Once freed from her imprisonment, the remainder of the ten-day passes in a blur for Rasheeka. She learns that the other foreign slaves had been imprisoned, too, although they were held in more comfortable accommodations. Like Rasheeka, they were returned to their duties shortly after the tyr dismissed the charges against her. In fact, none of them even knew why the change in routine had occurred until Rasheeka explained over supper.

The Khatta notices that, wherever she goes, there are more guards around than she remembers seeing; almost always, at least one armed man is in her vicinity. One face starts to look familiar to her: a russet fox with a long muzzle and a blaze of white over his throat. Though he's not always present, whenever she does spot him, she feels as if he is watching her.

The lesson Rasheeka gives on Inos evening is less productive than usual, as the slaves fall to talking about what they will do on tomorrow, on Kyriaki. Winter-Stars badgers Shock about teaching them "Hunter's Race," but her experience earlier in the ten-day has left the older Savanite cautious. "We've seen how well these people like foreigners, and they don't like surprises any better. Maybe when we know them better – I just don't want to find out that something like, say, running around tackling each other, is a sign of treachery to them."

Rasheeka tries to persuade the Savanites to come with her to the Hearth the next day, and barring a game of Hunter's Race, Winter-Stars is amenable, though the others are skeptical. Eventually, the Khatta realizes they have all become hopelessly distracted, and dismisses the class to enjoy the holiday. She stays behind after the others have left, looking at the Laosian sayings hanging on the walls, trying to decipher their meanings. Even when she can pick out the letters of the alphabet and she understands the individual words, the sense behind them still eludes her at times. "Without light, there are no mysteries," one reads.

As the slave-made-teacher glances over the various proverbs, she can't help but wonder if she isn't missing something – as if there is a whole side to the Laosians they simply haven't revealed to her for reasons she can only speculate at. Or maybe, she thinks, they assume I know already. Whatever the case may be, Laos Enosi is nearly as much a puzzle to her as it had been when she arrived, though now at least she has some pieces in place with which to guide herself.

With the room falling in to shadows as the day grows old, Rasheeka stirs herself from her thoughts and rises to her feet. Tomorrow is Kyriaki and she has promised to attend the "large ritual" of the Neyemen in the morning. She decides she had best get off to sleep then, so she can wake up early and see to any arrangements that might be needed for her departure. After all, the Laosians seem to be watching her far more closely than they ever had, and she doesn't desire to create any more troubles for her friends or herself.

On her way out, the slave emene peeks out the door, taking a moment to check for the familiar face of that vulpine who sometimes seems to be watching her.

Peeking outside, she comes face-to-face – or, in her case, nose-to-chest – with an armored man leaning against the wall. Startled, she looks up, and recognizes the scruffy face of Archon Mefuno. He grins at her. "Class going well, little afentis?"

Rasheeka mewls, hopping back and covering her mouth in surprise. She stares at the Archon as he speaks and when he calls her "little afentis" she giggles self-consciously before bowing to him. "Please, great and benevolent Archon, I am simply 'Rasheeka' – not to be called 'afentis.' It is above my station," she pleads, though her tone betrays that she is nonetheless flattered. "My class is restless today, Archon Mefuno. They grow excited with the coming of Kyriaki."

"Meh, and who is not? Except the poor guards who work while everyone else plays." Mefuno rests his shoulder against the wall, his arms folded in front of his chest while he looks at Rasheeka. "Meh. You went to the skimos last Kyriaki, didn't you?"

The girl dips in to another bow, this one slight, and inclines her head in a confirming nod to the man's question. "Yes, Archon Mefuno." She bits her lip, then adds hesitantly, "I had promised I would return earlier upon the next Kyriaki, barring difficulties."

Mefuno scratches the side of his nose. "'Barring difficulties,'" he repeats. "All right. Rasika, I can't tell you what to do on Kyriaki. Dynatos tyr himself can't tell you what to do tomorrow, you understand that?" The archon hunches, catching Rasheeka's gaze in his own and holding it as he looks into her eyes for signs of comprehension.

