containing fireflies in her hands, a device used by the fashionable in lieu of a night-light. In the foreground stood a burly figure armed with a sword and two horses. “May I draw near, holiness?” her visitor inquired courteously.

Ishvari nodded, although she resented this intrusion into her well-deserved rest.

“I bring you a gift,” the woman answered. Placing her fire box on the ground, she gestured to the guard, who came forward and handed her a glossy pelt before returning to his post. “I’m told a yogini cannot refuse the skin of a tiger,” she said, sinking to her knees to display the striped fur which had been skillfully fashioned into a luxurious cloak.

Ishvari ran her fingers through its plushness, saddened by the thought that one of Vegavat’s kin...

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