She gave a sigh and leant her head against the stone wall.
Inari knocked her shoulder with his. “How are you?”
“I don’t know. I expected to be happier. Fynn is free, Ma is glad of it. You’re free too, and Ezra. Yet Lusana’s disappearance has cast a shadow over it all. And nothing is going to bring Brighde back.”
“I know. It is difficult to lose people.”
“It feels selfish. There are many in there who have lost people, perhaps more than I have. No one has been untouched by this. So many lives, forever changed. Yet I can only focus on my own.”
“We all deal with these things in our own ways. There is no right or wrong. The world keeps turning and we must turn with it.”
“It isn’t justice. We have answers, but there is much we don’t know. There is so much we cannot do. It’s not fair.”
“Most things aren’t.”
Aloisia turned her face, catching the shaman’s hazel gaze with her own. “I want her to pay, Inari. For what she has done, for what she has destroyed. I want her to know such things will not go unanswered, that justice will find her one day. And, when it does, I will be the one brandishing the blade.”
“And she will pay. Dearly so, if you have anything to do with it.”
She puffed another sigh, tipping her head back. “What do we do now?”
“We keep going,ro suda. It is the only thing we can do.”
Aloisia traipsed back into the nave long after Inari had returned to enchanting blades. While her sisters had not yet left, a group of guards had set out moments before in search of anyone left within the town. Mavka wound an arm around her shoulders as she approached.
“I’d wondered where you had got to,” she said.
“Just wandering.”
“As usual.” Mavka gave a small smile. “We were going to hold a remembrance for Morgan. Though we cannot set her to rest, we can honour her.”
“Of course.” Aloisia looked to her sisters, all gathered beside the altar. The physician was still treating townsfolk on the dais behind, and many others were lighting candles for their own lost friends and family.
Dhara assembled seven candles in a cluster, and the huntresses congregated in a small circle around them. “One for each of us,” she said, striking a match. “And one for the Huntress.”
Kaja clutched Aloisia’s hand as Dhara lit each of the candles.
“May our dear sister, Morgan, rest for seven eternities at the side of the Huntress,” Mavka said.
“May her name live on in honour,” Dhara added, “and may her service to Littlewatch never be forgotten.” She lifted a goblet to her lips before passing it around the huntresses. The red wine was bitter on Aloisia’s tongue as she took a sip, offering it to Kaja next. When it reached Dhara again, she took another longer swig and rose to her feet, stalking from the room.
Valda moved to go after her, but Mavka stayed her with the touch of her hand.
“Let her go,” Mavka said. “Give her some time.”
The five of them remained, huddled around the candles. Kaja’s shoulders shook in a silent sob and Aloisia drew her closer. She stared into the flames as the candles burned until she could not bear it any longer. Images of Morgan blazing from the inside out flickered within the fire. Images of Brighde, as her skin turned molten orange. And images of Lusana, surrounded by flames, vanishing into nothingness.
As she planted a kiss atop Kaja’s head, Aloisia broke from the group and rose to her feet. She looked out upon the nave, where families gathered, not quite complete. She was unsurprised to find her own family gathered beneath the Huntress, still in Ma’s usual pew.
Aloisia made her way to where Ma sat, Fynn at her side. He wore an easy smile, though it was tinged with sadness, grief, fear. His fingers kept finding the raw skin at his wrists, the wedding ring on his finger, going between the two like a ritual. She pushed along the pew and perched beside him, grabbing his hand in hers to break the cycle.
Fynn smiled down at her.
She said nothing, not knowing what to say, and instead listened to their inane chatter with an absent mind. Her gaze cast up towards the ceiling, the stained-glass windows shining in the waning daylight. She felt small in this place, restless, yearning for the dirt beneath her feet, her bow in her grasp, the surety of hunting. The things which came to her like instinct, like breathing.
Temples, cities, palaces – those things were foreign to her, so distant from the forests and fields. If she were to go to Ephroditia, to the queen’s own palace, these were things she had never truly considered, never trained for. Hunting, tracking, killing – those were things she had trained for. Not this. And the city, the capital city no less, was but something she had glimpsed across Feldkirk Bay, something far distant, only visible from the cliff edge.
Fynn squeezed her hand, dragging her to the present. “Did you hear what I said, Lis?”