"But, you are worried there will be … problems, Archon?" finishes Rasheeka. She meets his gaze not without discomfort, but she doesn't try to look away.

"Meh." He straightens. "The person who tried to poison you was pretty subtle and cautious about it in the Astikos. In the skimos, they wouldn't need to be subtle or cautious. Here, we can keep an eye on you. Down among the Neyemen, on Kyriaki – " He shrugs. "Then, you're on your own, girl. That's not a safe place for any decent person – even the ones who aren't subject to assassination attempts."

Rasheeka nods again, this time with a considering slowness about her movement, and her next question is accordingly slow and halting as she struggles for the right words. "Archon Mefuno, you … you wouldn't like to … to join me, would you? As an invitation. On a day of rest. As my … guest, out of gratitude?" The insides of her ears turn pink.

The archon stares at her for a moment, mouth open, then he gives a deep belly laugh. "The bird knows she is faster than the rabbit, meh?" he says at last, grinning.

The laugh gives the slave girl cause hope the Archon isn't offended, and as such reason to believe the proverb is meant in a flattering light – but just like the rest of the many sayings and proverbs here in Laos Enosi she can never be certain she hasn't missed something. And she's well aware the offer might be a breach of protocol. So she just smiles uneasily back at the Archon.

At Rasheeka's nonplussed expression, Mefuno's grin turns wry, and he shrugs. "Perhaps not. Little afentis – " and now she is pretty sure he is teasing her by using the honorific, " – I am afraid I must decline your invitation. I'd suggest you consider the difficulties that may bar yourself, as well. Have a care, Rasika; you are valued by your master." The archon pushes off from the wall and gives her a slight nod, preparing to leave.

Again the slave bows, deep as when she had first encountered the Archon in the hall. "O-of course. Thank you, Archon Mefuno. I will. I will give the matter careful thought," she tells him. Her ears redden all the more with added embarrassment from having missed his meaning. "There must be something I can do."

"Something you can do?" Half-turned away, Mefuno looks back to her, quirking an eyebrow. "For what?"

"I wonder," muses the slave as she straightens, her right hand reaching to run along her entyzomo, "if perhaps I should be less as the sun and more as the shadow. I am told I greatly resemble the Neyemen."

The smile on Mefuno's face has faded, making him look sterner, more like the other Laosians. "Neyemen, Yemenos, you, they all look alike to us," he says with a shrug. "Maybe amongst yourselves you can tell each other apart. Me, I have trouble telling the alepo women from their men." Though he says it with a straight face, Rasheeka finds the claim extremely suspicious.

"Yes, Archon Mefuno." The slave glances towards one of the slowly emptying torches on the wall, back to the Archon, and then bows again. "Forgive me Archon. I should not distract you with my silly mutterings."

"Forgiven. What are you getting at, girl?" the archon asks. His smile plays around the edges of his mouth again, threatening to lighten his expression. "I don't follow that sun-and-shadows expression of yours. Meh."

"I thought I had an idea, Archon Mefuno." Rasheeka's whiskers twitch. "I'm not so sure anymore, if attempting to be less obviously who I am would work when as you say many Laosians cannot tell us apart. But perhaps Neyn Yejsk can help my ideas. I do not know. Even before, I never had to consider assassins."

"Meh. I'd say it's late, now, to be pretending you're from Apagorevo. Whoever's after you already knows otherwise." The archon shrugs and scratches the side of his nose again. "You going to the skimos tomorrow?"

"Yes," answers Rasheeka, almost definitely. "I promised that I would come, and I believe I can put my trust in Neyn Yejsk. I do not want wish to surrender that which he offered so that I can hide in the Astikos for the remainder of my Kyriakis."

At her tone, the archon glances sidelong at her. He watches her for a few moments, out of the corner of his eye. "You're a fool," he says, simply and without rancor. "But the guard'll be glad for the day off." He shrugs again, and walks away.

Being called a fool angers Rasheeka, and it surprises her to find that the reasons are many. She wants to shout down the hall after the Archon that she never wanted to be here – that never did she want to be a ruler's prized tool, so valuable some force now seeks to break her. And now she's being told to stay away from the one group of people who might welcome her without spitting prodotis in her face, as if she were a disease. The little slave girl glares an unfocused anger through the Archon's back, and after giving him a curt bow she quickly walks off before any further emotion can slip out … emotion like hatred, or that which brings the onset of tears.

