Voyne averts her eyes so that she does not stare in horrified disbelief.

“My liege?” Her mistrust colors her words more than she wants it to, but it’s been a long day. A long day of nearly killing desperate, hungry people. She understands, of course. It’s tempting, to hope for an impossible solution, but she had thought her king was better than that. More reasonable.

But it’s also a distraction. They can’t afford distractions.

“I have asked her for a miracle,” Cardimir says.

Voyne bows her head, mastering herself with the reflex of long practice. “I see,” she says. “And what provisions does she demand for such a thing?” If it’s not much, if it’s only a way to keep the woman occupied, perhaps it’s not so bad.

There is so little to do but wait for death now.

“Very little,” he says. Her shoulders ease. “But I want her to have more. I want her to have you.”

Voyne’s head jerks up. She stares, unable to stop herself. “Me.”

“I need you to watch her,” he adds. “Encourage her. She is . . . disorganized. I would see her supported. Given oversight.”

“So that she can conjure food from nothing?” she asks, brow pinching. She searches her king’s face for some scrap of sense. She finds it. He is confident and calm.

That’s a hundred times worse than misguided faith.

“What is a second miracle after a first?” he asks with an indulgent smile that makes Voyne feel small, childlike. She hates that smile, and if she were not so worn down, so stunned, she would bristle at it. Instead, she just shakes her head, helpless, not understanding. He takes pity on her. “She is to be thanked for fixing our water issue last month,” Cardimir says.

Voyne’s world lurches into a new alignment. She frowns. “But the Priory—”

“Agreed to take responsibility, in case there was a problem. And in case it worked. Nobody would have trusted the cisterns if they knew a heretic was responsible for clearing them.” He waves a hand. “She is . . . a wild thing. One of Jacynde’s order, originally, but strayed. Jacynde hates her, but Leodegardis is adamant in his patronage, and she has paid her way admirably so far.”

That gives her pause.

Because the water issue of last month was also an impossible solution to an impossible problem. Aymar’s location was strong, but its strength had nearly been their undoing. Built on a rocky outcropping, the castle’s only source of water was rain and a single well in the lower yard. The rains had stopped months ago as summer rolled in. The cisterns had begun to dry out, so they’d hauled water up and out, up and out, before the well could dry, too.