Uinian’s death had occasioned the largest migration inside the empire in decades, and yet, though she’d been following the reports, she hadn’t really understood the numbers until she approached the assembled crowd. The gathering was intended as a celebration, a joyous valediction for those following their faith to a fertile land beyond persecution. It was intended as a bold gesture of defiance, and yet, even through the thick cloth of her blindfold, Adare saw desperation everywhere: in the men joking too loudly, the neighbors slapping shoulders too often and too vigorously, the couples trying to drown their fear and foreboding in mindless, jocular patter.

“When you’re freezing your nuts up here next winter, I’ll be lazing by Lake Sia,” a young man called over the noise, while immediately to his right a youth that could have been his brother buried his face in an old man’s shoulder, body shuddering with sobs. Not everyone could make the trip, of course: the old or infirm, those too poor to start over in a strange new city, or too frightened. In an hour or so, just after the priest’s blessing, parents would leave their grown children, brothers would bid sisters farewell, friends of two score years would part.

It was a sobering spectacle. One old man cursed at his horse when the beast refused the halter, struck it across the nose, then buried his tear-filled face in his hands. Two young children, a pale-faced, saucer-eyed boy and girl, stood silently in the midst of the chaos, holding hands tightly, obviously torn between excitement and fear. Olon wasn’t that far. Merchant caravans could make the trip in a few weeks, canal boats even more quickly, and yet these people were not merchants, not canal captains. Most would never set foot in the capital again.

Because of me, Adare thought, feeling awed and sick at the same time.

Uinian’s disgrace had seemed like a perfect opportunity to geld the Church of Intarra, to seize back the rights and allowances so foolishly granted hundreds of years earlier by Santun III, to recapture decades of lost revenue, and perhaps most importantly, to cripple the power of the Sons of Flame. With il Tornja’s backing, she had moved quickly, drafting up the Accords of Union over the course of two days and two sleepless nights, then shoving them through the various ministries.