Kyriaki dawns, frosty and clouded. The walk to the skimos promises to be a long and uncomfortable one, and though Winter-Stars had agreed to go the day before, she wakes with a minor fever, and is reluctant to brave the unpleasant weather. Disappointed but trying to hide it, Rasheeka tells her friend to stay inside, while she goes with Neyn Yejsk and a few other emene slaves of the Astikos. Even the normally friendly emene are made surly by the gloom. Her companions continually glance at the sky, grumbling now and then, but the clouds aren't dark enough to promise a storm. The Hearth-fire brightens everyone's mood and expression, though the smoke makes Rasheeka almost immediately nauseous.

Neyn Yejsk leaves Rasheeka to mingle as he joins a handful of other yejsks circling the fire, scattering in wood chips and clippings into the flames, chanting. Three male emene lead in an angry-looking four-legged mammal. It walks on long legs ending in cloven hooves, snorting and stamping, and shaking its tusked head, the bristles along its neck trembling with the motion. A muzzle of rope keeps its mouth closed, while its eyes roll in its skull. From one ear dangles an entomo. One of the people Rasheeka stands near – a grown son of one of the other yejsks – smiles approvingly. "This will be a good one. Father likes them to show some struggle."

Trying to hide her nervousness with conversation, Rasheeka asks, "Pardon my ignorance, but what is it? I don't think I have read of their like before." Talking makes her feel a bit better, though the idea that somewhere out there someone is probably still plotting ways to end her life continues to reoccur in her mind. She wonders if this wasn't a foolish idea after all, such as the Archon said, and if she really is so desperate to belong to something again that she'd risk her life over it. The gray sky strikes her as especially ominous today, along with every shadow and stranger from here to the Astikos.

One of Neyn Yejsk's "cousins" – Jskli Vskir, an emene woman old enough to be Rasheeka's mother – flicks her ears back, disapproving. "Phah," she responds to the yejsk's son. To Rasheeka, she answers, "The Laos Enosi call them 'ikitos.' We raise them for food. They are no fit sacrifice for a yejskisk, whatever hjarsk yejsk may pretend." She jerks her head in the direction of the several yejsk circling the fire. The emene near her give her sharp looks that suggest that whatever "hjarsk" might mean, it's not complimentary.

"Better an ikitos than nothing at all," a younger woman replies. This argument sounds like familiar ground, often tread upon.

"Better nothing than a perversion of what is right," Jskli grouses.

"If our yejskisk is so perverted it is less than nothing, why do you still come, Jskli?" the son of a yejsk jibes.

"To keep it from becoming any worse!" she counters.

While the others break into arguing Rasheeka, takes a quick look around, searching for something or someone who might fit her idea of a suspicious assassin. The Yodhsunala of Babel wear cloaks and color-coded robes, she remembers, but she suspects they might cast aside such outfits for stealth. It strikes her just how helpless she feels not knowing when, or where, or even who it could be. All her reading never prepared her for how to deal with an assassin – no Assassins and You: A Quick Reference for the Mortally Endangered to now rely on. At least the sound of the relatively friendly Neyemen is some comfort; at least she isn't here alone.

Most of the Neyemen, Rasheeka notices, dress similarly to the Laosian vulpines, in wide-legged loose pants and folded-front belted tunics, with long gilekos over it for the men, and sakakis for the women. The yejsks wear clothing of a different style – more traditional to the Neyemen, maybe – ornamented with patterns in chitin, and tattered strands of leather. Before entering, almost everyone is wearing a short hooded cloak. Though they lack the veils Rasheeka's would-be assassin had, the faceless newcomers serve as a reminder to increase her nervousness, at least until the heat of the bonfire persuades them to strip off their cloaks.

