Justin didn’t grasp her words immediately. Then he abruptly asked:  

“What...?”  

Narseh felt as though he were submerged under water. From beneath this crushing weight, he could barely hear the Threadweaver's voice: 

"Forgive me, child, I am truly sorry. I rarely manage to hold onto the details and causes of events, but in nearly all the threads I have seen, there is much pain and death awaiting you. If you give up this idea, your life will be far longer and happier. Truly happier.”  

Justin bowed his head and was silent for a long time.   

"You hope,” the woman said with regret, "that I will hint to you what to do, but you must decide for yourself. That is the whole point. And,” she added, turning to Prince Ardashir, who still stood in the corner, nearly blending with the shadows, "you must choose as well.”  

Narseh looked at the Prince. For some reason, the Prince also looked at Narseh at that moment, not at Justin. His thoughts were tightly sealed. But he looked as if he knew perfectly well what Justin was about to ask of him. It was easy to guess, though; everyone was thinking about those negotiations right now...  

"How can I decide anything here?” said the Prince without expression. "This is not my fork in the road. If such is fate, I have no right to interfere.”  

The Threadweaver laughed kindly.  

''You're being sly. To grant permission or to deny it is not just your right, but your duty. He has his own fork in the road, and you have yours. If you have taken it upon yourself to trick fate, will you also take the responsibility of holding others' threads in your hands? Are you ready for your beloved ones to know exactly what you're doing?''  

For a moment, tense silence hung in the air. Something passed between the Prince and the Weaver, but this mainyu was closed to others.  

"Thank you for the advice,” the Prince said at last — not with dislike, but without warmth either. Then, more softly, he asked, "Do you know when you will leave for the Other Side?”  

"Yes. I have only a few hours left.”  

Ardashir adjusted the old woman's blanket and stroked her fox. 

"Do you have someone to see you off? I could do it. And now I'm not trying to find out anything, I'm asking not the Threadweaver, but Nani of the Owl Clan.”

"I know," the Weaver smiled, "and I thank you for that. But no, you don't have to. I am fortunate: the woman who shares the grotto with me will accompany me, and my two daughters.”   

The Prince kissed the Threadweaver on the forehead and smoothed her silver hair:  

“Have a peaceful crossing.”

Narseh followed Justin and the Prince out of the grotto, not seeing where he was going, as if pulled along by invisible strings.

So this is what it meant to meet a Threadweaver. Fate steps in; the Other Side rudely invades your familiar life, reality shifts. You take a step forward on a staircase, and the next step isn’t there. Just a couple of phrases - and suddenly your best friend might soon die, and the person you trust most in the world is acting strangely, hiding something.

For Justin, taking this step into the abyss wasn’t easy either. The moment they stepped outside, he burst out:

"This can't be serious. It is... fraud! Prince, don't believe her! I wasn’t even thinking of asking you for anything like that... Pain and death - or a happy long life? Truly, what a choice! Anyone would be stumped!"  

Prince Ardashir remained silent. He never grew angry with Justin for his lack of respect and obedience; if he accepted someone into his inner circle, he accepted them as they were. He wasn’t angry now either — he looked at Justin as though he understood what weighed on his heart even better than Justin himself.   

More quietly, more subdued, Justin said:

"Fine, I did want to ask about the negotiations... but you probably already guessed that yourself... It's so disgusting that you might think I want to return to Bizanth. I don't. I swear on anything. You’ll probably decide, like Narseh, that I miss my home, that I, what, long to speak Hellenic again… No. The longer I live here, the more I forget how things worked there, and and the moment I remember — I feel like throwing up…" 

Prince Ardashir touched his shoulder, said with warmth and sadness: 

"Oh, Justin, no, I won’t decide anything of the sort. I have seen the choices the Threadweavers offer people — they are never simple. They are called choices, not latent desires, for a reason. On the contrary: now I can be certain that at least half of your heart is here in Aryan."  

"And if... if I do ask you to let me go to those negotiations — will you let me?” Justin asked in a small voice. "No, I'm not asking... I said 'if'.  I just… just want to know…"  

The Prince shook his head with a look of quiet resignation, as if he was hoping for some other outcome. Narseh no longer hoped for anything. He felt as though he were in a dream, powerless to speak or act. And the absence of logic was mounting, also like in a dream — like in a nightmare.

