Rama shouldered the door open before the sentries had crossed half the yard, and the sight inside stopped him for exactly as long as it took to understand it. A dozen children sat or lay along the cell's back wall, none of them older than Niken by more than a year or two. Each wore an iron collar fitted close around the throat, with a fine chain running from it to a ring bolted into the stone floor. Their eyes found the open door and the strangers filling it with a hope so raw it was almost worse than fear.
"Niken," Ki Branggah said, already moving past Rama toward a girl near the center of the huddled group, and the recognition on both their faces confirmed it before either of them said another word. She was thinner than her portraits, hair cropped short and ragged, but alive, and she reached for Ki Branggah's offered hand with a desperation that told Rama exactly how long two days locked in the dark could feel to a child.