Rasheeka fidgets with her hands. She had been looking forward to attending this ceremony since Neyn Yejsk first mentioned it, and yet now it's turning in to a sort of nightmare where every hooded face is a potential murderer. Rather than paying too much attention to the conversation, Rasheeka finds herself increasingly drawn to the newcomers, her eyes darting from one to another for moments on end before they return to those nearest her.

"If our Hearth were as traditional as you would like, Jskli," one of the arguers is continuing, "the Laos would destroy it in a heartbeat. How much would you presume on the generosity of the tyr?" The roofless tent gradually grows more crowded. Emene enter, some bringing dishes of food or jugs of drink, which they set on a table at one end of the tent. One hooded figure comes in to pile more wood onto the stack set aside for the fire, then makes his way back out again.

"I would not presume on the tyr at all," Jskli bristles.

One of the cloaked newcomers approaches them, pulling off his hood to show a young, smiling face and a dark brown entomo hanging from his ear. "Same story, different day," he says, kissing Jskli on the cheek. "When are you going home to Morkio or Sklivio, grandmother?" he asks.

The young slave of the tyr stares at the wood pile for a moment, silently wondering if bringing in a pile of wood and then simply leaving is normal. She then considers she's being paranoid and even if someone is trying to kill her, "suspicious wood" isn't likely to be the source. The idea of "suspicious wood" at all makes her giggle in a nervous kind of way. It makes her feel better – better enough, at least, to pay a bit more attention to the people she came in with and the new arrival who has joined them.

Jskli beams at the new arrival, patting his cheek. "Klysk, you are too hard on an old woman," she tells him.

"Nonsense. I could never be so hard as you, grandmother," Klysk replies, warmly. "Who is your new friend?" he continues, looking at Rasheeka.

"Rasheeka, of the Astikos. She is an emene from across the sea, not a Neyemen or a Yemenos." The son of a yejsk introduces her, making Rasheeka wish she could remember his name in return.

"T-thank you," stutters Rasheeka as she fumbles for a response. She hadn't quite expected to be addressed despite the fact she has been standing right next to these people for a good many minutes now. Other matters had entirely absorbed her attention, such she had almost felt separate and removed – much as she had when she was dragged before the tyr earlier. To the boy who asked about her she gives a slight bow. "I am very g-glad to meet you."

Klysk takes her by the shoulders and leans forward, similar to the way he greeted Jskli, but he doesn't draw as close, or kiss her. "Omivari ka Rasheeka," he says. "I am Klysk Vskir. Your entomo is young – what line is he of?"

The slave looks slightly taken aback by the boy's gesture. Her eyes widen momentarily though she quickly relaxes as he draws away, looking much relieved. "Neyn Yejsk spoke of these things to me," she relates, eyes darting to follow a newly arrived hooded figure. "He said to me what I remember as 'Jskatri,' though I am uncertain of the context now. I am sorry if I recall incorrectly; I do believe the line is what he was referring to."

"Jskatri? He gave you a Jskatri?" Klysk looks impressed, and the others around Rasheeka are studying her anew, as well.

"I think so?" Rasheeka's eyes leave the cloaked man to realize that the others have taken a renewed interest in her. She smiles back at them uncomfortably, now deeply wishing she could recall more about the lines of entomo the yejsk had told her about as well as all the names he introduced her to.

By now, people have finished filtering in, and the chanting of the yejsk grow suddenly louder. As if on cue, the rest of the crowd settles to the ground. They sit cross-legged, not kneeling like the Laos-Enosi often do. Klysk gives Rasheeka another smile as he drops in place, facing the fire, like the others gathered.

Following the others' cue, and having no desire to present an open target, Rasheeka lowers herself to sit cross-legged on the ground. She settles near Klysk, facing the fire, finding the youth a friendly sort, and thinks she may call upon him for questions if she happens to have any later. He seems to Rasheeka a bit easier to approach than the stern old woman or the older men.

Several emene start beating on low, flat drums as the yejsk continue a half-shouted, half-sung chant. The assembly as a whole joins in on every fifth beat with a shout of "Hyah!"

