“It’s time for new heroes to step up,” Kreya said. “We completed our destiny.” Her eyes slid to Amurra. Those had been her words. She hadn’t been wrong.I just wasn’t ready to listen,Kreya thought.
Zera raised a finger. “A point? We actuallyfailedto complete it. For evidence, I submit literally everything we just witnessed on the plains.”
“I don’t know how he returned,” Kreya said, “or how he was able to build up his army again without anyone ever suspecting, but this isn’t about unfinished threads that need to be neatened up. He presents a new danger to Vos, and he requires a new solution.”
Marso piped up. “We won’t make the same mistakes.”
“You all act as if this is a chance at redemption,” Kreya said. “But it’s not about us at all. It’s about Vos and what is best for the safety of those we love.”
Amurra silently nodded.
“We have to do what’s best for the innocent, for those we’ve sworn to protect,” Kreya said. “And what’s best is for us to step away, and let others—stronger, younger men and women—defeat him. Our role is to warn them, advise them, and prepare them.”
Zera glared at her. “Aw, that’s bullshit. I am not an ‘advisor.’ I am a damn warrior!”
Stran thumped his chest in agreement, and then winced—he’d hit not far from his still-bandaged wound. Kreya thought that proved her point.Our time has passed. We need to admit that.
“You’re a businesswoman now,” Kreya corrected her. “I’m a hermit. Stran’s a farmer and a father. Marso...”
Marso spoke up. “Marso wants a second chance to be what he was supposed to be. I want a chance to not fail my friends.”
“There are no second chances,” Kreya said.
Quietly, Jentt said, “How can you look at me and say that?”
She opened her mouth and then shut it. Marshaling her thoughts, she glanced down at her bandaged four-fingered hand. “You’re right. You have a second chance.Wehave it. Which is why I’m not going to allow us to throw it away. I can’t lose you again. Any of you.” She fixed her eyes on each of them.
Zera broke eye contact with her first. Studying her hands, she said, “You want me to go to Grand Master Lorn. Is that what you want me to do? Convince him to act? What if he won’t? He may choose not to believe me. I have... a reputation for theatrics.”
“We all go,” Kreya said.
Amurra spoke up. “I’m coming as well. My parents can stay with the children here. But I’m not letting my husband out of my sight again.”
Stran’s shoulders slumped. “You truly believe we can’t defeat him this time?”
“I do,” Kreya said firmly. “Our time is over.”
The others looked at her with a mixture of disbelief, disappointment, and... anger. And while she felt all those things too, she knew she was right, and in time, they’d come to understand that, too.
Chapter Seventeen
If you had a complaint for the Bone Workers Guild, you went to the guild headquarters on the third tier of Cerre. All the clerks were stationed there, with the bulk of the teachers. The novices lived there as well, in quarters close by for training. But if you wanted to talk to the grand master about important matters, away from the riffraff, you went to the fifth tier, to the palace that served as the grand master’s personal residence.
If you could get in.
Zera led the way.
She knew how to make a production of it. Sweeping into her own fifth-tier palace with all the force of a hurricane, she issued orders right and left, and her followers scrambled to obey.
When Kreya began to object, Zera cut her off. “You know how you get a powerful person to listen to you? You come to them as equally powerful. Out there, you command. Here, this ismybattlefield.”
Which was the truth. She knew how to maneuver in this stratified world. Choosing to stop in the center of her grand salon, rather than anywhere private, she held her arms out while Guine stripped her, washed her, and garbed her in her finest embroidered silks. She was patient while another painted goldswirls on her skin, decorating her chest and arms. Bangles were attached around her ankles, rubies affixed to her ears. Guine added gold strands to her multicolored hair.
She saw Marso watching her, eyeing the sparkle. “Same treatment for the bone reader.”
Stran snorted. “Leave me out of it.”
“Had no plans to dress you up. You must look like what you are: a warrior who has seen battle,” Zera said. “Only pants. No shirt. No jewels. Can you remove the bandage?”
