Except if my new status—whatever that status was—meant I could convince Kaen not to unleash Aeyan’arric on Jorat at all, then … did I even need the spear?

I could gain everything I wanted by betraying everything I was.

I touched the rings now woven into my laevos while women slid past me in the great room. They silently fanned out again through the rooms. I found myself reminded of the survivors of Mereina—all those people in too much shock to do anything but stare at nothing. A wife sat down on one of the couches and began weeping.

Across the room, out on one of those balconies, a motion caught my eyes. I realized Wyrga was out there, feeding scraps of something to her little polar bear cub. She caught my eye, gave me her feral grin, and winked at me. She put a finger to her lips and made a shushing motion.

I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed her, but when I glanced back, Wyrga was gone. And there was no place for her to have gone—the only exit from that area was either into the main room or … or a thousand foot drop onto freezing ice.

A tension settled over the room. I thought Wyrga had entered from another doorway, but as I turned around, I realized the pressure had a different cause.

Veixizhau had arrived.

She crossed her arms and scanned the room. “What are you bitches looking at?”

The woman who’d first greeted me, Bikeinoh, rolled her eyes. “Seriously? After the shit you just pulled? You’re lucky we don’t kill you ourselves.”

“As if half the women here wouldn’t have done the same given the chance. I just beat you to it. And don’t you dare try to be sanctimonious with me. We were all worshipping—” Veixizhau stopped talking as another wife cleared her throat and pointed.

Pointed at me.

I waved.

Veixizhau scowled at me. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for a bed,” I answered. “Humorously enough, they didn’t have any other place to put me. But you’ve learned your lesson, right?”

Her nostrils flared. “Sure. I’ve learned my lesson. I should have poisoned you instead.”

“There’s always next time.”

None of the other women came to her defense. Veixizhau ignored them and focused on me. “I wouldn’t smile, tumai. Because you had it wrong back there. I only told one person what happened to you, Exidhar—and I assume he told the others because he wanted to impress his friends. But those friends? They had no part in it. Which means you just fed an innocent man to Kaen’s dead monster of a wife.”

I did indeed stop smiling. “No, Oreth said Darzin—”

It couldn’t be true. Oreth had plotted to kill me. I knew that.