Hassan and the rest of the group had traveled down the coast for three days and four nights, trudging through the rain as a storm swept over the mountains. Then they’d crossed through a lower pass that took them back into the valley. It was the most miserable week Hassan had ever endured—and he had endured some pretty miserable weeks.

They barely said a word to one another throughout the journey. There wasn’t much to say. They had failed. They had lost. The Hierophant was dead, but Hassan didn’t feel any measure of triumph. He just felt hollow.

He was half a world away from Nazirah. And for what?

When they’d arrived at the safe house three days ago, waterlogged and exhausted from the journey, a diminutive old man had greeted them at the door. The moment Anton had said that the Wanderer had sent them, the old man, Tuva, ushered them inside. He hadn’t asked any questions, just let them bathe in warm tubs, fed them their first hot meal in over a week, and told them they could stay as long as they needed.

Tuva put them to work on the farm, which turned out to be a much-needed distraction. Hassan passed two days milking goats and helping with the late fall harvest of cabbage and turnips. It felt nice to do the simple but hard work of putting food on the table, and not think about anything else. But Hassan knew that this pause, this breath, would have to end, and soon. They didn’t know what kind of destruction the god was wreaking on the world, and they needed a plan.

On the third day, Khepri found him in a copse of pomegranate trees, gathering fruit into baskets and letting the sun warm his back.

There was a certain glint in Khepri’s eyes that Hassan recognized. It was the look she got when she set out to do something and had decided that nothing would stop her. Hassan loved and feared that look in equal measure.

“There’s news,” she said without preamble.

Hassan set his basket down at his feet, wiping his face on his sleeve. There was only one topic that would make Khepri this apprehensive. “Nazirah?”

She nodded. “Tuva says there are a few members of the Lost Rose still in the city. He reached out to them to see what’s happening there. And Hassan, things are … they’re bad. Now that the Hierophant is dead, Lethia is cracking down even harder. There have been uprisings in other towns along the river, and she’s used them as an excuse to imprison anyone suspected of dissent.”

“She knows her grip on the city is weak now that the Hierophant is gone,” Hassan said. “She’ll do anything to hold on to control.”