“What good was that?” Her voice echoed around the mountain. Snow rumbled in reply. Avalanches awaited her command. “I won’t be sacrifice, spirit slave, or victim. I’m a guardian.”

“You’ve found your way,” Djola whimpered. “I’m lost.”

“End torture in the huts, on the sea, in the woods and fields.” Her icy words tickled his ears. “Do this to honor me. You’re the Master of Weeds and Wild Things.”

He almost sneered. “No one masters Weeds and Wild Things.”

She sighed a gust of wind that blasted him over a cliff. He tumbled through snow and ice then gripped a branch and dangled over a ledge. “At first, failure is the map.” She used his words to their children. “Come visit me here, where the dead linger and watch over the living.”

He dropped to snow-packed ground. “What happened to Tessa, Bal, and Quint?”

“You abandoned us, that’s what happened.”

“Quint would be so grown up. Are they dead?”

“I burn to ash in a hut. Why ask me?”

“A mother’s duty—”

“What of a father’s duty?”

“Council stole my future and yours. I mourned the children too.”

“What if our children live and you waste heart spirit?”

Djola didn’t want to fight with her or hope she was right. “Still…”

“Enough mourning. Promise me.” Icicle spears crashed around her. “I won’t speak of the children or revenge. Kill nobody in my name, not even yourself. Live, for love of me and the children.” Dying in a hut and she was asking him to be reasonable. “Use the heartbeats you have left to do what you set out to do. Basawili.”

“How? Poison sandstorms travel faster than thought, like a void-wind from Smokeland devastating green lands in the everyday.”

“You know more than you think.”

“Stopping the void is impossible.” Djola shook his head. “It travels through wise-woman corridors.”

She drew him close. Cold lips brushed his forehead. “I should have taken the children to Mount Eidhou, but like a fool, I went to Arkhys City to find you.”

“Not your fault,” he whispered. His fault.

“Will you swear an oath on my last breath, to work for change, not revenge?”

Who refused a dying wish? “I will live for change not revenge.” Djola wanted to hold her, comfort her. He reached out and hugged a frosty wind. “I’ve been practicing Lahesh conjure. Xhalan Xhala will be the proof I offer Azizi. For you, for the children.”

“Good. Survive! Visit me whenever you can.” Samina stabbed his back with a hot barb, and, in a blink, he was back in the everyday, sprawled under a porthole in sick bay, soaking wet and shivering. Wounded men groaned around him.

“You were sleepwalking again.” Orca wiped his face. “Too much medicine. Fever.”

“We found you on the upper deck, behemoths singing, waves splashing you.” Vandana gave Djola a hot brew.

Djola gulped it down. “How long was I sleepwalking?”