We split the winnings and retire to a booth. Esato Lyu is passed out; the ambassador just pushes him over and sits beside him, handing me another glass of drink in celebration of our victory.

"You're a shattered genius at cards," he tells me, offering his glass for a toast. "A shattered genius, Shira."

"It was just a bit of strategy, that's all," I say with a slight blush.

"Oh no," he answers. "Put away that Shikkan modesty for once, will you? You promised to be a proper brute earlier and I expect you to at least own your own skill."

"Fine," I laugh, clinking my glass against his. "I'll own it. I'm a shattered genius at cards."

"How did you know Eadas had the Empress?" he asks me, leaning forward like he's asking me to reveal some grand secret.

"Magic," I answer solemnly, taking a deep drink of my Y'chora. The warmth of the liquor spreads throughout my entire body. "I'm the Beloved of Zsavina, aren't I?"

He snorts. "I could almost believe it. You remind me of an Impei."

"A what?"

"A trickster spirit," he says with a grin. "They're supposed to be unearthly beautiful, lithe and shining silver, but they wreak all kinds of havoc when they're left to their own devices."

"I wreak no havoc!" I protest.

He laughs. "You just humbled Eadas Sev, undisputed Xalzan champion. The news of it will be all over the Council buildings by the morning. Believe me, there will be havoc."

I smile despite myself. "Well, we could all use a little humbling now and again, I suppose. Maybe they'll learn not to underestimate the next stranger that comes to sit at their table."

"You've definitely taught them that, little Impei," he chuckles. "Underestimate you, indeed. I would blame them for it, but I was just as guilty of it myself."

"I'm used to it," I murmur, taking another drink. "I'm a bastard with a girlish face who has a penchant for gardens and colored silks. Do you think anyone takes me seriously the first time they meet me?"

"Even with the force of the Dimaraste at your back?"

"The Dimaraste were the worst of them!" I laugh. "Half my uncles wanted to pass the title of Izsai back to O'otani when we came of age because they claimed I was too gentle to rule. My mother fought them viciously, of course, but I still think she might have had the title if she'd wanted it."

The ambassador raises his eyebrows in surprise. "They tried to unseat you?"

I shake my head. "Not openly. There were grumblings for years, but no one acted on them. Besides, they soon realized I was the lesser of two evils."

"How so?

"I am air," I say. "Light, gentle, possibly interpreted as weak. But O'otani, she is fire, through and through. Born violent and passionate and uncontrollable. By the time she was thirteen the family saw well enough that she would not be fit to lead. She would've burned the Dimaraste to the ground."

"Then they were right to choose you," the ambassador responds. "A political machine needs to be run by cold blood. Fire has its place, but it's not in government. All the hot blooded visionaries in the world are good for little more than dreaming up ideologies."

"You make it sound so innocent," I say, memories floating to the surface of my glass. I take a drink, swallowing them whole. "Dreaming up ideologies... like it's an activity for children."

"They might as well be children, for all they know of the real world. Fire burns bright, but it burns out."

"But before it burns out it burns," I mutter. "And sometimes it burns entire civilizations to the ground with it."

The ambassador puts down his drink. "I didn't mean to say-"

"I know," I respond quickly, waving away his concern. "It doesn't matter."

"It does matter," he insists. "Your eyes say it matters."

"My eyes say nothing," I joke with a false smile. "As they lack the anatomy needed for speech."

The ambassador doesn't smile back. "You don't have to grin through the pain, Shira. There's no need to put on a show for my sake."

"And what if it's not for your sake?" I ask him. "What if it's for mine?"

He regards me with serious eyes, waiting for an explanation.

I sigh. "I am Shikkan. It is easier for me to smile than to weep. If I don't smile... if I let myself remember everything, feel everything..." I shake my head. "It's a delicate balance, ambassador, trying not to drown within yourself."

"You will drown if you refuse to feel," he says simply. "Push it away as long as you can, but one day it will be stronger than you, and you'll be ruined by the force of your memories. Like that day in the council building. You have to let yourself feel the past but remind yourself you're in the present if you want to move forward."

"Then maybe I don't want to move forward," I answer, his advice rubbing me like condescension. "What is forward? A life of exile? A life haunted and hunted and lived under an assumed name? What life is that?"

"Yours."

"No. It's Shira Katzuna's," I tell him. "I can't even speak my own name anymore and you want me to feel? You want me to move forward?"

He sighs. "I understand how you feel, but-"

"How could you possibly understand?" I challenge, my eyes flashing. "You have a family and a home and the respect of an entire nation. What do you know of tragedy?"

