Her letter was one long dither about packing, what to take, what to leave, how she must learn to behave as an officer’s wife, how overjoyed Spink was, and yet he felt humbly indebted to her father, and her worry that in his drive to impress his superiors Spink might jeopardize his recovered health. She confided to me that she was convinced now of the healing properties of Bitter Springs, and had spent a good portion of their savings on blue glass bottles and stoppers, for she intended to take a gross of dosages of spring water with her. The folk of Gettys suffered much from the plague and she was most anxious to see if the bottled water could relieve or perhaps prevent the disease. She went on for pages on what she hoped their quarters would be like and whether there would be other young wives to socialize with, and perhaps families so that when the good god finally blessed her with pregnancy she would be around women experienced in births and babies.

I tried to smile over her pages, but all I could think was that Spink had been given a second chance, one that I would have given my eyeteeth for. For the very first time, it occurred to me that I could take money from my father’s account and do the same for myself. The dishonorable temptation lasted only for one sharp moment, and yet envy would nag at me for days afterward.

Spink’s part of the letter was more restrained than Epiny’s. Farleyton had once been a crack regiment, renowned for their valor in numerous campaigns. Since they’d been posted to Gettys, their star had dimmed substantially. Rumor said that numerous desertions and dereliction of duty had tarnished the regiment’s reputation. Still, he was glad to accept his commission there. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” he wrote me. “I always dreamed that I’d join a regiment where I could rise swiftly. Farleyton’s Horse may well be it. Wish me luck and say a prayer for me.”

I did both, and tried to do them without an envious heart.

Every evening, Yaril had a place set for my father at the dinner table, always in the hope (or dread) that he might deign to join us. As the harvest progressed, my father improved but still kept to his room. When I tapped at his door each day and then entered, I usually found him sitting in a chair by the window, staring out over his lands. He still refused to look at me, and I still persisted in giving him my daily reports. Once he had confined me to my room to try to break me; now he confined himself to his room, but I felt his intention was the same. I felt that his grief over his losses had been consumed by his anger at his fate.

He did not treat Yaril so coldly. Her lot was harder. When she first returned to Widevale, she had gone to see him, and he had burst into tears at the sight of her, safe and healthy. But his tears of joy at receiving the daughter who was left to him soon turned to tears of anguish over all he had lost. She sat with him daily, and daily he would recount his misery and despair. All he had striven for his entire life had been snatched away from him. She would emerge from her sessions with him pale and drained. Sometimes, she told me, he would rant against fate; at other times, he bade her pray with him, that the good god might show him a path through his misfortune.

My father’s life had come to a dead end. His heir was gone, his soldier son a failure, his wife dead, his elder daughter gone. His game board had been swept clean of all powerful pieces, leaving him only pawns to manipulate. He agonized over who would inherit his estate, and endlessly dreaded a lonely dotage. He considered petitioning the king to allow him to move Vanze up from priest son to heir. But he was too much of a traditionalist to relish that idea. The next day would find him declaring that he would look among my cousins for a likely heir, a young man he could bring to Widevale and raise as a fit heir.

In between such ranting, he would fashion various fates for Yaril. His only daughter was precious to him now, he told her, for whoever wed her would be his sole ally. He would find an heir son for her, perhaps even an old noble’s son. Then the next night he would tearfully say she was all he had left, and that he could never allow her to wed for she must look after him in his failing years.

One evening after a late game of cards she confided to me that she was weary to death of those discussions. I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, in all rightness, Cecile still has a duty to our family. She should come back here, and take the burden of running the household off your shoulders.”

Yaril looked at me as if I were mad. “You aren’t serious?”

“She is Rosse’s widow. We made a bride-gift to her family. She is a Burvelle now.”

“Well, she can just be a Burvelle in her mother’s house! Prissy, primpy Cecile in charge of my life and our home? Afraid-of-her-shadow Cecile, always wanting to chop off some poor bird’s head so her scary old gods won’t do something awful to her? It was bad enough when Mother was alive to keep her in check. But to have her put over me, in my own home? No. No, Nevare. Leave her where she is, and good riddance.”

I’d had no idea that Yaril had felt such animosity toward Cecile. I’m afraid it amused me. I grinned as I said, “So. I see now why Carsina was chosen for me; she was someone you are already friends with. Less potential for fireworks in the family.”

I had meant it as a jest, but it was the first time Carsina’s name had been mentioned between us. Yaril narrowed her eyes at me. “That bitch!” she said with great feeling.

I was shocked. “Carsina? I thought you were friends.”

She scowled. “As did I. I thought keeping her friendship was the most important thing in the world, more important than my brother, even. I turned my back on you, to commiserate with her about how you had embarrassed her at Rosse’s wedding. I supported her in insisting that your marriage agreement be dissolved. I was so shallow, Nevare. But she served me as I deserved. No sooner was her family free of their commitment to you than she set her sights on Remwar! She knew how I felt about him! She knew that he had promised me that he’d ask his father to talk to our father as soon as he could get him into a good mood! But the last I heard, he was finding every excuse to visit her family as often as he could.”

My mind had snagged on her earlier words. I scarcely noticed what she said about Remwar. “Our marriage agreement is dissolved? How long ago did that happen?”

She looked at me with sudden pity. “Didn’t Father speak to you about it? He told the family at dinner one night, soon after Rosse’s wedding. He was stiff with fury, but said he could not blame them. He’d said you’d eaten yourself out of a career and a marriage…Oh, Nevare, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak of it that way. I just wish that, well, that you’d never let yourself go this way. Why did you do it? The cavalla was what you wanted more than anything else.”

“I didn’t do it.” I looked at her. We sat in the netted darkness of our pavilion. The oil lamp on the table made a small orb of light around us. A light breeze carried the scent of the night-blooming flowers in the garden and the greener smell of the pond. It suddenly seemed that we two were alone in the whole wide world, and perhaps we were. I began talking, and found myself telling my little sister the entire tale. She listened in rapt wonder, her eyes wide, and when I reached the moment where I stepped off the cliff’s edge at Dewara’s urging, she shivered and reached across the table to take my hand.

By the time I finished the account, she had moved to sit close beside me as if I were telling ghost stories. She heard of my dual days at the academy, about Epiny’s séance and her concerns for me, and of Dark Evening and the Specks’ Dust Dance. I told her of my final battle with Tree Woman, and how the Spindle had stopped dancing and even how I had found Dewara and how he had died. She listened with rapt attention. In the silence that followed, as frogs and crickets creaked and peeped, she took a breath. “Are you making this up, Nevare?” she asked me. “Are you teasing me?”