“Are you . . . well?” Rysn asked the man.

“Hmmm?” he said. “Oh, between blackouts, yes. Quite well. I think I’m growing numb to the pain of my ankles, which is just delightful.”

Rysn brought her hands up to her chest, not daring to get any closer. Aimian. Very bad luck. She wasn’t particularly superstitious—she was even skeptical of the Passions sometimes—but . . . well, this was an Aimian.

“What fell curses did you bring on this people, beast?” Kylrm demanded.

“Improper puns,” the man said lazily. “And a stench from something I ate that did not sit well with me. Are you off to speak with the king, then?”

“I . . .” Rysn said. Behind her, another Reshi whooped and leaped from the shelf. “Yes.”

“Well,” the creature said, “don’t ask about the soul of their god. They don’t like to speak of that, it turns out. Must be spectacular, to let the beasts grow this large. Beyond even the spren who inhabit the bodies of ordinary greatshells. Hmmm . . .” He seemed very pleased by something.

“Do not feel for him, trademaster,” Kylrm said softly to her, steering her away from the dangling prisoner. “He could escape if he wished.”

Nlent, the other guard, nodded. “They can take off their limbs. Take off their skin too. No real body to them. Just something evil, taking human form.” The squat guard wore a charm on his wrist, a charm of courage, which he took off and held tightly in one hand. The charm hadn’t any properties itself, of course. It was a reminder. Courage. Passion. Want what you need, embrace it, desire it and bring it to you.

Well, what she needed was her babsk to be here with her. She turned her steps upward again, the confrontation with the Aimian leaving her unnerved. More people ran and leaped from the shelves to her right. Crazy.

Trademaster, she thought. Kylrm called me “trademaster.” She wasn’t, not yet. She was property owned by Vstim; for now just an apprentice who provided occasional slave labor.

She didn’t deserve the title, but hearing it strengthened her. She led the way up the steps, which twisted farther around the beast’s shell. They passed a place where the ground split, the shell showing skin far beneath. The rift was like a chasm; she couldn’t have leaped from one side to the other without falling in.

Reshi she passed on the path refused to respond to her questions. Fortunately, Kylrm knew the way, and when the path split, he pointed to the right fork. At times, the path leveled out for significant distances, but then there were always more steps.

Her legs burning, her clothing damp with sweat, they reached the top of this flight and—at long last—found no more steps. Here, the jungle fell away completely, though rockbuds clutched the shell in the open field—beyond which was only the empty sky.

The head, Rysn thought. We’ve climbed all the way to the beast’s head.

Soldiers lined the path, armed with spears bearing colorful tassels. Their breastplates and armguards were of carapace carved wickedly with points, and though they wore only wraps for clothing, they stood as stiff-backed as any Alethi soldier, with stern expressions to match. So her babsk was right. Not every Reshi was the “lounge and swim” type.

Boldness, she thought to herself, remembering Vstim’s words. She could not show these people a timid face. The king stood at the end of the pathway of guards and rockbuds, a diminutive figure on the edge of a carapace shelf, looking toward the sun.

Rysn strode forward, passing through a double row of spears. She would have expected the same kind of clothing on the king, but instead the man wore full, voluminous robes of vibrant green and yellow. They looked terribly hot.

As she drew nearer, Rysn got a sense for just how high she had climbed. The waters below shimmered in the sunlight, so far down that Rysn wouldn’t have heard a rock hit if she’d dropped one. Far enough that looking over the side made her stomach twist upon itself and her legs tremble.

Getting close to the king would require stepping out onto that shelf where he stood. It would place her within a breath of plummeting down hundreds and hundreds of feet.

Steady, Rysn told herself. She would show her babsk that she was capable. She was not the ignorant girl who had misjudged the Shin or who had offended the Iriali. She had learned.

Still, perhaps she should have asked Nlent to lend her his charm of courage.

She stepped out onto the shelf. The king seemed young, at least from behind. Built like a youth, or . . .

No, Rysn thought with a start as the king turned. It was a woman, old enough that her hair was greying, but not so old that she was bent with age.

Someone stepped out onto the shelf behind Rysn. Younger, he wore the standard wrap and tassels. His hair was in two braids that fell over tan, bare shoulders. When he spoke, there wasn’t even a hint of an accent to his voice. “The king wishes to know why his old trading partner, Vstim, has not come in person, and has instead sent a child in his place.”

“And are you the king?” Rysn asked the newcomer.

The man laughed. “You stand beside him, yet ask that of me?”

Rysn looked toward the robed figure. The robes were tied with the front open enough to show that the “king” definitely had breasts.

“We are led by a king,” the newcomer said. “Gender is irrelevant.”

