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COLOUR. EVEN KISSEN COULDN ’ T CONTAIN IT.

LOVE BURST from her in shades of the sea, glittering as if with salt or frost. For Telle her love was greens on greens, cut through with sweeping gusts of yellow like sunlight.

Yatho’s love was the red glow of heated metal, sparks and fires, joyous and blooming with perfect violet.

Love in all its colours. Inara caught back a sob as the three of them fell into each other’s arms and held each other as the waves of light around them softened, gentled.

She felt a hand on her own shoulder. Lessa, frowning askance. Sisters, Inara signed.

What were they doing here?

Lertes had half drawn his sword but slid it back into its sheath with a sigh.

‘You absolute fucking bastards,’ said Kissen, more to herself than to them, for she then signed. Are you safe?

We were invited when your ship was sighted, said Telle. She looked well, her dark hair recently cut, her tan brightening her scars. They have been helping us.

She looked towards Inara and held out her arms. Skedi almost fell off as she dived into the archivist’s embrace and held on tightly. Telle put her palm to her back, gentle but firm.

‘I am glad I was able to reunite you,’ came a voice from the front, and Inara pulled reluctantly away to see who had spoken.

A woman had come forward. Her tightly coiled hair was shot through with silver, worn free and out around her head like a halo. She looked familiar, less by her shape, which was small, with slender shoulders and round hips, than by her bearing. Straight backed and sure, chin tilted up, proud.

‘I am Mitha Bahba, of Antioc and Ellim. I believe you know my son.’

Telle stood back and signed to Inara. She saved us. Elogast saved us. He wrote to her.

Inara looked towards Bahba as Skedi settled back on her shoulder. ‘You’re Elo’s mother?’

‘One of them,’ she said, inclining her head. ‘Ellac, my heart’s love, died the winter before last.’ She had a deep, strong voice. A voice that could fell trees or raise a storm from the ground.

‘I didn’t know Ser Elogast’s mother was one of the Mithrik,’ said Lessa carefully, with a sharp glance at Kissen, who shrugged and shook her head.

‘I was selected and elected eight months ago,’ said Bahba. ‘Unlike Middren, Irisian governance is through choice, not birth.’

Lessa raised a brow. ‘More often than not, a blood relative of the predecessor gains the seat, do they not?’

To Inara’s surprise, Bahba smiled, though there was a flutter of chatter in Irisian from the others.

There surely weren’t enough councillors here to represent the whole of Irisia?

And two stood slightly apart, dressed in matching robes of purple.

One had hidden their colours; the other shone in pretty coral hues of satisfaction.

Yatho was signing quickly to Kissen and Telle, and Kissen looked back.

They are Restish, she told them.

Inara felt her chest tighten, but Lessa was still speaking. ‘I am glad the godscripts made it safely here to Irisia.’

‘The wealth of Lesscia comes running into our arms,’ said one of the Mitha gathered by the feast arranged on the tables. ‘Your king appears to be haemorrhaging more and more each year.’ The air around them was thick with the scent of sugar and nuts.

‘And yet still there is much to lose,’ said Lessa calmly. ‘And much to gain. The Talician invasion is set to cause irreparable damage to our deep-water harbours, which we all know are valuable for our merchants travelling west.’

‘Invasion?’ said one of the purple-robed ones, the one with the pretty colours. ‘If your king can’t handle a few summer raids what is that to do with us?’

Lessa levelled her gaze at the speaker, and Inara held tightly to Telle’s dress, leaving her hands free in case she wanted to speak.

‘I may be misunderstanding something,’ said Lessa softly. ‘I came to treat with Irisia, not yet with the Restish. You are?’

‘I am Advisor Efana,’ he said, then nodded to his companion who wore a string of red beads.

‘And this is Advisor Mirim. We came to ensure you did not have to journey further to Restish before you return to Middren. Travelling all this way on the back of your king’s fearmongering is not what I expected of you, Lady Craier. ’

Liar, said Skedi. They came to plead their own case.

Kissen straightened up, frowning. ‘Fearmongering?’ she said. ‘I’ve seen the work of the Talicians first hand, and the Restish ships they are using for their invasion, just like that one outside. Do you know they burn little children for their god?’

‘Kissenna,’ warned Lessa, as Aslani cleared their throat loudly, but it was another of the Mithrik council, a man with bone earrings slotted through his ears, who spoke up.

‘And we should believe the word of a godkiller, why?’ he said. ‘I am Mitha Chalada, elected of Wsirin, I don’t like the idea of a harasa in my city.’ That must be the Irisian term for a veiga. Something Inara’s tutor hadn’t included in her vocabulary lessons.