"Ask me the day after tomorrow," the Prince told Justin.

Justin blinked in surprise.

"Did you mean tomorrow? The council is tomorrow. If anything important is to be decided, it will be there — won’t it?"  

A shadow ran across the Prince's face.  

"The council... Yes, surviving that will be a challenge of its own. But no. I meant the day after tomorrow. By then, I will have a little more certainty."     

*** 

When Narseh first heard from Justin how power was passed down in Bizanth — through the blood of firstborn males in the line of some great ruler of the past — he didn't know whether to laugh or shudder in disgust, so absurd it seemed. Could it really be that in the entire vast empire, only people from one family were fit to rule the country? And what if that very firstborn wanted to choose the path of a healer or an artist?  

The leaders of the Arya clans have long been chosen by popular vote. The task of the shayasya of war was to protect the clan, while the shayasya of peace was responsible for its everyday life.

The position of the High Prince, Shayasya Shayasyanam, hadn’t existed for a long time; or rather, it had existed once, in ancient Aryan, a land from which only legends remain. But for centuries, the Arya clans had lived divided — not in enmity, but not in particular friendship either — until Bizanth’s insatiable thirst for conquest had forced them to unite. Now, decisions on the most important matters were made by a vote of clan leaders and the Prince’s advisors. It was in a similar gathering a few years ago that Ardashir was chosen as the High Prince, entrusted with the fate of all twelve clans. By the same vote, he could be removed in the event of major disagreements.  

And today, there would likely be no shortage of disagreements...

Narseh arrived at the gathering, as he was one of Ardashir’s advisors. But his thoughts, filled with sorrow and fear, were far away. He kept thinking about the same things: about Justin, ready to rush to Bizanth and die there for the sake of some girl unknown to Narseh; about the terrifying Threadweaver who, despite her blindness, saw through everyone; about her strange words to the Prince… About the Prince’s heavy, unreadable gaze and how he clearly hadn’t been pleased that Narseh had accidentally witnessed his visit to the Weaver — and wasn’t hurrying to share his secrets. Why had he looked so troubled?... Since yesterday, everything had been slipping from Narseh’s hands, and the hours had dragged on like a year.

"Beloved ones!" Prince Ardashir spoke, seated on the cushions in the middle of the meeting grotto. "Beloved ones, I have gathered you here to discuss news from the West."  

Just as rapidly growing Eranshahr had become a home to people from various clans and lands, the Prince himself dressed in simple light linen, rather than in the colors of his own clan — as if to say he served everyone, not just the Owls. Only a long vest with reddish-gray embroidery reminded of his origins.

The Prince’s advisors knew exactly what the discussion would be about; the clan leaders had their guesses as well. Rumors had spread that the Red Emperor was dead and that his daughter had taken the throne; since that day, the attacks on the borders had decreased. And recently, someone had delivered gifts to one of the border settlements: wine, fabrics, beautiful fine-boned horses, and expensive purple dye that only Bizanth could produce. No matter how much the Arya hated Bizanth and all that came from it, the gifts were intended for Prince Ardashir, and they had been delivered to him, even though many believed the wine was poisoned.

But it was not poisoned, and among the gifts, there was a message for the Prince — though the gifts themselves were message enough... 

"The new ruler of Bizanth, Empress Valeria, has sent me a letter. I have already read it and prepared my reply. But since it concerns all of us, everyone is welcome to express their opinions. Roxhana!" the Prince said to one of his advisors. "I ask you to read the message."  

Something inside Narseh twinged with a feeling of resentment. Ardashir could have asked him — Narseh could read the languages of Bizanth just as well. But perhaps it was for the better that he didn’t… Since yesterday, Narseh had been avoiding meeting the Prince’s gaze and had shut his mind as well.

Roxhana rose and unrolled the parchment.  

"Valeria Porphyrogenita, Crimson-born, the forty-fifth in the line of Alexander, Empress of the Great Empire of Bizanth, Grand Duchess of the Thervings and Grevtungs, Ruler of Ægypt, Queen of Londinia and the surrounding islands, sends greetings to Prince Ardashir, head of the united Arya clans and ruler of the East..." 