When in Olympia, thinks the emene girl. She too adds her voice to the crowd offering a somewhat timid "hyah," having not yet warmed up to the custom of yelling. As the shouts continue on she finds her eyes brought back again to the pile of wood, and her mind to the memory of the figure who placed more upon the pile but did not return. So after the next call of "hyah" she leans over and asks Klysk, "Is it usual for someone to add wood to the pile, there," she tries to point unobtrusively to the stack, "and then leave?"

Klysk shakes his head and frowns at her, making a shushing gesture with one hand, while he shouts, "Hyah!" near the end of her sentence – the space of five beats isn't long enough to squeeze in much talk.

"Some did," Rasheeka whispers quickly, trying to at least fit in those two words between shouts to see if they garner much of a reaction.

The emene shakes his head and makes the shushing motion at her again, still frowning. Some of the others around her are giving her looks, too, and she notices no one else in the crowd is talking, or whispering.

Splaying her ears and looking embarrassed, the slave girl turns away from the boy and abandons her attempt to question him. Instead she tries to keep an eye on the stack as she watches the ritual begin, finding it difficult to concentrate.

Several emene start beating on low, flat drums as the yejsk continue a half-shouted, half-sung chant. The assembly as a whole joins in on every fifth beat with a shout of "Hyah!"

After several minutes, the chant slows and lowers in volume, with two of the yejsk dropping from it. The crowd stops participating. One of the yejsk says something in a Neyemen dialect, and then the other speaks in counterpoint. They continue like that for a few minutes. The rhythm of their words, alike yet different, always speaking in the same length, makes Rasheeka – even in her distracted state – think that they are each saying the same thing in two distinct, but similar, languages. The woodpile merely lies there, looking like wood.

Finally, the ikitos Rasheeka saw led into the tent earlier is brought to stand before the two speaking yejsk. Four men struggle to hold it in place, while one holds its head, arms locked around the tusks, keeping it extended. The beast writhes and tries to buck, snorting and pawing the ground. One yejsk draws an unadorned chitin knife over a foot long from a sheath at his belt. He pulls back his arm, holding the knife back along his forearm, its edge facing outwards. Then he brings his arm down and forward in one smooth, forceful blow to the side of its neck, decapitating the animal. Blood sprays out, drenching the shaman's arm, coating his chest, and splattering the crowd, including Rasheeka.

Rasheeka recoils for a moment, drawing her face away and closing her eyes, though her earlier embarrassment is enough to at least keep her from crying out. When she catches herself from falling back and pushes herself to sit right again she reopens her eyes, blinking through the flecks of blood that splattered her.

While Rasheeka flinches, the crowd gives an approving roar, and the drumbeats pick up again. Four of the five yejsk resume a variation on their chant, including the knife-wielder. The last yejsk plucks the head from the ground and shows it to the crowd. On the ear where the entomo is attached, Rasheeka thinks she can see a trembling beneath the skin, as if something live were crawling inside, just below the surface. Then the yejsk lays the severed head in a wooden box. The men who had been holding the ikitos drag it to one side, and cut the carcass open, dressing it to be cooked.

The experience of watching an animal get decapitated right before her eyes leaves Rasheeka feeling rather woozy. She tries to console herself by explaining that she has read about such practices a thousand times over, and the odd twitching of the dead creature's flesh must be some sort of death spasm. She can't however completely shake the idea that whatever was crawling there might have been related to the entomo itself, and this makes her want to squirm – a feeling she fights lest she embarrass herself further.

The woozy feeling isn't helped at all by the smell of the smoke, which makes her eyes water and her stomach twinge in memory of her nausea she had the day after her last visit. While she wrestles with these sensations, one of the yejsk moves away from those around the bonfire. The remaining four circle it, chanting and stomping their feet, two walking clockwise, the other two, counterclockwise, weaving in and out around one another. The last yejsk picks the top logs from the woodpile and carries them back to the fire. He walks with a certain cadence, matching the time of the beating drums, the chanting shamans.

That crazy ominous feeling that accompanied that pile of logs returns, and for the moment it's strong enough to defeat both her wooziness and her twisting stomach. She briefly considers what wood could do in a fire. Pages of various texts fly by her mind's eye, things such as poisonous vapors, explosive powders, and even a species of larva that thrive on heat. It makes her want to hunch over, and she does, in case it the offending wood happens to explode.

