Kicking off impractical shoes, Rosa flung herself at Aske’s back. She turned at the last moment. Rosa, in full flight, had no chance to stop. The sword-point took her low in the belly. The tearing of silk was indistinguishable from that of the flesh beneath.

Rosa gasped. Pain flooded to replace stolen breath. She clawed numbly at Aske’s shoulders, glimpsed the other woman’s wide-eyed horror. Then she fell, her knees cracking on cobbles.

The world blurred, its colour fading and its sounds packed tight with goose down. Aske’s rictus as she backed away. The clang of her sword as it struck cobbles. Sevaka’s urgent words as she fell to her knees. The wild gestures of the fleeing hearthguard. The crash of the waves against the harbourside. All impossibly far away and yet close to. All save the croak of crow-voices.

And yet Rosa felt no sadness. The Raven would take her, and she’d see Kas again, though she dreaded the explanation she’d owe.

Rosa put a trembling hand to her stomach.

There was no blood.

The world swam anew. How could there be no blood? And the pain. It wasn’t . . . right. Like the cold of the wind, it felt like the memory of something from another time. And if there was no blood, and no pain, then she wasn’t dying, was she?

What was she?

The impossible question sank beneath a surge of bleak anger. The same anger Rosa had tamped down and contained ever since Kas’s death. Ever since she’d failed him. It tore through her like flame through a parched forest. Uncontainable. Undeniable. The crow-voices faded. The world regained its colour.

Rosa caught Aske within a dozen paces. Skirts tore as the two of them slammed into the cobbles, Aske below and she atop. She drew back her elbow, fist bunched.

“No! I’m sorry!” There was no arrogance in Aske’s expression now. Just stark, unflinching fear.

Rosa slammed down a fist. Something gave beneath her knuckles. It felt good. So good, she did it again.

Aske shrieked. Her hands flailed to fend off the blows. She might as well have tried to hold back the tide.

“Don’t! Don’t! I beg you!”

Rosa struck again. All the guilt-driven rage that ritual and liquor and kind words had failed to expunge tore free in a wordless cry as her fist struck home. She lost herself in that moment. She drowned in it. Only when the scream faded did she come back to herself.

Sevaka’s face, pale and more sober than it had been in hours, crowded her vision. Her hand shook Rosa’s shoulder. “Rosa? Queen’s Ashes! What have you done?”

The clang of constabulary bells rang out. Booted feet thundered closer. Rosa stared down through her bloodied fingers and began to shake.