She took a deep breath to steady herself. It didn’t help, it only made the room spin, so she closed her eyes. Her heart hammered at her ribs. Why did it labour so without blood to send coursing through her veins? Rosa could have wept, but for the shame of the tears – and out of uncertainty whether even tears were now denied her.

“What I don’t understand,” Sidara piped up, “is why it matters which god blessed you, so long as you wear the gift well?”

Rosa opened her eyes onto a room of comedically similar expressions. Malachi, Lilyana and Elzar twisted towards the drawing room’s rear door, their lips parted, but their tongues bereft of words. Sidara stood frozen in place, fingers still on the door handle. Her face showed the first signs of understanding that she’d made an error of no small magnitude.

“Sidara! That is a wicked thing to say! Truly wicked!” Lilyana, her voice thunderous and her face flushed, jerked a hand towards the hallway. “Go to your room!”

“But, Mother, this is interesting.”

“I will not tell you again!”

She grabbed the child by the arm and bundled her out of the door. Before crossing the threshold herself, Lilyana glowered at Elzar. “Thank you for your time, high proctor, and your . . . opinions. But I think it would be better if you left my home.”

The door slammed.

Malachi winced. “Elzar, I can only echo my wife’s thanks, and apologise for her rudeness.”

He waved both away and rose. “I spoke of my own volition; the fault is mine. And she’s right, you know. Your daughter, I mean.”

Rosa looked up to see him staring down at her.

“Though I shouldn’t say so,” Elzar went on, “the gods too are like stories. They may grant us power, but like Malatriant they have no power over us that we do not grant them. We so often claim the soul is a single, indivisible entity, when really it is three together. When we die, a part of us goes to the mists, and a part remains with the body to await Third Dawn. The gods have claim only on that third which remains. It’s the only piece of ourselves we have to offer, and the only part they can take. Konor Belenzo chose to embrace Lumestra, as do I, and as does Lady Reveque. Even if the Raven has laid claim to that piece, Lady Orova, you need not embrace him unless it is your desire. What you do otherwise is your own affair.”

He bowed and withdrew in a swish of golden robes. Malachi followed, leaving Rosa alone in sunlight that did nothing to warm her skin.

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Four

“Halt, ’less you want a bellyful of steel!”