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would've been a masterpiece.”
    “Oh?” Janny ate a few berries from Hiresha's plate. “Who’re you thinking of marrying?”
    Her chin drooped toward the amethysts on her chest. “Chandur, of course.”
    “I knew it.” Janny cackled.
    Chandur had been lifting a piece of crocodile to eat it. He froze, with mouth open. A burning itch spread up his throat, attacked his cheeks in pulses of heat, and climbed to his scalp. He felt he had overheard something the enchantress had not meant to say. That she thought of him in that way bewildered him as she had never treated him with more than an aunt's kindness. Sweat wriggled between his scale armor and his skin.
    He decided he should pretend he had not heard her. It could never come to anything, he told himself. The enchantress' betrothed was running around the feet of the revelers, and besides, the goddess of fate had promised Chandur to another. He forced his mouth to close over the bit of meat that sat oily and too hot on his tongue. Despite his greatest efforts, he could not swallow it. Neither could he look at Hiresha.
    By her tone, the enchantress must have woken herself. She spoke in an increasingly rapid and agitated manner. “It was only sensible. He could accompany me on my expeditions as a spellsword and invite no moral dispute. Fosapam Chandur and I both came from Morimound. We could agree on a wedding ceremony. I have the location planned, the phrasing of the invitations memorized, the food to be served, everything except whether he would wear white or yellow. I feel it important that the groom have some input.”
    Janny nodded to the fennec. “You got it close. He'll wear white on bottom and gold on top.”
    Chandur shifted the food to the side of his mouth. He thought he could feel the blooming heat of Hiresha's embarrassment. Not knowing what else he could do for her, he got up and tried to leave.
    The men were weaving in a drunken dance, with the fennec jumping among them with chest-high hops. A priest urged Chandur to join them. A dancer jostled into Chandur as he began to say something, and the bit of meat slipped down his throat and stuck.
    Chandur found himself on his knees, clutching his neck. Men slapped his back and yelled. The fennec squealed. The spellsword's world began to swirl with black and red. He told himself not to fear. It was not his fate to die.
    The Fate Weaver's Priest promised me.
    “Out of the way, you fools.”
    The amethysts on Hiresha's dress dug into his back as she gripped him. It felt like she punched him in the stomach. The meat shot out of his mouth. He gasped on his hands and knees.
    As he staggered to his feet, the room was silent, except for the fennec. Chandur's eyes stayed on the rug’s sand-dune patterns. He heard Hiresha speak.
    “I think I’ll retire for an afternoon bath. I mean afternoon nap. I mean both. Yes, well, goodbye.”

 

    The green window panes of Hiresha's rented chambers shone with midday sun. Droplets of water shaded like emeralds rolled off her skin to splash on the tiles, and she stepped back from the glare to keep her face in shadow. Her nervous fingers circled between her breasts and around a diamond, feeling the transition between warm skin and cool stone. Between soft and hard, between life and craft.
    The tinted window glass darkened the red diamond to a dusky jewel, the gem that the Lord of the Feast had given her, that she had enchanted with protective magics, that she had implanted into her sternum so she would never lose it. Skin encased its edges, revealing only the diamond's largest facet. One corner of the triangular surface pointed upward.
    As the triangle between his brows points downward. Few had seen the Lord of the Feast's brand and lived. Hiresha wished she had never had to meet him. She wished she had never had to leave him. I should've thrown his red diamond into the sea.
    Her hand covered the gem as Janny approached with her dress. The maid knew about the jewel, but Hiresha