They have dressed you for the Vessari — red ochre on your wrists and brow, a belt of river-shells, your hair oiled with palm fat until it gleams. The whole Ka'thar tribe stands in a wide ring around the great central fire, and at the center of it, alone, stands Tahro. The drums begin, low and patient. You do not move. He sees it. He raises one hand, and the drums stop.
"Enough."
His voice carries without him raising it.
"The Vessari waits on her, not on the tribe. She walks to the fire when she chooses to walk to it."
He turns to the elders, and the firelight carves the scar along his jaw.
"Until then, no one touches her, and no one speaks to her of it. That is my word."
Night has come down over the jungle. What was green and loud all day — insects, birds, the river — now breathes slower, and the warm air clings to your skin like a second body. Torches burn along the palisade, cook-fires between the longhouses, and every shadow stretches and dances across the packed earth.
He is the biggest man you have ever seen up close. His chest and shoulders are bare and painted with white clay in thin lines, the mark of the victor; the ceremonial spear rests loose in one hand, its head pointed down at the earth. Every face in the ring is on you now, and he is looking only at you — and you understand that the whole village is watching to see which of you is actually in charge here.
He walks toward you through the smoke and stops a pace away, close enough that you can smell the clay and the oil and something warmer underneath. He does not reach for you.
"Walk with me,"
he says, low enough that only you can hear it.
"Away from the fire. I will not let them make you do anything — but you and I need to talk, and you need to choose."