As Iome sat over the body of her father, she wondered if she could even live another day. It seemed that her energy, her will to struggle, had been drawn out from her as completely as her beauty had been drawn out two days before.

She stood over her father’s body, wanting desperately to sleep or to scream. The cold snow melted, penetrating her thin boots, just as the stout wind penetrated her thin dress.

Her people were a cold comfort. They knew they needed a lord to protect them, but Iome had no wit with which to guide them, no glamour to inspire them to follow, no brawn or skill in battle.

Without my glamour, they see through me, Iome thought. They see that I am a sham, a nothing. All Runelords are nothing, without their Dedicates to fill them with power, make them substantial.

As she shivered on the hill, Iome found that her people offered her nothing now. No one brought her a shawl or offered a shoulder to lean on. None dared approach her. Perhaps they believed she needed time to suffer alone.

But Iome was no good at suffering alone.

She felt confused. Gaborn had not ordered her father’s death. He’d struggled mightily to keep her father alive. Yet, somehow, she felt betrayed. Perhaps it was because he did not grow irate at Borenson.

Had Gaborn taken the man’s wit, or his head, Iome would have thought Gaborn cruel and hard. Yet part of her felt Borenson deserved some unnameable punishment.

To her surprise, it was the wizard Binnesman who first came to her, after an hour, and wrapped a blanket over her. The wizard huddled beside her, handed her some warm tea.

“I—don’t want anything,” Iome said. It was true. Her throat felt tight, her stomach in knots. “I just need sleep.” She was too weary to even look up at him.

“Sometimes rest is as good as sleep,” Binnesman said, and he stood watching her. “I put lemon balm and linden blossoms in the tea, along with a bit of chamomile and honey.”

He pressed the hot mug into her hands, and Iome drank. She’d learned long ago that Binnesman knew her needs better than she did, that he could soothe a heart as easily as he could soothe wounds.

The tea seemed to loosen her tight muscles, unknot her. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back, marveling at its effect. The tea made her feel almost as if she’d just been wakened from bed a few moments ago. Yet she felt a deep-seated weariness even the tea could not touch, a tiredness and ache close to the bones.

“Oh, Binnesman, what should I do?” Iome asked.

“You must be strong,” Binnesman said. “Your people need you to be strong for them.”

“I don’t feel strong.”