Were not the walls built to keep all pillagers at bay? the poems sang. What foul manner of beast could tear down the dwelling of Anahita, that blessed temple upon temples? No man alive can equal its defenses, and for as long as it stands tall and proud, brilliant and ivory polished, Istera shall rule.

But sleek-eyed Agafya looked and saw the crumbling walls and aging remnants of an old order, not the vaulted shrine boasted of in ancient ballads. And so she raised her spear and cried aloud: “I am she who was born in the mouth of a mountain, nursed by warriors of the spring and reared by the wildness of winter. I am the new and the strong, while you cower behind artifacts of bygone eras. If this paltry shrine is all that speaks to Istera’s strength, then let it come tumbling down. I am no foul beast—I am only Agfaya.” And so did the czarina break Istera’s stronghold and chain them to her reign. And all that remained of Anahita’s temple were the shadows of better days.

Anahita’s temple had been a symbol of Grezel’s power, as the oracle’s temple had been of the Willows’. Had not the Dark asha admitted to me her fondness for old stories?

“There are no bodies,” Lord Fox reported, “and there are no signs of violence beyond the flames.”

“The oracle has survived for millennia, Fox.” Lady Altaecia stooped down to pick up something that glittered in the moonlight. It was a half-melted zivar, its jewels shattered from the heat. “I do not believe she would perish so easily. She told me once that I would raise a girl who will one day change the world. Mykaela told me she was given the same prophecy once. Perhaps the seeress knew about Tea all along.”

The man gazed at the rubble. “She was the first to tell Tea her future. She warned us that Tea would come to burn the city. Tea must have known and resented her for both.”

“It would appear that there are many things that Tea resents,” Zoya noted dryly. “But I would not have believed her to be this petty.”

Altaecia scoffed. “An innocent city laid to waste, Zoya, and you don’t find her petty?” The round asha challenged.

“Not like this. I can understand her rage against the Willows, but the oracle was not to blame for speaking the truth.” The pretty woman laughed. “Look at me, defending the oracle! She rejected me when I first presented myself as an asha novitiate, Bard. I had not come to her hallowed halls to be an asha, she said, but to win the heart of one. She was right, but I hated her for years. It was a blow to my pride. But I expected Tea to have a firmer hold on her temper than this.”

“Unless the darkrot has already began to infect her senses.”