---
The older girls who had never carried a spear kept busy without being told; they had seen enough now to understand work was love.
Akayoroi set her back against the door stone with Shadeclaw, knives low. They didn't speak. They didn't have to. When Azhara padded past with a bundle of short throwing blades and a coil of line, Akayoroi caught her wrist.
"Don't die early," Akayoroi said, and Azhara grinned the grin she used when she had no room for anything else and vanished into the east ledge light.
Silvershadow melted into the shadows. One moment he was part of a shadow by a pillar; the next moment the shadow was exactly one man smaller and no one could say where the man had gone.
