They stared after her. Then Dorna pulled off a split overskirt, a gray wool wrap with indigo thread forming horse head patterns along the hem. She tossed the garment to Ninavis. “Wear it like a cloak. If we don’t want folks staring, we best be covering up your sorry excuse for armor. That shabby leather stands out a damn sight more than a bit of parti-color on your face.”

“Hey now. Tanner made this. It just needs patching.” Ninavis wrestled with the wool fabric, draping it around her.

“Tanner’s a tanner?” Dorna guffawed. “What would you lot have called him if he was the village piss farmer?”

“Mare Dorna!” Brother Qown winced and tipped his head to the bandit leader. “Don’t let Dorna bother you. She’s just upset we’re not running.”

“Running’s the smart move,” Dorna said. She waved a hand in Ninavis’s direction. “Now come over here where the light’s better, dear, while I fix your face. Priest, be a good foal and drag the guard into the back, would you?”

Brother Qown started to protest, but they didn’t have much time before someone realized this guard had been left by himself. He dragged the man backward.

The going was slow.

When Brother Qown had been first given this assignment, he’d thought he’d be posted to Tolamer Canton’s castle. A quiet, sedentary duty where he could concentrate on meditation and guiding the count’s spiritual development. Something where he didn’t have to move around.

He needed to exercise more to keep up, if he intended to keep traveling like this.

Ninavis kept throwing annoyed glances in his direction, as if about to interrupt her painting session with Dorna to drag the guard’s body herself, broken leg or not.

He dropped the man behind the crates, using a frayed and tattered blanket to cover him. As long as no one looked too closely, the guard appeared to be napping. Brother Qown checked to see if Dorna or Ninavis were paying him attention.

They weren’t.

Brother Qown put a hand to the guard’s chest, focusing his energy as his mentor Father Zajhera had taught him. He entered Illumination, a peculiar sensitivity to the tenyé surrounding all things, the universal light playing across cloth and skin and dirt and flesh. Illumination allowed him to see tenyé, the essential nature of every individual object in the world. That energy didn’t always coincide with objective appearances. He might well trip and crack his head open while seeing through its filter. But to make up for the inconvenience, a whole universe of possibility opened to him.

The Joratese—or those from Eamithon or Kazivar—might call what Brother Qown did magic. He knew better; he tapped into universal grace, tasted the divine. A holy gift.

No, it was the holiest gift.