“She died.” Elene’s voice was more croak than human and her body shuddered as Berthold patted her shoulder. She did not cry. “She needed my strength, but she sent me back at the last moment. She had planned it with Wolfhere all along.”

“With Wolfhere? Planned what?”

“That he would follow us and return me to my father. She fulfilled her vow to Anne. She knew it was right, what they did. But the Seven Sleepers failed. The Lost Ones have returned. They will kill all of humankind if they can. In Jinna lands they still tell tales of the ancient war with the Aoi. My grandmother heard those stories when she was a child. You know what Anne meant to do—to banish the Lost Ones forever, so they would never trouble us again. Why did you abandon Mother Anne, knowing that her cause was just and necessary?”

“I saw no reason to sacrifice myself when I could serve God better by surviving. Did Anne know that she and all the others would die? That the weaving would extract its own cost? Did Sister Meriam know she was doomed? Did all of them die?”

By the way Elene lowered her eyes and sagged against Berthold, Antonia guessed she was about to lie. “I could not see into the weaving. I only know …” She wept.

Berthold shot Antonia an indignant glance. “Is this necessary?” He looked so much like his father that Antonia had a momentary sense of dislocation, as if she had been thrown by means of a spell back to the days of her youth. But she had to press on.

“What do you know, Lady Elene?”

“Something terrible happened. I don’t know who fought the spell, but it broke down in the north, and then something terrible happened. White fire, and a river of burning rock. My grandmother was …” Her lips twisted as she struggled not to sob out loud. “She was gone, engulfed utterly in a blast of light. Later, a wind flattened our camp. Our servants were killed, smothered in sand. There came … a creature that dug out of the sands.” She covered her eyes with a hand. “A huge lion, but it had wings, and the face of a woman. It was going to kill me. Wolfhere came, and we escaped.”

“The ancient messengers of God.” A fire of excitement burned in Antonia’s heart. The rush of heady discovery made her giddy. “The oldest stories come to life! Is this true, that you have seen such things? One of the lion queens, the holy messengers of God?”

“I saw them.”

“What did Wolfhere do that allowed you to escape their just wrath?”

Elene grimaced and wiped her cheeks as she calmed herself. ‘Ask him. I fainted from loss of blood.”

“Can you mean they struck, and yet you survived?”

“Do you not believe me?”

Elene pulled her tunic up to display a length of bare thigh, supple and comely. Berthold flushed bright red and looked away, but Antonia saw the whitened scars from three cruel cuts that had torn the flesh and healed cleanly. A cat might leave such a mark, if it were very, very large.