The yejsk's deliberate steps take a few moments to bring him back to the bonfire. When he returns, he stands between Rasheeka and the flames, his back to her. He raises a log above his head. "Hyah!" he shouts, and the crowd shouts with him.

Rasheeka pretends to suddenly have something caught in her throat, leaning forward and hunching over as she covers her muzzle with a hand as if to silence her cough. The thought of what if it is some kind of trap enters her kind again, and she considers what she's supposed to do. The idea of jumping up and telling a crowd of excited tribespeople "Stop that man with the wood!" seems insane at best, and dangerous at worst. More than likely it's nothing, thinks she, but that doesn't keep her from hiding anyway – at least until the wood has met the flames.

The yejsk tosses the log onto the bonfire. It lands with a splintery crunch. The flames arch over and around it. Sparks leap and dance.

What follows is a sound, almost a not-sound, a strange sucking noise that would brand itself into Rasheeka's memory forever. She curls in tighter on herself, reflexively, at the odd noise. Next to her, Klysk starts to speak, starts to shout. Then the world around her explodes into fire and light. Something slams into her body and face, something large that makes a soft wet splattery sound as it strikes her, and the smell of burning fur and flesh fills her being, infinitely worse than the smoke of the fire could ever have been.

Rasheeka goes to scream and all that comes out is strangled croak, such a sound that she couldn't until later believe was hers. She feels herself having been shoved roughly to the side by the impact. Various points of her body alternately feel covered by either a slick sticky substance that feels horribly like blood or else covered in matted dirt from her fall. Dazed and trembling, she begins to draw herself up from under the heavy weight of what hit her as she tries to look around.

All around, people are screaming, shouting, running, burning, dying. The cloth tent around the Hearth is shredded, and what is left, burning. Bodies litter the ground near her – and one, that of the yejsk who threw the log into the fire, is what struck her. Her own clothes have started to smolder in half a dozen places, and she can feel something hot against the small of her back. The bonfire burns white hot, crackling and spitting out chunks of burning debris. Then, Rasheeka hears that sucking sound again.

Her instinct is to immediately flee, but instead she remembers that ominous noise that heralded this disaster and immediately thinks better of it. She flattens herself down again instead, flat to the ground this time, and in macabre logic that only forms from desperation she tries to angle herself to land behind the body, so as to use it as a shield from another blast.

The second wave washes over her, and it seems, somehow, not as bad as the first. The screams and cries of the wounded and dying start to seem distant to her, as if they came from a long, long way away. A voice is shouting, barking out commands in unaccented Laosian, but in her numbed state, Rasheeka cannot parse the words.

As she looks up after the second wave, she at first thinks that everyone who can run is running away. But then she sees that a few people are heading into the holocaust. One tall hooded figure holds a singed cloak before him as he vaults through a gap in the tent, then he drops to kneel beside a whimpering, burning emene. He flips the cloak off himself and onto the injured person, trying to smother the flames, and reveals himself as a human in so doing. Closer to her, another figure, wearing a non-descript hood of gray, or maybe brown, picks his way among the strewn bodies, as if looking for someone alive and in need of help.

Spotting the larger of the two men as Archon Mefuno and the second figure as more than likely the assassin that has twice now attempted to kill her, Rasheeka decides on what she needs to do. Her head turns so as to keep an eye on the hooded figure, waiting for him to look away from her direction before she moves to get up and circle to place the bonfire between them in an effort to block herself from the assassin's sight.

The presumptive assassin doesn't turn away from her, unfortunately. Instead, he looks in her direction. Moving in a low, smooth crouch, he advances upon her. A few other figures have entered the smoldering skjisk, maybe in response to Mefuno's shouts. The archon looks around at them, beckoning for one to help the victim beside him out. Then his gaze falls on the moving assassin.

