The barracks sat at the edge of the shelf of rock that had been carved out from the mountain, adjoining a courtyard that overlooked the rest of the citadel. Hassan drifted into the courtyard as the others prepared for bed.

“You should really get some rest, Hassan,” Khepri said gently.

Hassan turned from where he’d been peering over the low wall that bracketed the courtyard. Khepri leaned in the doorway of the barracks, arms crossed loosely over her chest. He felt the sudden urge to reach out and touch her, a pang of longing he’d managed to keep at bay since the caverns.

“Are you all right?” Khepri asked, uncrossing her arms and approaching him.

Hassan shook his head. He wasn’t all right—hadn’t been since Behezda. Since before then. Maybe not since that fateful night when he’d woken to a palace under attack, when he’d been forced to flee on a ship without his parents or anyone he trusted.

“These people are all going to die,” he said. “This city is basically under siege by the Witnesses. We should do something, shouldn’t we? We should help.”

Khepri leaned her elbows against the wall beside him. “How?”

“I don’t know. But Lady Iskara has held this town against the Witnesses for months. Alone. Don’t she and her people deserve some respite from that? Some aid?”

“You admire her.”

“I relate to her,” Hassan replied.

“This place isn’t Nazirah,” Khepri said. “Our city … our people are a world away. Fighting against Lethia and the Witnesses alone. You can’t think that helping these people is going to change that. You can’t just assuage your guilt—”

“Who says I have guilt?” Hassan demanded.

Khepri gave him a look. “Hassan, I know you.”

“It was the right decision not to go back,” he said firmly.

“We won’t know that until this is all over,” Khepri replied, looking down at her fidgeting hands.

She was probably right. And maybe this was why Hassan’s ancestors had had it so easy. They’d had the Prophets to tell them how things would turn out, for better or worse. They’d had warnings to guide their choices.

It made him think of what the Wanderer had told them, about fate and destiny and bringing them together. It made him think of the moment he’d realized he wasn’t the Prophet and had decided to keep pretending he was anyway. The moment he’d realized Lethia had turned on him. The moment he’d gone to the Hierophant, offering him the secrets of the Relics in exchange for Nazirah. Those were all things that weighed heavily on Hassan, that stirred up his gut with guilt. But maybe they weren’t mistakes—maybe he wouldn’t know until it was all over. Or maybe not even then.