Mud squelched beneath her feet as they made their way down the switchbacks to the city. It had taken her so long to see how her people suffered under her father. And it had taken falling in love with Ranami to truly understand that her father’s policies were unfair and exploited the people he ruled. That he had no idea what it was like to live as a farmer or an orphan in the city.

That she’d had no idea.

When she’d sparred with Tythus, she rarely made the same mistake more than once. She hoped to do the same now.

“You’re brooding,” Ranami said as they rounded the last switchback.

“What? No.”

“Yes. You get this faraway look in your eye, and your brows do this thing –” She demonstrated, scrunching her brows together. “ – and you go very quiet, and you put your hand on the pommel of your sword.”

Well dammit, she did have her hand resting on the pommel. She shook out her fingers and let her cloak fall over her sword again. “I’m not brooding, I’m thinking. I just… want to be better than he was.”

She didn’t have to say who she meant.

“You already are, by several measures.”

“Even so – he’s not a bad person. I know he was careless with the people of the island, even cruel, but he was a decent father. When I wanted to learn how to fight, he set me up with tutors. He never tried to make me do the things I didn’t want to. Yes, he suggested that I do them plenty, but I think he knew I just wasn’t the type to wear dresses and entertain dignitaries. He was kind to me. And I’ve repaid him by locking him in the cellar.” She lifted a hand, spreading it before her from one shoulder to the other. “Is there a sliding scale of good? And if so, where do my actions fall? I’m trying to do better, but I don’t quite know what that looks like.”

Ranami reached up to kiss her on the cheek. “None of us does.”

“That’s not exactly reassuring.”

The mud turned to cobblestones beneath their feet. A wet season transformed a city. Every storefront now had an overhang built around it; every stoop now had bristles one could use to brush the mud from boots or slippers. On the narrower streets, bamboo had been laid across windowsills stretching from one side to the other, and then covered with palm fronds. It gave the streets a darkened, cloistered feel, like walking through a tunnel.

A trail of gutter orphans soon gathered behind them. As was her habit, Phalue reached into her purse and tossed them some coins.