Qeva refilled the cup for Kenevah, but the aged Damaji’ting handled the sticks deftly, quickly taking a mouthful without dropping so much as a grain. She chewed slowly, thoughtfully, then sipped the water, swishing it gently in her mouth. At last she swallowed, drinking again to empty the chalice. ‘The Damajah’s children.’

The Damaji’ting set the items aside and turned to regard Inevera. ‘What are the best conductors of magic?’

Inevera stood silent a moment, sensing a trap. The Damaji’ting might as well have asked her two plus two. It was an idiot’s question.

‘Gold, Damaji’ting,’ she said, ‘followed by silver, bronze, copper, tin, stone, and steel. Iron will not conduct. There are nine gemstones to focus power, beginning with the diamond, which …’

Kenevah waved her off. ‘How many wards of prophecy are there?’

Another simple question. ‘One, Damaji’ting,’ Inevera said. ‘For there is only one Creator.’ The ward was placed at the centre of one face on each of the seven dice, guiding the throw.

‘Draw it for me,’ Kenevah bade, signalling to Melan, who produced a brush, ink, and vellum.

Inevera had spent the last few months drawing in sand and the brush felt awkward in her hand, but she made no comment, dipping it carefully and wiping off the excess ink on the bowl’s edge before beginning to draw on the valuable vellum.

When she was done, Kenevah nodded. ‘And how many symbols of foretelling?’

‘Three hundred and thirty-seven, Damaji’ting,’ Inevera said. The symbols of foretelling were not wards, but rather words that represented different twists of fate, one adorning the centre of each remaining face and along each side of the seven polyhedral dice the dama’ting used to read the future. Instinctively, Inevera clutched at her hora pouch and the clay dice it contained, their edges now worn from a year of careful study.

Each die had a different number of sides – four, six, eight, ten, twelve, sixteen, and twenty. Each symbol had multiple meanings, based on the pattern of the surrounding symbols and context. The Evejah’ting contained detailed explanations of those meanings, but reading the dice was less a science than an art, and one that was much disputed among the dama’ting. Inevera had witnessed them arguing frequently over the results of a throw. In the most extreme cases, Kenevah was called upon to make a ruling. No one ever dared argue once the Damaji’ting spoke, but they did not always appear convinced.

Kenevah signalled Melan, who laid a fresh sheet of vellum before her. Inevera dipped her brush again. She drew the symbols smaller this time, and though her hand moved with quick precision, it was some time before she was finished. The Damaji’ting had been watching over her shoulder the whole time, and nodded immediately when she was done.

‘Have you dice of clay?’ Kenevah asked formally.

Inevera nodded, reaching into her hora pouch for the clay dice the Damaji’ting had first given her. Kenevah took them and set them on the table next to a block of ivory. This she lifted, smashing it down on the dice until they were little more than shattered lacquer and dust.

‘Have you dice of wood?’ Kenevah asked. Inevera reached into her hora pouch a second time, producing the dice that she had painstakingly carved, sanded, and etched from a solid block of wood. Her hands were crisscrossed with tiny scars from the work.

When Qeva had given her the block, Inevera had thought warding the dice would be the most difficult part of the process, but she had no skill at woodwork, and coaxing even the simplest shapes from the wood almost proved her undoing. She cut herself numerous times, casting aside uneven chunks of wood again and again before setting the block aside and carving from soap until she mastered the tools.

The simple shapes, four, six, and eight, came quickly after that, but even with the geometric calculations laid out in the Evejah’ting, it took hours to carve the ten-sided die, and even then one side was slightly larger than the others, coming up more often than not when thrown. She had to discard it and begin again. For her to pass the test for hora, the dice she gave Kenevah had to be perfect in every way.

Kenevah examined the dice carefully, then set them in a brazier. Melan squirted the precious things, the product of untold hours, with oil and set them ablaze. Inevera had known to expect this, but was still unprepared for how the loss cut at her. Melan looked up at her with a smirk of her own.

Inevera breathed deeply, finding her centre as Kenevah looked at her again. ‘Have you dice of ivory?’

Inevera reached for her pouch a third time, emptying into her hands the dice she had carved from camel teeth, these done blind, with strands of bido silk woven over her eyes. They had taken even longer than the dice of wood, months of work, and every time she needed to request a new tooth, she had spent a week washing bidos.

Kenevah rolled the ivory dice through her fingers, studying them intently. Then she grunted, hurling them against the stone wall of the chamber with surprising strength. The fragile dice shattered on impact. She reached out and took the empty hora pouch from Inevera’s hands, throwing it onto the pyre of her wooden dice. The velvet caught flame, giving off a thick, black smoke.

‘You may enter the Chamber of Shadows,’ Kenevah said, handing Inevera a new hora pouch, this even finer than the first, black velvet tied with golden rope. ‘Inside you will find eight alagai hora. You will carve your seven dice from them, preserving every shaving. If you make no mistakes, the last is yours to use as you see fit; if you need more, it will be a year’s penance for every bone.’

The Chamber of Shadows. Other nie’dama’ting spoke of it only in hushed whispers. Deep in the bowels of the palace, untouched by sun or candle or chemical light, it was said the chamber was so dark its walls seemed miles away at times, and closing in on one the next. A darkness so complete it seemed like the abyss itself, and if one was quiet enough, one could hear Nie whispering in the black.

Melan’s eyes were those of a tunnel asp as Inevera took the pouch.

No sooner had the Vault doors closed for the night than Melan shoved Inevera to the ground. She was fifteen, and Inevera not yet eleven. The difference was clear in their size, though not as great as it had been when Inevera first came to the palace.

‘My dice were nearly done!’ Melan shouted. ‘Another year at most, and I would have been able to take the white veil. The youngest since the Return! But instead I waste two years trying to teach sharusahk to a clumsy pig-eater, only to see her enter the Chamber of Shadows before me!’

She shook her head. ‘No. This will be your last lesson, bad throw. Tonight I kill you.’

Inevera felt her blood run cold. Melan looked angry enough to mean it, but what would the dama’ting do if she carried out her threat? She looked to the other girls around them.

‘I see nothing.’ Asavi, ever loyal to Melan, turned her back on the scene.

‘I see nothing,’ the girl next to her said, turning as well.

‘I see nothing. I see nothing.’ It was repeated like the names of the sharukin as each girl turned her back.

Melan had the other girls well trained. And why not? She was the Damaji’ting’s granddaughter, and undefeated among the Betrothed in sharusahk. The other girls looked to her as their leader, and she had indeed been expected to become the youngest dama’ting since the Return. Only her own mother’s order prevented that.