“Truth?” Karis said.

“A fire blood’s truth,” Norina said grumpily. “As full of mystery and metaphor as a blasted book of poetry. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Well, I think it only sensible to accept this seer. In fact, if what you fear is as inevitable as you say, I don’t see what else we can do.”

“You want to trust him?” Norina seemed appalled.

“Put him through your Truthken’s meat grinder first if you want.”

“A seer? His truths will change from one moment to the next. There is no point.”

“There must be a way.”

“No, Karis.” She sat forward on the bench, implacable. “No.”

Karis said, “Nori, I can’t continue like this.”

Nonna stood up abruptly. “Near fifteen years you’ve trusted me–”

“Sit down,” Karis said.

There was a silence. To Zanja’s surprise, Norina sat down. The spring made soft, lapping sounds, like a cat drinking milk. “You are not infallible,” Karis said. “I intend no insult by pointing this out, no more than you intend to insult me when you remind me of my many weaknesses. This time, I want you to trust me. Tell Zanja the truth. Let her find this seer and bring him to me.”

“No.” Zanja had never heard a voice so cold.

“If you don’t do it, I will.”

“Then you have no further need for my advice. And I have no desire to either struggle with you further or to participate in your folly. You’ll go to your doom without my help.”

In the dim light, Karis’s face seemed very pale, but this time she made no move to stop Norina from standing up and leaving. It was Zanja who leapt up and blocked the door.

“Are you insane?” Norina said softly.

“You’re making a mistake.”

They looked at each other, eye to eye, more than long enough for Norina to figure out that Zanja was no threat to her, and her entrapment in the lathe house was an illusion. But Norina didn’t move to push past Zanja. She turned and said to Karis, “No matter what I do, I am forsworn. Only you could put me in such a position.”

Karis said, exasperated, “You’re too angry to think. Even I know a way out of your dilemma.”

It was unusual, and gratifying, to see Norina so taken aback. To see her cold face quirk with wry humor was even more surprising. “You’re getting very subtle for an earth witch,” she told Karis. And then her unnerving gaze shifted to Zanja’s face. “I assume you’re wondering why Mabin arranged your murder. It was to prevent you from delivering to the enemy one of Shaftal’s most guarded secrets. But you had already done what she most feared, when you crawled through Medric’s window on Fire Night.”

“I had? What had I done?”

But Norina apparently had said all she would say. She shifted her heavy, off‑balance torso, pressed her hands to the small of her hack, and waited. Beyond her, Karis sat with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. Whatever they were waiting for, they seemed prepared for it to take a while.

Perhaps they expected Zanja to determine for herself whatever it was that Norina’s vows prevented her from telling her. Zanja took her glyph cards from their pouch. “You say I know an important secret, but what secret do I know?” She looked down: in her hand she held the Woman of the Doorway. “Karis is Shaftal’s most guarded secret? Why?” She sorted through the cards, wishing for Emil’s insight. Her fingers stopped: she held the card called Death‑and‑Life. The G’deon’s glyph.

She could not take a breath. Norina held her arm in a painful grip. She must have seemed on the verge of falling over. “But Harald G’deon didn’t–” she protested, and stopped. Who really knew the truth of what had happened the last day of Harald’s life? Not many people would have been in his sickroom, and almost everyone had been killed by the Sainnites soon afterwards. She looked up from the card to Karis, who was making a serious study of the dirt beneath her feet. “He laid his hands on you before he died. He vested you with the power of Shaftal.”

Karis raised her gaze and said to Norina, “Now may I speak? I think she is under a misapprehension.”

They waited rather long for Norina to calculate a grudging answer. “Yes.”

“When Harald died, I was the only earth witch in Shaftal. They found me and brought me to him at the last moment of his life. As he died, he dumped his load of power into me. I did not know what was happening, and it was done without my consent. After it was done, and could not be undone, my unworthiness was discovered. It became apparent to everyone that Harald could not have intended to make me his successor, but only to use me as a receptacle.”

“By the nine gods!” Zanja turned to Norina. “For fifteen years Shaftal has been in turmoil–”

Norina said quietly, “Despite having been so foully treated, Karis serves Shaftal with more honor and consistency than anyone thought possible.”

It was a statement amazing in its sincerity, for Zanja had come to think that Norina admired and respected nobody. Even Karis looked rather surprised.

Zanja said, “I mean no disrespect, but I don’t see how.”

“She accepts obscurity, she chooses not to exercise her significant powers, she resists the lure of smoke as much as she can, she lives when sometimes her life is unendurable, and someday she will pass on the power she carries, and give Shaftal a G’deon.“

Shaken, chastened, Zanja could scarcely think of a response. So this was how a woman so dishonored might reclaim her honor and even be a hero. Yet the tragedy of Karis’s life made her own tragedies seem almost ordinary. She said, “How can I help her?”

Norina said, “I guess I should have trusted you from the beginning.”

It was like a river reversing its course by an act of will, with a new current just as inevitable and irresistible as the old. Zanja must have been staring at Norina in blank amazement, for Norina’s grim expression finally gave way to one of sardonic humor. “Now, Zanja, get yourself in hand. The ritual must be completed.”

“You acted as your duty required,” Zanja said.

“Formidable enemies can make formidable friends.”

“I’m hardly in a position to refuse–”

“Well, that’s a bit halfhearted,” Norina said.

“There’s no point in lying to you.”

“That’s true, but this little drama is for Karis, not for me.” Norina glanced at Karis.

“She’s satisfied enough.” She took Zanja’s arm, and propelled her back to the bench and to Karis, who got up and fiercely embraced them both.

Norina said, “You were going to let me leave.”

“And you were going to go.”

They examined each other rather cautiously. For the length of their friendship, Zanja thought, Norina had been reading Karis back to herself like a book read to a blind woman. Surely she must have been unnerved to look up from her reading and find the other chair empty and the door standing ajar.

Zanja said, “You’re afraid that Medric knows of Karis, even though I told him nothing?”

“She created you,” Norina said, “just like she created these blades we carry, just like she created the ravens. So she is in you, and when Medric met you, he met her as well. It may take some time for the small bit of truth he’s seen to become a whole, but if he’s the seer you say he is, then it will happen.”

“So I must find him, just as Karis says.”

“Well, I must consult with Mabin before we do anything.”

“You know that won’t work,” Karis said. “Giving birth will lay you up for a while, and you won’t even be around to consult with anyone. And if Mabin forbids us to contact him, as I’m sure she will, what then? You know that Zanja won’t stand quietly by while Mabin’s assassins hunt Medric down.“

“Good luck to them,” said Zanja. “That man has already outsmarted the smartest commanders in Shaftal. But no, I don’t owe Mabin any loyalty. Medric, however, deserves all the help I can give him.”

Norina said, “Unlike both of you, I still answer to the councilor, and will until I die. So what am I to do?”