Delta’s arm trembled as she lifted her torch to Lina’s. She moved to light the top of the pyre but her arm lowered in a shaky arch. With a scowl, she released the torch to the hay-filled underbelly of the pyre and hobbled away. No one else would have noticed or cared, but Bri knew that Delta was burning with shame. Only she was stubborn enough to have her body hacked apart and still manage to fulfill her duties as the Queen’s niece.

One by one, Tem led the rest of the crowd. He grabbed a dried witches’ palm leaf from the mound beyond the pyre. The pointed tips of the giant brown leaves waved in the wind. The mourners formed a line, stepping forward toward Lina and lighting their leaves. With a prayer, they placed papery leaves on the growing flames. The fire crackled, thick clouds of smoke billowing into the air.

As Tem stepped up to Lina, he leaned in and kissed her cheek, whispering words lost on the wind. Lina’s face creased as she offered him a restrained nod, his words clearly moving her as she held in her tears. Then he continued on and she received the rest of the line, acknowledging each mourner with a bob of her head.

Bri couldn’t imagine bearing all of those conciliatory words by herself. Her mind wandered to Talhan. When their parents died, he would stand beside her. They would hear the pitying and patronizing commiserations together, and then they’d drink and laugh about it afterward. She tried not to dwell on the disappointment on his face when she’d said she was going west. They’d been separated many times over the years for one journey or another . . . but they had never parted like this.

She glanced at Delta, hobbling with her arm over Saika’s shoulder back to the palace. Even Delta had finally admitted defeat and gone in to rest. Perhaps Bri was the most stubborn of them all.

As the line dwindled, Carys and Bri stepped up to the end, picking up the tattered palm leaves from the bottom of the pile. The pyre roared with life, the flames growing at an amazing rate. The smell was overwhelming as they approached, like meat over a campfire. It made Bri’s stomach churn. Pyre ceremonies were more beautiful and poetic but messier than burials. The placement of the pyre had been perfected, though, set on an outcropping on the cliff, where the winds carried the smoke off toward the rolling golden savanna and out to sea.