Hakan turned and found the woman he’d summoned from the tower of the wives. She had joined his harem some three months ago. She was tall, nearly as tall as he, and beautiful beyond measure. She was graced with golden hair and striking blue eyes, so rare among the women of the Empire. Only far to the north, among the mountain tribes, were such women to be found, but they were too often coarse and unlearned. Arvaneh was refined, with a soft touch and a softer tongue-in both senses of the word.

The supple cloth of her white dress fell along her frame like a waterfall. From her ankles and hands hung chains with golden bells and ruby gems. On her head was an intricate gold headdress. Somehow it had never suited her.

“Remove the headdress,” he said.

She bowed and complied, setting the headdress on a nearby table. When she regarded him again, it seemed to him that her smile was too satisfied, as if removing the finery had been her idea all along.

He moved to the table and from a small glass pitcher poured raki into two golden chalices. He handed one to Arvaneh and kept the other for himself, motioning for her to follow him to the balcony. She complied, calm and confident, as she had always been.

At the balcony, he brought the raki to his nose, smelled the anise and clove that infused it, then took a healthy swallow. He saw Arvaneh do the same, and the tension inside him eased.

“Tell me, Arvaneh, from what part of the empire do you hail?”

“From a village near the western border of the Gaji.” She waved, as if it were nothing. “It is named Kohor, though you’ve probably never heard of it.”

“Is it not in the Empire?”

“It is, Kamarisi.”

He smiled. “I know of Kohor. What I don’t know is how you came to Aleke s ir.”

She tilted her head, staring out over the garden as he’d been doing only moments before, except in her there was a clear hunger, a lust for life and the world that stood before her, whereas he had grown… perhaps not weary, but certainly dissatisfied with life in the palace, in the city.