None of them attended Covenant’s unconsciousness, although the Humbled stood guard over him. They were chary of him; restrained by awe, or by the fear that they might harm him inadvertently. Nevertheless everyone watching Linden understood too much: she could see that. For those who cared about her, what she had done was an ictus in their hearts. Liand and the Ramen lacked the Harrow’s provocative knowledge, Infelice’s Earth-spanning consciousness, the shared memories of the Haruchai. None of her friends—or her antagonists—could match the strange and singular insight of the Ranyhyn. But they all were gifted with health-sense; percipience. The Elohim’s announcement that Linden had invoked the destruction of the Earth may have sounded abstract to Liand and the Ramen; even to the Humbled and Stave. Still they knew that they had witnessed an irreversible catastrophe; that she had vindicated every warning, fulfilled every dire prophecy—

When your deeds have come to doom, as they must—

You have it within you to perform horrors.

How had the Harrow and even the Viles known how badly she would fail her loves?

But Linden did not allow herself to hide her head as she approached the krill and Covenant’s limp form. She did not intend to conceal her fatal heart behind a veil of shame. If she had indeed roused the Worm of the World’s End, she meant to bear as much of the cost as her flesh could endure.

Bhapa and Pahni did not meet her eyes. Apparently they could not. Pahni clung to Liand, hiding her shock and terror against his shoulder. Bhapa studied the grass at his feet as though he feared that Linden’s gaze would make him weep. But the bandage over Mahrtiir’s face was too mundane to conceal the ferocity of his glower.

Stave had regained his impassivity. Perhaps he had never lost it. His stance was a query, not a repudiation. But the Humbled were not so restrained. Behind their familiar ready poise, they seemed to tremble with the force of their eagerness to strike her down.

Covenant had told them to choose her. They did not appear inclined to heed him.

Around the Humbled, the Ranyhyn remained watchful, wary; prepared to defend Linden again. As Linden drew near, Hyn nickered softly. The mare’s call sounded sorrowful and resigned, as if she blamed herself. In spite of what Linden had done, the horses held fast to their fidelity. Perhaps they still trusted her. If they considered Infelice or the Harrow relevant to the fate of the Land—or to their own imperatives—they did not show it.

Of them all, however, all of Linden’s friends, only Liand looked at her and spoke.

Every hint of the young dignity which he had displayed upon other occasions was gone. The stature of his Stonedownor heritage had deserted him. He had replaced his Sunstone in its pouch: he did not reach for it now. Linden had never seen him look so small, or so lorn. The raven wings of his eyebrows articulated his uncertainty.