Hakem Rafi the thief turned away from Aeshma to hide the bitterness in his soul. He had seldom thought about death before, merely tried to avoid it; he’d always thought himself too clever to be caught and executed, too skilled to lose any fight he didn’t dodge. But now that he had everything, now that the world could be his if he chose, the irony that he could lose it all was a painful one. In a thousand years, would he be as forgotten as the great Rashwenath, a name never spoken, a presence never felt? What, then, would be the point of living at all, if everything was to vanish from him?
He must have voiced the question aloud without realizing it, for Aeshma answered in soft, seductive tones, “The answer, O my master, is to live as fully and as best you can. If it is all destined to vani
