that life.”
“The empire can grant them life if they join us.”
“How can it if it can’t feed its own people?” she countered.
Abruptly he rose. She thought for a moment that she had gone too far and angered him. She waited for him to summon his guards, but instead he paced the breadth of the tent. At last he halted directly before her. Light from a lantern flickered over his face. “I have dreamed of an oval lake in a lush, green valley. Granite cliffs surround it, and it laps at a pebble shore. This lake holds the answers.”
Liyana felt as though her ribs had pierced her lungs. He’d described her lake, the one she pictured when she worked magic, in perfect detail.
Before she could formulate a response, servants entered the tent carrying an array of trays. One carried a silver platter of fluffed breads. Another held a bowl of fruit on his head. A third brought a tray of steaming spiced meats. The servants placed their bowls and platters on the mosaic table, bowed, and retreated.
The emperor sank into his chair. She thought she saw tiredness around his eyes. He focused on the feast before them, but she suspected that he wasn’t seeing it. She wondered what thoughts were churning in his mind and how the emperor of the Crescent Empire could have dreamed of a lake she’d imagined.
“Tell me about the Dreaming,” the emperor said, eyes on her. All trace of exhaustion vanished. He seemed
