Shammara was a tall woman and slender, dressed in a silken thawb of the deepest blue with heavy embroidery of real gold thread around the edges of the long hanging sleeves and down the center front placket. The milfa she wore was of a slightly lighter shade of blue and so sheer it barely concealed her features. She had a gaunt, unlined face with prominent cheekbones and a small mouth. Her eyes were black as ink and piercing as daggers, and her face was topped by jet black hair that was all but completely covered by her blue headscarf. She sat with a preternatural stillness. Straightbacked as any general, she seemed to be carved from ivory.
So imposing was the figure of Shammara that it took abu Saar a moment to realize there was another person seated beside her—a young man who could only