‘Oh pipe down, Chalada,’ said Bahba. ‘Kissenna is under my protection, a friend of my son. And just because you find a job distasteful doesn’t make it worthy of your derision.’ She looked at Lessa. ‘But perhaps we should let her return to her family?’

Kissen shook her head. ‘I said I would stay with the Craiers.’ Yatho looked at her with surprise, and Lessa smiled, but shook her head with only a touch of reluctance.

‘Please,’ she said to Kissen. ‘Reunite with your family. It is, after all, why you came.’

They held each other’s gaze for a moment, but Kissen at last muttered an assent as Telle turned to Inara. Join us? she asked.

After, signed Inara, and stepped back towards her mother. This is where I belong.

Telle nodded. She and Yatho drew Kissen through a door to the right of the chaises, and Inara, her mother and the crew of the Silverswift were left with the Mithrik and the Restish. Skedi tightened his claw on Inara’s shoulder.

There is danger here, he said into her mind. Conflict. Even in Bahba I see little lies.

Bahba was Elo’s mother, and Inara was inclined to like her, but Skedi was right, she had little currents of deception in her colours, carnelian and silver-sly. Strange.

Lessa stood calmly, waiting for the others to make a move. She kept her hands loose, her shoulders back, and Inara remembered something she used to say to her: a quick tongue’s edge dulls faster than a cautious one.

Eventually, an older man broke the silence, sitting down on one of the loungers with the aid of a cane.

‘P-please, come sit,’ he said. His robes were pale, soft rose, and light, though he had a wool jacket loosely draped around him. ‘We are leaders of our nations, n-not children.’

Inara glanced at her mother, who nodded, and she came forward to the chaises. Aslani sat beside her, and, stiffly, the others followed.

‘My name is Sosul,’ said the older Mitha, ‘I see we hav-v-e a quya in our p-p-presence.’ He nodded respectfully to Skedi.

‘Skediceth represents the gods who still have shrines in Middren,’ lied Lessa, and Inara resisted putting her hand up to stroke him as he instinctively lent some of his will to the untruth.

‘And he is a god of …?’ asked Mirim.

‘Travellers,’ said Aslani lightly. ‘There are few quya that can travel so far from their shrine. He is half-wild, and clearly ancient. And as such welcome to our discussions.’

A white lie. Skedi grew slightly on Inara’s shoulder with excitement. Are they an ally?

What if they just didn’t understand?

I don’t think so, look at their colours.

Aslani’s colours shone the colours of burnished metal, curling, playful. They knew they were pushing truths. Skedi was right; an ally, perhaps, or at least not an enemy.

‘I will continue with introductions,’ they continued. ‘I am Mitha Aslani, elected of Traada.’

They nodded at the next councillor, a woman. ‘Mitha Imani, elected of Sicara.’

They went round in forced politeness, but Sosul gave Inara a small smile and nodded down at a black lacquered box on the laden table between some of the pastries that were drizzled in honey and greened with pistachio.

She opened it, and inside were mirrors, shining and smooth, and between large blocks of ice, barely melted, was a bowl of crushed snow, pomegranate seeds and zither herbs. Inara heard Rhiyande’s intake of breath.

‘There are a good thirty Mithrik not in attendance,’ said Lessa, as the introductions were finished. Skedi crept down to sit in Inara’s lap, small and unobtrusive. ‘Many I would consider friends. Am I to understand I will address them at a later point?’

The silence was uncomfortable, palpable, like a surrounding of moss and shadow, full of unseen dangers.

Lessa leaned forward into it, picking out a date from the offering set before them.

Inara cast her eyes over the colours of the council, but nothing in them changed, and two others reached for the same.

No poison then. She took Sosul up on his offer and put a spoonful of white ice into a bowl.

She offered it to him first. His hands trembled and moved, as if he struggled with control of them, but he chuckled and shook his head.

‘ Bikul, bikul. ’ Eat, Eat.

Inara took a mouthful. She hadn’t had ice since the Craier manor burned.

They used to bring it down with the snows.

It crunched delightfully, the pomegranate seeds popping in sweet, acidic bursts.

She blinked, and grinned, turning around to Rhiyande.

‘You have to try it,’ she said, offering the bowl, and the spoon.

Rhiyande balked, looking at Lertes, who shrugged. The three crew were still standing while everyone else sat. Perhaps to act more like guards than councillors. But still, Rhiyande took the bowl and the silver spoon and took a bite, her eyes lighting up before passing it to Shah. The tension eased.

We’ll ask for some after, said Skedi. I’m sure I could wish it out of them.

Inara bit back a smile. Enough for the crew?

Let me flex my wings.