Adare put a hand to her forehead. The fierce, clean fire was gone, replaced by a throbbing ache. The guilt over Fulton and Birch, submerged for a while in her exhaustion, had settled on her like a leaden coat. She couldn’t face Nira and her questions, not right now, but she had no idea how to get her to go away.

“What do you want?” she asked.

The woman raised an eyebrow. “Wanted ta gaze on the prophet in all her burned, skinny glory. Seen a lot of things in my life, but never a prophet.”

“I’m not a prophet,” Adare said, shaking her head. “I just got lucky.” It was the rational way to look at the situation, but the words felt wrong, somehow, ungrateful. Disrespectful. “I prayed and the goddess answered my prayer.”

Nira raised her brows. “Ya don’t have ta play the pious fool for me, girl.”

“I’m not playing,” Adare replied quietly. “Fulton and Birch are alive because of that lightning. Intarra’s lightning.”

“And there are black pines burned to char in the Romsdals, also hit by lightning. Ya think your goddess has got something against tall trees?”

Adare took a deep breath, then let it leak out slowly between her lips. She had no response, largely because it was exactly the kind of crack she might have made herself a month earlier. Lightning struck all the time, blasting barren mountaintops, stabbing down into the wide oceans, burning through the solitary oak in the field, most of it, probably, in places where there was no one to pray in the first place. Embracing a goddess because of a bolt of lightning was stupid; but then, it wasn’t just the lightning. Adare closed her eyes and felt the deep, cool relief bathing her heart, the gratitude flowing like blood through her veins. The lightning she could write off, but not the answer to her desperate prayer.

“Intarra came,” she said, feeling defiant and foolish all at once. “She was there.”

Nira stared at her a moment longer, then shrugged. “Well, this was a disappointment. Guess one revelation looks pretty much like another.” She got to her feet, leaning on the cane. “Good luck rulin’ your empire, girl. C’mon, Oshi, ya demented ape.”

Adare blinked. “You’re leaving?”

Nira nodded. “Your man—Ameredad, Lehav—he wasn’t our man. Didn’t expect he would be, really, but there were enough pieces that fit. Not the first time we’ve crossed a quarter continent for a dead end. Won’t be the last. Oshi!” she said again, jabbing her cane at the door. “Time to leave Our Lady the Princess Prophet Minister to her great and noble tasks.”

The old man raised his head from the plaster, looked over at Adare as though seeing her for the first time, then abruptly lost interest.

“Don’t go,” Adare blurted. “Come north with us.”