"Enough to recognize it always lurking in your eyes," he answers. "I am a bastard too. I was raised by a man who loved me, but who saw his wife's betrayal reflected back at him every time he looked at me. I lost a brother to the flu, a brother I loved more than anyone, and I lost half of my sister too. I gave my heart to someone who never wanted it in the first place." He speaks simply, but I can hear pain in his voice. "I might not have suffered as you have suffered, but I learned long ago there's no point in comparing suffering. I have lost enough to know the taste of ash in my mouth, Shira, and the taste of iron under my tongue. Whatever you want to believe, believe that I do understand loss."

I'm silent for a while, struck by his confession.

"You're right," I mutter, ashamed of the edge in my voice. Ashamed to be selfish in my grief, to assume that no one else has suffered. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he sighs. "Stop being reticent, and hesitant, and sorry, and polite. Stop worrying about everyone else and their opinion and the propriety of every action. Stop thinking and just let yourself exist, just for a day, a moment. A single moment, Shira."

So I do.

I let the memories float to the surface and stay there. I see faces in the red drink, flashing sea foam eyes and white hair whispering across a proud forehead. Hard, calloused hands, hands used to holding weapons. A wry smile beckoning me forward to something strange and wild. My cousin, my sister, my protector, my bloodbound. I feel my soul tearing, the place she used to be throbbing like a missing limb.

I cry. Gently, silently, a few salty drops dripping into my drink. I cry because I can, because the ambassador has gentle eyes and my world is cracked wide open and I'm so, so lost. I'm sure the bar has seen its fair share of tears. No one notices. No one cares.

"I didn't mean to make you cry," Ambassador Nara says after a while.

"'S fine," I mumble, wiping the tears from my cheeks. "I cry too easily."

"When I was a boy my father told me even warriors cry," he offers with a small smile. "He said that you're given emotions to feel them, that if you become numb to pain you'll soon become numb to pleasure and then life won't be worth living."

"My mother told me that if I cried in Kama I would be beaten like waves against a rock."

"Your mother is Shikkan."

"So am I," I remind him.

He shakes his head. "No you're not. You're half Kamai."

"And?"

"And that means that you're more than pretty boy with bird bones who wears women's silks and tucks turtleroses behind his ears. You might seem delicate, almost lighter than air, but there's iron in your veins that keeps you to earth. That iron is Kamai ore."

"Is it?"

He nods. "If you were the little Shikkan boy I thought you were you would've crumpled like a folding fan by now."

"Crumpled like a folding fan..." I shake my head. "Goddess, I'm not sure if I should be thankful or offended."

"I meant no offense," he says. "I only meant to say- to say that I have misjudged you horribly."

"I rarely misjudge anyone," he continues, the drink loosening his tongue. "I couldn't be Head Ambassador if I didn't know how to read people the way others read books. But I read you wrong. You're written in a different language."

"You're speaking in poetry," I laugh. "What are you trying to say?"

"That I'm sorry I ever accused you of having a head full of flowers," he answers. "A boy with a head full of flowers would not have been able to stand up to my sister. He wouldn't have knowledge of Brekkan economics or the ability to watch a round of Xalzan and then win the next."

"You flatter me."

He shakes his head. "No, I detest flattery. You want flattery, wait until Esato wakes up from his drunken stupor; I'm sure he'll serenade your beauty. I just speak the truth. And the truth is you are much more than I ever took you for."

"I- thank you," I mutter, blushing. "I have to admit I misjudged you as well."

"How so?"

"I thought your blood ran cold as ice, and that your eyes were hard as stones."

He laughs. "You make me sound like a monster, some creature from a story."

"Well, you called me a- a what? An Impei? It's only fair."

"Fine," he chuckles. "I'm sure most of Kama would agree with your assessment. I'm not known as a particularly friendly man."
"I could hardly believe you were an ambassador," I admit. "Every diplomat I've ever met has been to some degree obsequious or overfriendly. But you've none of that about you."

He shrugs. "Kama is the gateway between east and west. We are the only place for ships to refuel and we control the only passages not marred by jagged rocks of Macchonese pirates. We don't need to be obsequious."

"That's true," I admit. "Though most ambassadors like people, don't they?"

He laughs. "And why do you think I don't like people? Am I that openly misanthropic?"

I shake my head. "No, it's just- a certain air you have. A kind of sharpness, curtness, maybe. And besides, you said you only lived in the city because the council made you. You said you wanted to live in the countryside and let your gardens grow into a jungle."

"Let me tell you a secret," he says, leaning forward. "You don't have to like people to be a diplomat; you just have to understand them. Honestly, I distrust anyone that truly understands people and doesn't develop a dislike for them. Humans are, on the whole, an awful species."

"What about that inner divinity you spoke of?"

"Their only redemption."

"That view is... rather bleak."

"Do you disagree?" He challenges.

I shake my head. "Not entirely, no."

"Then maybe it isn't the view that's bleak, Shira. Maybe it's the world around us."