Yaril looked at me as if she heard my thoughts. “He’ll never change his mind. He’s too proud. He’ll stand by what he’s said, even when he knows it’s stupid and wrong. He’s broken it all, for all of us. What are we going to do, Nevare? Whatever are we going to do?”

The words came to me slowly and fell from my lips like stones. “I’ll have to leave. There is nothing else I can do.” I swallowed past a sudden lump in my throat. Other words came out before I even thought to say them. “I should have left a long time ago, and then none of this would have happened. When I first found out I was dismissed from the academy, I should have run away east. To the forest, where I belong.”

“What?” Yaril demanded, distraught.

“I meant the frontier. Where I could make a new life for myself.” But that wasn’t what I had meant at all. Like a shadow unfurling, for a moment my Speck self had seized my tongue and spoken to her. I could not imagine a worse time for him to assert his presence. A fresh wave of misery washed over me as I tried to comprehend the full disaster of my father turning me out. Yaril made it worse. “I have to go with you, Nevare. No matter where you go. You can’t leave me here. You can’t. I’ll die.”

“Don’t say that! You know I can’t take you with me. I don’t even know where I’m going or what I’m going to do. I can’t take you into a situation like that.” As I said the words, I knew what I had to do. I must obey the good god’s will. I had to enlist as a soldier. Franner’s Bend was the closest military post. I could start there, and build a new life. I instantly rejected that idea. I would go as far away from my father as I could and build a new life where if I failed or disgraced myself, only I would bear the shame.

“If you leave me, I’ll die, Nevare. Or I’ll go mad. Don’t go off and leave me alone with that crazy, vile man.”

The first thought that came to me was that she had to stay, because otherwise our father would be left all alone. Despite all, I thought that too cruel to consider. “He isn’t himself,” I said instead. “Grief has turned his mind. In time, he may recover. And when he does, he will need you.”

“Perhaps after he has driven me as mad as he is? Nevare, try to imagine what my life will be here. I will have no one to turn to. No one.” I sought my mind for something to offer her, some shelter or friendship that could sustain her. Carsina came to mind, and then I remembered their falling-out over Remwar. Our family had other friends and neighbors.

True, ever since the plague, there had been little socializing. The news we had received from other households was sparse and often somber. But once the rains of fall and the snows of winter were past and the roads were good again, surely people would resume their old patterns of visits and invitations. In the meantime…well, at least she would be safe. I said as much.