"Eshargemelet!" Laum chastised his wife. "Be silent!"
"You will find her with Gita," Shahla's mother jutted her finger into his face. "And if you lay a hand upon her, we shall go before the tribunal and demand reparations from your father!"
He shoved Laum inside the door to his house and stormed down the hill, indignant cries from the villagers he rammed aside as he made his way through the narrow streets to the outer ring of the village, where the lowest-ranking people lived.
"Jamin! Wait!" Dadbeh chased after him, but at this point he was in such a rage that he was in no mood to speak to the man who had been the first to abandon him the day Mikhail had won the solstice competition and then flown with Ninsianna into the sky.
He found Shahla at the lowest well near the north gate, dres
