The queen clutched the sides of her head, as if the very thought of Grisha carrying divine blessing might split her skull. “This is heresy.”

Nina spread her hands wide, helpless. “I cannot explain these things.”

“You are a liar and a heretic. You are unnatural with your trances and your predictions. You—”

Nina threw back her head, letting her eyes roll white in their sockets. “You bled and bled. You knew you were going to lose this child like all the others. You sent sweet Linor to the dungeons and had a Grisha Healer brought to you. Her name was Pavlina. You promised her freedom. But you never intended to set her free. She sat with you for hours, long into the night. She stayed with you, day after day, healing you, healing your princeling, even in the womb. She told you stories when you were restless. And when you wept, she sang you a lullaby.”

“No.” The word emerged as a moan.

Nina had a terrible singing voice, but she did her best to follow the melody of the dead woman crooning to her. “Dye ena kelinki, dya derushka, shtoya refkayena lazla zeya.” It was an old Ravkan folk song. Up in the mountains, high in the trees, the firebird sleeps on a golden bough.

“You … you know Ravkan?”

“I have never spoken a word before now. I know only what Djel shows me. Pavlina told you she had a daughter, a little girl you promised she would see again.”

The queen released a sob. “I needed her help!”

“Djel forgives you all of it.” I don’t, thought Nina. Your tree god is far more magnanimous. “But he will not forgive the murder of more Grisha. Not when your son owes his life to one.”

“I … how am I to stop it? Our people want war.”

“Is that what you’ve been told or what you know? Your generals want war. The people want their sons and daughters to live. They want to sleep in their beds and tend the crops in their fields. Will you listen to your generals or to Djel? The choice is yours.” Nina remembered a line from one of the Saints’ stories she’d read in an old children’s book: You can choose faith or you can choose fear. But only one will bring you what you long for.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“You do. Listen closely. The water hears and understands.” She bowed and made to leave.

“You dare turn your back on me?”

A bold move, but Nina needed to show Agathe she wore the armor of faith. She couldn’t afford to show fear.

“It is Djel you should be worried about, my queen,” she said. “Take care lest he turn his back on you.”