“Luck.” She sees my look and shakes her head, but good-naturedly. “I know. Leonodai don’t much like to put weight in luck. But in our retreat, another warrior and I found ourselves in a church—special buildings sacred to the humans. There were women there who took pity on us. They follow the teachings of an ancient earth goddess who says no being is greater than another, and no being should harm another.” I tell from her words this is something she’s been told many times since being on Balmora. I want to ask her how she really feels about such things, but I don’t interrupt.

“They hid us within their ranks. They gave my teammate medicine, but her wounds were too great. She died, and then the storm season came. Humans swarmed the city then, seeking shelter. The heavy rains come every year. I was without my team. I’d failed as their commander. I felt … such shame. So when the women offered me a room, I took it. When they gave me food, I ate. And when they offered me clothes like theirs, I wore them.”

“How?” I blurt before I have the sense to consider it rude. “How could you stay away?”

“It was her,” she says. “My child. Don’t worry, she is probably listening.” Ellian adds the last with a smile, glancing at an adjacent room that I guessed was Isla’s. “I was already carrying Isla when I left the Heliana, but I did not know it yet,” Ellian says. “As I was sheltered here on Balmora, the women taking care of me began to first realize it. Their behavior changed. They told me that women who dressed like them did not have children and that I’d be found out soon. I needed to be with a partner.”

“There was a man I’d seen around the church,” she goes on. “He helped tend the garden and do repair work for the women. They gave the man and me a new dwelling—this one. It used to be a place of retreat and meditation, but no one comes here anymore. Most of the humans in the city have forgotten it exists. Those who know about it don’t come here because it belongs to the church women.”

“Why didn’t you run?” I ask.

“I did,” she says, the fire back in her tone for the first time. “Once. I thought that if I could make it back to the Heliana before my pregnancy progressed, I’d be all right. But the women at the church had few supplies, and a storm forced me back. I wanted to live. I wanted my child to live. So I came back.”

“And the man?”