High in the Zho Mountains, a stream pours out of a cave and tumbles down a narrow gorge to vanish in the sands of the desert. Despite the constant supply of fresh water and the lush green vegetation growing near the stream's banks, the area is left alone by the nomads. They offer no reason, other than that the stream belongs to the Jabb Lail, Grandfather Night.
Only those who sought his help dared to drink from the stream, and they always left an offering near the source of the stream. If the task was accepted, the offering would be gone in the morning.
Layali's father had wanted a son, and when the girl was born, he insisted that his wife had been unfaithful and drove mother and daughter out of his tents to live or die in the desert. The woman walked at night and reached the stream at the foot of the mountains on the third night. She had nothing to offer but the infant. She wrote her husband's name on a scrap of leather and left it with the baby at the top of the gorge. In the morning, death had found her, so she never saw that her offering had been accepted.
Layali was carried a long way through the cave to a valley with no apparent entrance or exit. There was food and water, and Grandfather Night's assassins were trained here. One was sent immediately to track down the man named on the scrap of leather, and several weeks later, the man was cut down in the marketplace.
Layali's father had wasted no time, however, and had married another woman. That woman's child was named Haleen, and news of her birth reached Jabb Lail's secret valley.
Layali began her training as soon as she could walk, and was finished by the time she was 12. She was taken out of the valley for the first time since she was an infant. Her instructions were simply to make her way in the world as best she was able until Grandfather Night sent her orders. She found a caravan crossing the desert and joined them, asking at village after village for her half-sister Haleen.
At last, Layali found her half-sister, and befriended her, though she always kept their truth of their relationship a secret. They spent their teenage years together, supporting Haleen's mother through petty thievery and plotting the heroic adventures they would have when they were older.
Then it seemed that Haleen decided to begin her adventures without Layali. She disappeared, and all that Layali could discover was that she had gone to the abandoned village of Kelmarane.
