She wondered why Cornflower had vanished during that terrible storm. Could demons die? And if so, what awaited them beyond Spirit Gate?
"Mistress?" Priya returned, O'eki limping beside her.
"I hope you are not hurt?" Panic flared.
"Just sore, Mistress." The big man slipped a hand inside one sleeve and drew out three small items, which he offered to her.
She took them without thinking and studied them with confusion: three tiny beaded nets, the kind of gaudy cheap ornament women used to tie off the ends of braids. "What are these? They're very colorful."
"Cornflower wore them," said Priya. "She always wore her hair in a trident braid. These were hers, the only thing she possessed."
Mai shivered, wondering if ghosts could reach out through the material goods they had left behind to throttle those they had hated during their lifetime. Yet if that were so, all of Uncle Girish's little treasures would long since have poisoned the Mei clan, which still prospered. She looked up at O'eki. He had a broad face and dark eyes, no different from anyone else; it was only his unusual stature that set him apart. He'd come from the southwest, from an area conquered by the Mariha princes when he was a boy. He'd spent most of his life as a slave to the Mei clan, bought by Grandfather because of his size and placidity. But he wasn't stupid.
"How do you have these?"
"I found them. At dawn, just before we left that cursed place."
"Where?" She glanced toward Captain Anji, but he was exploring the ravine, involved in an intense conversation with Chief Tuvi and the scouts. Tuvi was gesturing with expansive circles; Anji had his arms crossed, a skeptical frown on his face.
"Right up by the big rock where we were camping when the storm hit, Mistress. Just lying there, like she'd torn them off. Or they'd been torn off her."
She closed her hand around them. The mystery of Cornflower's disappearance troubled her, and the evidence she held in her hand suggested that the story might be more complicated than it had at first seemed.
"What will you do with them, Mistress?" asked O'eki. "I can sell them, if you please, at the next market."
"No. I'll return them to Shai. What she had belongs to him." She slid them into the pocket sewn into her sleeves. The expensive blue silk gown she had worn so proudly at leave-taking was soiled beyond repair. She had left her other silks closed in the chest in the hope they would survive the journey without being ruined. Unlike linen and wool, silk fought sand better. It might become dirty, wet, and stained, but sand could be shaken out because it couldn't get as much purchase in the smooth, tight weave.
The men had walked close enough that she could overhear them.
"It's too risky to ride this path at night!" Tuvi exclaimed, voice rising as his hands dropped to his side.
"If you're afraid, don't do it," said Anji. "But if you do it, don't be afraid. I'm more concerned about water and the heat than the road. We have lamps, and moonlight for part of the night. We'll depart a hand's span before sunset. I won't sit and wait for events to overtake me. There might be another storm. Best to move on. It always is."
"So you would say!" said Tuvi with a laugh, but he made no more protests.
In late afternoon they made ready to leave. About a hand's span before sunset, they headed up the twisting path, riding swiftly until the light faded. Then, with the moon already in the sky, they dismounted and walked along the trail, such as it was, with Chief Tuvi and the scouts in the lead bearing lanterns.
"You can ride," Anji said to Mai. "I'll lead your horse."
"No. I'll walk with the others."
"Very well." It was difficult to see his expression, whether he was pleased or irritated, and she didn't know him well enough to interpret his tone. "But if you feel yourself tiring, you must ride."
"Yes."
They walked on, east-always east. It was slow going. The way was dim and the world shadowed, and she had no idea where they were or where they were going. Yet as long as she kept her gaze fixed on Captain Anji's straight back, as long as she glanced frequently at the track, gleaming slightly in the moonlight, she managed. They reached the crest of a barren hill and paused to survey the vast wilderness and the impossibly depthless sky. The stars burned each one as brightly as the chief's lamp. The heavens were a field of dense flames, each one the shard of a soul released from its earthly suffering, so the Merciful One taught. So many, without counting. The land on all sides was a ghost land, intangible under moonlight, like gauze and darkness. Only in the north was there any solidity, and that because the far horizon was black where mountains rose.
It was as if she had wandered into the landscape known in song, a place present on no map, reached by no true road, where the daily round of life had no meaning. She shivered.
"Are you cold?" Anji asked softly.
"No," she whispered, afraid to speak in a normal voice. "It's beautiful."
"Ah." Nothing more than his sigh.
Her cheeks blazed with heat. She reached and found his hand, surprising him as she twined her fingers between his. He did not speak, but his breathing shifted and quickened, as did hers.
Chief Tuvi whistled the advance.
"Oh!" she murmured, annoyed.
Anji chuckled, brought her hand up to his lips, turned it over, and kissed the inside of her wrist, then let go and set off again. She followed him, but with that brief kiss the night had come alive. The curl of wind teased her. The movement of his shoulders as he walked drew her on. Once he looked back over his shoulder and grinned, and she burned burned burned. They walked across the land in silence broken only by the jingle of harness, the fall of hooves and feet, and the occasional mutter of one of the soldiers to a comrade; broken by the many soft noises made by the desert, which seemed dead but was alive in a hundred hidden ways. The path was rugged, and twice they had to backtrack when the trail Tuvi picked led them into a dead end up a gulch, but they never faltered nor did any horse take a fall or man stumble.
As the moon set and it became too dark to keep moving, the chief picked out a sheltered overhang for a temporary camp.
"We'll rest here until just before dawn," he told the soldiers. "We'll move on again before dawn, and rest again during the heat of the day, and leave again before dusk. Any man who violates rations will be killed."
They watered the horses and each drank his measured allotment before lying down to rest, careful not to disturb tufts of vegetation and scatters of rock that might shelter poisonous slumbering creatures. Shai sat with head on knees, arms wrapped around bent legs. She was still angry with him for the way he had treated Cornflower. Maybe if he had been nicer, the girl wouldn't have run into the storm. And yet, why cling to anger? There was no way to change what had happened. Poor Shai looked so miserable.
Mai went over. "How are you holding up, Shai?"
He looked up. All she could see of his face was pallor. His voice scraped, dry and anguished. "Will we ever come free of this place? Or will we be carried off by the demons as well?"
She touched him gently on the shoulder. "Captain Anji knows what he's doing."
"Does he?"
"Of course he does! How can you doubt him?"
"We've not been told where we're going. They tell us nothing at all. You're not scared? Not at all?"