"Mefuno, help me!" Rasheeka struggles to her hands and knees, trying to get out from under the weight of the dead shaman. Her limbs tremble, unresponsive to her will, and fear races through her, sapping what little strength she has even at the best of times. She wills herself to move, to put the blazing fire between her and the hooded man, but she cannot get her feet beneath her, and the best she manages is a half-crawl in that direction. "He did this! It's him!" Her voice sounds weak and pitiful in her own ears, hardly audible over the crackling fires all around.

The assassin's smooth crouching strides quicken at her words, and as the Khatta glances at him, she sees the gleam of a long steel dagger in his hand. As she tries to roll back, do something, anything, to get away from him, Mefuno suddenly appears in her arc of vision. He holds his long sword – sheath and all – in his right hand, and he lashes out with it, knocking the assassin backwards.

Rasheeka watches the two struggle somewhere that feels far above her, her body so numb and mind so addled as to give the sensation that she was slowly falling. Falling through flame, ash, and the scorched dead … as if she might come to land in the realm of Dagh himself, where he would mock her inability to save anyone – even herself.

The two men duel, the archon's strokes borne of a leashed fury: hard, sharp, angry. The smaller man is hampered by a strain in his side from the initial hit. Sparks fly and flutter to the ground around them as the bonfire, and smaller flames, continue to burn while Mefuno's hammering blows drive the assassin backwards. At last, the smaller figure trips over a dead body, and Mefuno springs on top of him. The assassin raises his dagger to his own throat, and Mefuno speaks at last. "No." His sheathed sword knocks the other man's dagger from his hand. The assassin smiles to the archon, beatifically – then his eyes roll back in his head. "NO." Mefuno drops his sword, cursing, hands reaching for the other man's mouth.

No. NO. The slave in her haze wonders if the words are Mefuno's or her own; they at least sound appropriate now. No. This can't be happening. No. It can't be her fault these people are dead, it just can't. No. There wasn't reason to act; it wouldn't have sounded sane. She utters a dry, pained cry – a scream of frustration and sorrow that cracks in her throat like wood in the heat.

The archon's gloved fingers emerge again, empty, from the other man's mouth. Mefuno's face is contorted in a snarling grimace. For a moment, he lifts the smaller man's body by his shoulders – then the bonfire spits out a fiery globe to land beside them. With a growl, Mefuno drops the corpse. He jams his sheathed sword through his belt, and in a few quick steps he is beside Rasheeka again. He picks her up with one hand, as if she were a child, and carries her, curled beneath his arm, as he moves away from the ruins of the Hearth. On the way out, he stops to grab another still-whimpering body, slinging that emene over his shoulder.

As Rasheeka's head bobs painfully against Archon Mefuno's shoulder, her burns making the motion chafe raw skin, she stares back at the sight of the burning Hearth. She had come to find a bit of family in a place that was her home, came and hoped she could find a place here with the Neyemen who welcomed her. Though she knew an assassin was after her life she never really expected that anyone could be so heartless as to kill a whole group of worshippers just for the chance she might die with them. And the bitter reminder that she could have said something to stop it, but refused, is something she thinks she'll never forget. Nor this. She'll never forget this.

Safely outside of the erstwhile skjisk, Mefuno crouches, easing both bodies to the ground. His face is grimy with soot, ash mixing with his scraggly beard, and he looks worn as he turns to face into the holocaust. Along the street, emene faces appear, as some who escaped return to view what is left. A few venture, like Mefuno, into the remains. Others stare at the sole human, with angry, hate-filled eyes. Mefuno glances back to them, then at the Hearth. Rasheeka hears the strange, horrible sucking noise, faintly, for a third time, and the street shudders with a fresh explosion.

"Which of us is the bigger fool?" Archon Mefuno whispers. Like a man sleepwalking, with the fury of the emene almost palpable, beating against him, he returns to the inferno.

Rasheeka knows, in her heart, who the bigger fool is. With a mewl the singed feline draws herself back to her feet, bracing her hand against the nearby wall for support. She can't stand the idea of laying here, safe, while Mefuno and the other emene head back to the Hearth to salvage the damage the assassin brought. The guilt burns a hole in her more harsh than any bonfire knowing that the assassin did this for her. So she begins walking back, pausing only to take one long hard look at the flaming ruins before she heads back inside.