The graveyard was not far from the Willows. As was the custom, a generous portion of it had been set aside for ashas’ and Deathseekers’ graves, a row of daffodils planted in a line to demarcate their headstones from the rest of the populace. Even in death, the great equalizer, important people pushed up better shrubbery than the rest, I thought.

A small monument stood at the graveyard’s center. It was a statue of Vernasha of the Roses, the founder of Kion, as well as its first asha. A single line was set in bronze at the foot of the statue, a tribute to all those who had served and given their lives to protect the kingdom. My fingers traced over the words:

A life worth dying for is a life worth living.

We stood among the Deathseekers’ tombs first, where Kalen honored in silence all the brothers he had lost. Then we moved toward the ashas’ side, to one grave in particular.

“Good morning, Polaire,” I said, greeting her softly, sinking to my knees. Hers was a shiny, gray slab, free of the moss that claimed those around hers. It grated at my heart that she was here at all. Today, a bouquet of fresh lilies had been carefully placed over the grave—Althy’s doing, I surmised.

These daily pilgrimages did nothing to lighten my guilt. Three months wasn’t long enough. Thirty years wouldn’t be long enough either.

“I’ve been having visions,” I told her softly. “But are they bad dreams or something worse? Sometimes I dream you are alive only to see Aenah use the daeva to kill you again and again. Sometimes the victim changes, and it’s Mykaela or Althy or Likh or Zoya. Sometimes I dream that the Valerian is on fire. The vision is so real that I can feel the heat on my skin and the sun burning in my hair. Only Kalen helps chase those nightmares away. Is this my penance for not saving you?”

Kalen was quiet. He wrapped his arms around me as I tried in vain to slough off my sins like old skin.

I wove a tiny rune before Polaire’s stone, allowed the magic to flow out of my fingers, burrowing into the ground below me. I probed the dirt for any spark that I could channel, any suggestion of life I could steal from her bones and multiply so she could rise from the earth, smile, and tell me how much of an idiot I had been while she’d been gone.

But I sensed nothing. Whatever powers bone witches could wield, they cannot bring back silver heartsglass.

“Tea.” Kalen knew the futility of my attempts but allowed me my self-flagellation. I wondered if he thought it would exorcise the demons inside me. I wondered if he would ask me to stop if he knew it did not. “We have to go.”