She read loudly and clearly while simultaneously showing everyone the image of the letter in her mainyu. The message was not only in Hellenic but also duplicated in curly, sly-looking columns of Sugdian, the language spoken and written by nearly all peoples who lived between Bizanth, which lay in the west, and the Chin Empire, which dominated in the east.   

"She reminds of the danger from the Arabiya lands that threatens both Bizanth and Arya, and assures that her intentions are to establish order and protection, not discord," Roxhana continued.  

"Protection!" The mainyu of Anahita, the shayasya of peace of the Owl Clan, cut through the meeting hall like steel. "May our fravashis save us from such protectors!"   

"She hopes for friendship and restoration of trade relations... She asks that her caravans be allowed free passage through the lands of all twelve Arya clans. She writes that Bizanthine merchants are even willing to buy goods from Sogd and Chin through us, because their current route bypassing our lands costs them far more. Next are the calculations…”

“Money,” one of the shayasyas sneered — he had come to the council, it seemed, from the Raven Clan. “Always money with them…”

"The language of trade," Prince Ardashir said, "is not the most beautiful of languages, but at least it is better than fanatical hatred."  

Roxhana finished: 

"She suggests meeting for negotiations in Iron Pass to discuss the details. If Prince Ardashir generously agrees to sign this peace agreement, she promises to stop attacking our borders, and also to release nearly a hundred of our sisters and brothers who are now imprisoned in the capital of Bizanth, captured in the Battle of the Thousand Slain."  

"She's lying," spat Burandoht, the war shayasya of the Finch clan. "If she wanted to release them, she would have done it long ago!"

"Or she wants something from us in return," remarked the peace shayasya of the same clan, Narseh did not know his name. "They always bargain, these snakes."  

Another member of the council, also unfamiliar to Narseh, asked Roxhana: 

"Does she write anything about the Scorched Lands that her father seized?"  

"No, she writes nothing about it. At the end she wishes health and longevity to the Prince and prosperity to his land. That's all."  

"That's the answer. Her lying mouth speaks of peace, but she has no intention of returning anything that was taken from us. If this new empress has truly renounced war, let her recognize Arya's right to those lands."  

Narseh silently acknowledged that this seemed true. The lives of the Arya prisoners — for the price of abandoning any claim to the Scorched Lands. Very Bizanth-y: bargaining so cunningly that the subject of the deal isn't not even named.  

He had no desire to interject, but suddenly a terrible thought struck him, one he couldn’t possibly keep from the assembly.  

"She wrote nothing about the health of our sisters and brothers in captivity. Whether they were allowed to keep their powers in Bizanth. Whether they will be returned… intact and unharmed, or..." Narseh, exhausted by his attempts to find the right words, simply opened his mind to those present.

Stakes driven into the palms. Eyes gouged out.   

It was exceedingly difficult to capture an Arya alive; to neutralize them — to sever their connection to the  Other Side — they were often crucified and blinded right there on the battlefield. If they survived to reach Bizanth, they were executed slowly, ceremoniously, and with great suffering, but the nature of the execution remained the same.

Everyone stared at Narseh, their thoughts awash with fury. The Prince, it seemed, had already considered this possibility. Now, Narseh could feel a wave of mild regret emanating from him, as though he’d spoken aloud what Ardashir himself would have preferred to keep unspoken. Then came frustration — frustration that this regret had been allowed to escape and be noticed by the assembly.

Ardashir pressed his lips tightly together, then, after a moment, said:

"That's true. We don’t know whether she plans to return our sisters and brothers — or merely their shadows, stripped of the will and strength to live."  

“Not everyone would stoop to such depravity,” said another of the Prince’s advisors, Farnak. “If she’s offering peace herself, she must be a good person…”

"The honesty and virtue of Bizantines..." came a sharp, mocking thought from someone’s mainyu.

Burandoht observed practically: 

"She may be as kind as she likes, but she's not the only one making decisions for the whole country."  

"That’s how it was under the Red Emperor," Farnak objected. "The whole empire and its atrocities were the shadow of a single monster."