It seemed to Rysn that gender was part of the definition, but it wasn’t worth arguing over. “My master is indisposed,” she said, addressing the newcomer—he’d be the island’s trademaster. “I am authorized to speak for him, and to accomplish the trade.”

The newcomer snorted, sitting down on the edge of the shelf, legs hanging out over the edge. Rysn’s stomach did a somersault. “He should have known better. The trade is off, then.”

“You are Talik, I assume?” Rysn said, folding her arms. The man was no longer facing her. It seemed an intentional slight.

“Yes.”

“My master warned me about you.”

“Then he isn’t a complete fool,” Talik said. “Just mostly.”

His pronunciation was astonishing. She found herself checking him for Thaylen eyebrows, but he was obviously Reshi.

Rysn clenched her teeth, then forced herself to sit down beside him on the edge. She tried to do it as nonchalantly as he had, but she just couldn’t. Instead, she settled down—not easy in a fashionable skirt—and scooted out beside him.

Oh, Passions! I’m going to fall off of this and die. Don’t look down! Do not look down!

She couldn’t help it. She glanced downward, and felt immediately woozy. She could see the side of the head down there, the massive line of a jaw. Nearby, standing on a ridge above the eye to Rysn’s right, people pushed large bundles of fruit off the side. Tied with vine rope, the bundles swung down beside the maw below.

Mandibles moved slowly, pulling the fruit in, jerking the ropes. The Reshi pulled those back up to affix more fruit, all under the eyes of the king, who was supervising the feeding from the very tip of the nose to Rysn’s left.

“A treat,” Talik said, noticing where she watched. “An offering. These small bundles of fruit, of course, do not sustain our god.”

“What does?”

He smiled. “Why are you still here, young one? Did I not dismiss you?”

“The trade does not have to be off,” Rysn said. “My master told me the terms were already set. We have brought everything you require in payment.” Though for what, I don’t know. “Turning me aside would be pointless.”

The king, she noticed, had stepped closer to listen.

“It would serve the same purpose as everything in life,” Talik said. “To please Relu-na.”

That would be the name of their god, the greatshell. “And your island would approve of such waste? Inviting traders all this way, only to send them off empty-handed?”

“Relu-na approves of boldness,” Talik said. “And, more importantly, respect. If we do not respect the one with whom we trade, then we should not do it.”

What ridiculous logic. If a merchant followed that line of reasoning, he’d never be able to trade. Except . . . in her months with Vstim, it seemed that he’d often sought out people who liked trading with him. People he respected. Those kinds of people certainly would be less likely to cheat you.

Perhaps it wasn’t bad logic . . . simply incomplete.

Think like the other trader, she recalled. One of Vstim’s lessons—which were so different from the ones she’d learned at home. What do they want? Why do they want it? Why are you the best one to provide it?

“It must be hard to live out here, in the waters,” Rysn said. “Your god is impressive, but you cannot make everything you need for yourselves.”

“Our ancestors did it just fine.”

“Without medicines,” Rysn said, “that could have saved lives. Without cloth from fibers that grow only on the mainland. Your ancestors survived without these things because they had to. You do not.”

The trademaster hunched forward.

Don’t do that! You’ll fall!

“We are not idiots,” Talik said.

Rysn frowned. Why—

“I’m so tired of explaining this,” the man continued. “We live simply. That does not make us stupid. For years the outsiders came, trying to exploit us because of our ignorance. We are tired of it, woman. Everything you say is true. Not true—obvious. Yet you say it as if we’d never stopped to consider. ‘Oh! Medicine! Of course we need medicine! Thank you for pointing that out. I was just going to sit here and die.’”

Rysn blushed. “I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did mean that,” Talik said. “The condescension dripped from your lips, young lady. We’re tired of being taken advantage of. We’re tired of foreigners who try to trade us trash for riches. We don’t have knowledge of the current economic situation on the mainland, so we can’t know for certain if we are being cheated or not. Therefore, we trade only with people we know and trust. That is that.”

Current economic situation on the mainland . . . ? Rysn thought. “You’ve trained in Thaylenah,” she guessed.

“Of course I have,” Talik said. “You have to know a predator’s tricks before you can catch him.” He settled back, which let her relax a little. “My parents sent me to train as a child. I had one of your babsks. I made trademaster on my own before returning here.”

“Your parents being the king and queen?” Rysn guessed again.

He eyed her. “The king and king’s consort.”

“You could just call her a queen.”

“This trade is not happening,” Talik said, standing. “Go and tell your master we are sorry for his illness and hope that he recovers. If he does, he may return next year during the trading season and we will meet with him.”

“You imply you respect him,” Rysn said, scrambling to her feet—and away from that drop. “So just trade with him!”