“Twenty-seven visits to my chamber and still ignorant of why you come. For me to answer, you must first ask the question. Mykaela never did. As you said, she is far too compassionate for her own good. One daeva is adequate, but to command them all invites the same darkrot you fear. It is the same with shadowglass.”

“Then what else have you not told me?”

“There is nothing else to tell you.” The oracle turned away.

“Wait! What of my heartsglass? If you can see into the future, then surely you’ve seen what happens to it.”

“There is little to do. Black heartsglass is as much of you as it was when it had been silver. It is what you choose to do with it that matters most.” For the first time, I detected a trace of fatigue on her person, a faint tremble of her shoulders. “Now I am tired and wish to rest.”

I knew no amount of zivars or entreaties would move her at that point. So I stood and watched as the oracle departed to some unseen inner chamber, her head bowed as the flames sprung back to life, kicking up such a storm that it obscured her from my view. When the fire settled, she was gone, and with it, my last hope.

The brass bell hung, silent and broken, over scaffolding once a part of the oracle’s temple. This was the worst casualty within the Willows, and the roads leading to it were paved with detritus and the smell of burnt jasmine. A sense of mystery had always permeated the bone witch’s recountings of this sacred place, and it almost came as a disappointment to me to realize that, when stripped down to its bare bones, it was not so different than the other asha-ka and cha-khana that gilded its borders. There was no magic here, and the zivar on my breast remained dull and dormant.

The winding corridors that weaved through the shrine’s inner maze were gone. The high ceilings and heady incense spiraling out of its slender chimney were gone. Even the domestic fires that had once burned with care within the sanctuary, the holy flames that had borne witness to asha professing desires under the guise of confessions—even their hearthstones were blackened beyond recognition. They lay collapsed under the weight of the building’s domed roof, destroying an institution that had served Kion faithfully for centuries.

There is an epic of the semi-mythic warrior-czarina Agafya the Good, a favorite tale of the Isteran-Tresean war saga. She had laid claim to Grezel, consequently sacking that Isteran city. She took great pains to destroy the temple of the Great Hero Anahita, the Isterans’ pride and joy.