“I understand that Dark asha put daeva back into the ground as quickly as possible, aye? Takes quite a toll on them, as I’m sure you know. We don’t have as many asha here in Farsun as you do in Ankyo, and a few of our brilliant asha thought it would be better to prioritize their quality of life rather than ask the Willows for a new Dark asha every twenty or so years when she burns herself out. It was easier on Sakmeet to control the zarich and keep it away from the city than to resurrect it every few years and completely sap her strength while she’s at it. We have found that daeva—our zarich, at least, and your azi too, apparently—prefer their solitude unless threatened. In the Runeswood, the zarich has all the privacy it desires.”

I was stunned. “I didn’t know,” I said. Why would the Willows allow Mykaela to waste her life away with every resurrection when she could have conserved her strength this way?

“It’s because of a policy of the asha association,” Althy said quietly, answering my question. “They decided it was too risky to put one person in charge of all daeva. There is still the threat of darkrot from controlling many daeva at once. The Isterans had their own Dark asha and only one beast to manage within their borders. We have far more daeva to command in our territory.”

“You mean it would be riskier to put one person in charge of daeva if that bone witch hadn’t pledged absolute loyalty to the elders,” I corrected bitterly.

“There are precedents, Tea. There have been Dark asha in the past who’d given in to temptation.”

Still, if Isterans could treat Sakmeet well despite her abilities, then why couldn’t Kion treat Mykaela or me the same way? “Who was she?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The Dark asha Mykaela had to kill. The one who took in too much power and succumbed to the darkrot. Polaire told me about her once, but not in much detail.”

The matronly asha sighed. “It’s not something we like to talk about, child. And now is not the best time for these questions.”

I fell silent as we passed another crowd of people, some stopping to have a brief word with their liege before we moved on. Farsun was a city tucked under a constant blanket of ice, but business thrived. Brightly lit shops were adorned with signs inviting entry, and smoke spiraled out of chimneys, suggesting warmth within. Unlike Kion, there were no displays of opulence here; people chose comfort over luxury. Caps and cloaks were more commonplace than jewelry and spells. Rahim stood out among our lot, flaunting his bright, lavishly embroidered clothes without a care for frostbite.