She draws aside a curtain on one of the doorways and then steps away, bowing her head, leaving me room to slip inside with no risk of touching her. I nod—and then my breath stops when I see the man lying in the cot before me.
Sores travel up from the edge of the blanket to the crown of his head, the already-thinning hair there reduced to patches. His expression is drawn in pain even while he sleeps, and his breathing is shallow and irregular. A flash of him as I last saw him—round face wreathed by wrinkles and laughter lines—cuts across my eyes, and I have to swallow the bile rising in my throat before my vision clears.
The sores are like nothing I’ve seen before, though I’ve made many pilgrimages and done what I can for the mist-touched as far west as the mountains themselves. The welts don’t come from within, rising with infection and disease from his own body; instead, it is as though some twisted sculptor melted his flesh, reshaped it from the outside, and let it set again around Quenti’s skull.
He cannot help me.
The thought brings with it a wash of guilt, that I could think of my mission while looking upon the ruin of my old friend, someone who cared for me the way family might have done, had I been allowed one after my calling.
But I have no choice other than to think of it—I must put purpose before feeling, or else the mist will be all that’s left of my people. Our gods abandoned us centuries ago to live unburdened in their cloudlands—now, there is only me.
I must have made some sound, for Hiret’s voice comes from behind me, gentle with sympathy and shared grief. “I think sometimes he wishes itwerehis mind that the mist remade.”
When I look back at her, Quenti’s ruined visage is so burned into my gaze that for a moment I see his wounds superimposed over Hiret’s face, eclipsing that constellation on her cheek. I shiver, and reality returns.
“I will do all I can,” I manage, the words escaping in a hoarse croak.
Hiret nods, gratitude in the curve of her lips. But her eyes carry something else altogether, and I can’t help but think of what her sister said as I climbed those stairs.
It is true that I cannot heal the mist-touched. The divine before me could. Healing was the aspect she manifested soon after she was called. She spent much of her time away from the temple, traveling to the remotest villages, tending the guardian stones that keep the mist at bay, and caring for those unlucky enough to be caught in a storm without protection.
But I … I can only ease their pain for a time, little more than what any decent hedge-witch with a healing spell could do.
I lean my staff against the wall, tell the bindle cat twined about my ankles that I need space now, and lay out the reagents for the magic I can offer. I would have been a powerful magician if the divine had not chosen me for its vessel—now my skill at magic seems paltry to those who need miracles.
Hiret is quiet while I work—at one point I glance over to find her slowly, rhythmically stroking the cat’s back with one hand while gazing into nothing. The cat blinks back at me, ears flattening to signal his displeasure at this development, even as he draws in a deep sigh and lets it out in a grudging, rumbling purr.
Hiret knows what her sister said was true. I cannot heal the mist-touched. I cannot stop the storms, and while I don’t know whether other deities before me could, none of them needed the ability so urgently. The storms come so violently and so quickly now, their frequency growing with each passing year. And yet I remember, as young as I am, a time when magicians could sense a storm long before it gathered; a time when it was safe to travel beyond the riverbanks, beyond the guardian stones.
“You said you came here seeking a boat.” Hiret’s voice is as vague and rhythmic as the way she pets the cat.
“That was before I knew he was—” I keep my eyes on my work, my throat so tight I can barely speak. “That was before.”
“Quenti would have granted you as many barges as you needed, and as many of my clansmen too. I don’t have his authority, but—I can do this thing for you instead, Lady. I can’t leave my uncle, but my husband is as clever a strider as I am, and his brother too.”
Hope, all the brighter for the darkness around it, flickers. “They can be spared? They are not needed here?”
Hiret pauses, then says quietly, “You came with no guard.” Each word is hefty with significance.
The spell I’d been casting flickers and falls apart at my fingertips, dusting the blanket with powdered bone and elderweed. When I look up, Hiret’s gaze is no longer distant—she’s looking at me now, the hazel of her eyes thoughtful and keen.
“You come alone,” she says, “and you ask for a thing that could be granted to you by your priests and your Congress of Elders a dozen times over, and each boat laden with gifts to boot. Instead of asking them, you come here, to your old friend, in the hope he can spare a single vessel.”
“Hiret, I—I would tell you why I …”
But she’s shaking her head, gaze clear. “I don’t need an explanation. Half of your Elders have gray hearts, even if their cloaks still pretend otherwise. If they who are foolish and fearful enough to smother our only hope wish to stop you completing this secret task of yours—then I wish to see it done.”
The conviction in her voice leaves me so moved I can’t speak. I end up staring at her, my eyes and mouth wide, like a hungry child standing in front of a stall selling pirrackas.
“Theyarefools,” Hiret says, a hint of that recognition returning—as if, somewhere beneath the goddess, she sees the girl who was pulled from her mother’s side and dressed in divine crimson by the high priest all those years ago. “You are the only light we have against this darkening world, Divine One. They have forgotten what it is to live without guardian stones, but we have long memories. We remember why our ancestors took to the river, trusting the protection of the waters that flow from your temple to the sea.” She kneels, touching her palms to her eyes in the ancient and uncommon gesture of piety and devotion. “The riverfolk are with you, Nimhara. Always.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, still half-dazed.
And then she’s gone, to look for her husband and his brother, after promising to send another of her clansmen to escort me home through the growing market crowds when I’m ready.
I’m left in silence, but for the labored breathing of the man in the bed at my side. Carefully, I scoop the healing spell’s reagents off the blanket and into my palm so I can begin again, though now I scarcely notice the incantation or the power it channels.
The riverfolk are with you… . Always.
