He wasn't sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, if the Condesce were alive in his own world, she would be an enemy of his moirail. But on the other hand, she was living proof that the histories he'd read were true, that once sea dwellers had ruled the land dwellers.

He twisted the topaz spade-shaped ring nervously on his finger, visual proof of his own subjugation, in its own way.

"In my wworld, you're dead," he offered lamely. "The Sufferer's people wwon and the sea dwwellers are on the bottom a the hemospectrum."