“Why did you go?” I asked through the ache in my throat. Only Wesha’s blessings could cleanse an infection. The most Hiwa would have been able to do was lend a little strength during a patient’s recovery.
“I thought it was what you would have done,” Hiwa said with a little half shrug, smile not dimming. “I did cure a couple of cases of pneumonia. Remember that I followed a very talented priestess of Wesha for several years? I learned a few things.”
Taran returned to my side, now listening intently.
“One little boy died anyway. And his parents were angry that I couldn’t save him. They called the guard.”
“And the queen wouldn’t accept someone singing the blessings of the gods, even to save her own people,” I guessed numbly.
“She hung me in the central square,” Hiwa said. She pointed at another group of dusk-souls that hadn’t yet departed. “Also the boy’s parents. And the neighbors. Because they’d asked for my help in the first place.”
I pressed my hands to the sides of my head in horror. “All these people? Has she gone totally mad?”
Hiwa’s form dimmed. I sensed that it was hard for her to think about things outside of her own memories. It was a struggle to imagine a future she wouldn’t be a part of.
“Some of the nobles are saying that she’s made the gods curse us. She’s paranoid there will be another civil war. There was a food riot the week before I died, when a ship came into the harbor with oil to sell, but too expensive.”
“Drutalos and the others…?” I was almost afraid to ask.
“They went down south to wait for you. Drutalos was sure you’d come back and make the queen see reason before the growing season was over.”
This was enough talk of my departure from the Summerlands to make Taran finally interject, slashing his arm between us for emphasis.
“Is there not a single other person in your little coven of rebels who can sing the blessing for rain? Or assassinate one mortal tyrant? Haven’t you asked enough of her?”
In life, Hiwa would have blinked in surprise, but she was beyond that now.
“Won’t you go too?”
“I cannot imagine a sufficient bribe to go a second time.”
She barely frowned. “But Iona hasn’t even peeled her own fruit in years. You wouldn’t make her do it alone.”
Taran’s expression tightened. “You must have me confused with the poor dead fool she was going to marry.”
“I don’t think so,” Hiwa said, still serene.
To break off that line of inquiry, I touched her shoulder again.
“Can you come with me? I don’t want Death’s people to catch you again. And maybe Wesha would—maybe she’d let me bring you back too—” My thoughts spun for some solution.
“How many favors do you think the Maiden owes you? It’s alright, Iona. I won’t get caught. And I don’t even want to leave this place. It’s lovely here.”
She gently waved at the bare rock walls, seeing something that I couldn’t. After a pause where she looked into the distance, head cocked as though listening, she turned to point at the faint light in the opposite direction of the illusion of the white citadel.
“Though I could take you to the beach first. That’s where the Fallen caught me.”
“No,” Taran said before I could respond. “Absolutely not.”
I hadn’t expected him to suddenly change his mind, but it still made my stomach tense, his stark refusal to consider it.
“Should we send the crafter-priests back with her, at least?” I said, gesturing at the crowd. The few I’d cut loose were slowly going through and freeing the rest, but many of the peace-priests were still curled on the floor, insensible from the collision of their vows and today’s attack.
“Darling, I don’t care if you want to eat them for dinner,” Taran said.
He didn’t mean that—his eyes were tight with hurt. I pretended he hadn’t said it.
“Is the mortal world safer, or the City? What should we do with them?”
