He was done. It was over.

In the silence that followed, Mai rose. "Wait."

Every person there was obviously surprised to hear her voice, even Anji. For courage, she touched her lips to her wolf ring, sigil of the proud Mei clan. Then she met Anji's gaze square on. "I have something to say, and I would prefer to say it between us alone."

Chief Tuvi raised an eyebrow. Master Calon put a hand to his mouth, clearing his throat as if uncomfortable. Eliar looked at his feet. Shai stood and, when Mai nodded at him, he gestured to Priya and walked away, into the shadows.

At last, with a slight gesture, Anji agreed. Chief Tuvi led the two merchants away, leaving Anji with Mai and, of course, one of his silent but ever-present guards.

He said nothing. He was angry.

She took in a deep breath and considered her words, considered her tone, considered her posture and her expression. All these made a difference in whether you made your sale. "I am not experienced in the arts of war, nor have I any training in battle. But I am a merchant's daughter, and I know how to listen and how to observe. Also, it is my right as the wife of a Qin man to speak my mind."

"It is."

This is what I have to say: Where will we go next? There may be a refuge for you with your cousin, in the south of the empire, but surely those cousins will also want to kill you, since you have a better claim to the imperial throne than they do. The lands that the Qin control are closed to us. So, to go south back over the pass leads us only to lands where our lives are already forfeit."

"There are other roads," he said curtly, as if he had already had this argument with himself and did not want to repeat it with her. "Northwest. North. East. We haven't seen everything that's out here. This is a fool's choice, Mai. No smart general commits his troops in a situation weighted so heavily against him. He moves elsewhere until circumstances fall to his advantage. The Qin have always fought in this manner."

"Maybe so, because the Qin do not live in houses, or in towns. The Qin do not till fields and plant vineyards and orchards, which they must then protect. But sometimes you have to fight where you stand." When he shook his head, she went on. "Anji, why did your mother send you back to the Qin, when you had as much right as any man to claim the imperial throne?"

"Because my half brother was named as heir. He and his mother meant to see me dead. I was a rival, brighter than him, I admit. Better suited. Better liked by our father. I was my father's favorite son."

"Yet he chose your brother over you."

"My brother's mother has powerful political connections, ones my father did not wish to anger. Although he was an excellent administrator, his position was not exactly strong."

"Even so, why didn't your mother go to the emperor? Ask for his protection for you? Surely he could have done that much for his favorite son."

"She had already fallen out of favor. He preferred a new wife."

"Did she not try at all?"

He hesitated. For the first time he looked away from her, toward the fire, whose flames consumed the wood with bright splendor. "It is not the Qin way to beg for favor."

"She took the Qin way, Anji. She moved you elsewhere, hoping that circumstances would change. But they did not. And why should we believe they will change now? We have been offered a chance to stand and fight for the thing we need most: a home. It's time to stop running."

"Death is also a home. One we will find ourselves fallen into very quickly, in this situation."

She smiled, covered her mouth with a hand to hide the smile, glanced down at the ground, then bent her gaze up to look at him past lowered lids. His eyes narrowed as his interest quickened. "Surely, Anji, you are capable of finding a way to win this fight."

He laughed. "An appeal to my vanity. Mai, you have cut me. But nevertheless, no."

"What if there is no safer haven? In the south our lives are forfeit. In the west lie barren lands. North there is constant trouble, some kind of war. East lies the ocean. Yet we have to go somewhere. Any place we ride now will be a place we've never been before, so we will be placing ourselves in danger nevertheless. We might as well get paid to do it. We may never get another offer, and why should we? Who will welcome a troop of two hundred experienced soldiers? A ruler who wishes to use them to fight, and die. Ordinary folk will fear us, and rightly so. Anyway, we cannot continue journeying endlessly, in the hope that something more to our liking will appear, a peaceful haven, a secret valley where the flowers are always in bloom and all the ewes give birth to twin lambs. You have said I am foolish to listen to the tales, to believe in them, but isn't this just another tale you are telling yourself, that there is a place waiting for us somewhere, in the distance, just beyond where we are now? What if there isn't?"

Flushed and out of breath, surprised at her own vehemence, she broke off.

Frowning, studying the fire, he scratched under his right ear with his left hand. The fire popped, and sparks sprayed and fell. At length, he looked at her. "That day in the market, in Kartu Town, every other merchant offered me their wares for free. They feared me, as they feared all the Qin and especially the officers. I suppose they thought by giving me for nothing what they normally sold for a price, they would gain my favor, or I would not hurt them. But you charged me double the going price."

"And you paid it!"

"Because it amused me to do so. Because you surprised me. Because you held your duty, to sell your clan's produce, higher than your fear of the Qin."

" 'If you are afraid, don't do it. But if you do it, don't be afraid.' Do you remember saying that?"

He shook his head, shrugging. "It's a common saying among the Qin."

"When we were in the desert, and running out of water. After the sandstorm, when you and Chief Tuvi had to decide whether to ride at night through those ravines. A dangerous, difficult passage. You said it then, to him. I took those words into my heart. I tried to live by them. I always thought that I was being strong, in the Mei clan, by bending before the wind, by going along with everything my family wanted, by never disputing with them or raising my voice or causing trouble. Now I see that I was afraid. But there will always be another storm, Anji. There will always be something. If we don't stop now, then it will be because we're still afraid. That's the thing we can't escape by moving elsewhere. It's still traveling with us. We have to do it, and not be afraid."

He was silent. The night wind murmured in the brush; beneath it, she heard the whispers of men, waiting on this decision.

He stepped up to her, took her hand, laid it on his palm. Without speaking, he twisted the wolf-sigil ring off her hand and slid it onto his little finger.

"There," he said. "To remind me. But if we fail, and if we die, you must not reproach me."

All at once, her words vanished. He was so handsome, a prince in truth, an exile, as she was now. She could never reproach him, not for anything. But she could not speak to tell him so; she was too full, choked with the tales she had grown up on, had loved and recited, had sung and played. Had used as an argument against him. She knew herself to be young and naive, stupid, really: she always had believed those tales, even in the ones where everyone ended up dead. She had always wanted to believe them, because they had seemed so much brighter than her own life within the Mei clan's walls. But they had only been a way of hiding from the truth.

"No," he added softly, so sweetly. "I suppose you won't."

He released her hand and stepped back, then whistled sharply. Chief Tuvi returned with the two merchants, and Shai and Priya walked back into view.