“Horror,” Treila offers, “shapes character. And it did happen.” She would know; those dark things in the forest found her years ago. But whatever she found there is not the same as what happened within these walls.

“They had no control over themselves during it,” Voyne counters. “It’s not the same, dear heart.”

Treila blushes. Says nothing more.

Voyne looks at Phosyne.

“In exchange for the return of the knife and all the meaning therein,” Phosyne murmurs, “and in exchange for gifting those in this castle that are not us, and that are not you, a gentle evening’s slumber from which they shall wake fed and unknowing of anything beyond your arrival at the gates of Aymar, you are free to go and take your creatures with you, never to return to this plateau, may we never look upon you again.”

The words hang in the air, heavy with meaning and intent.

The Absolving Saint nods and lays down his knife.

It makes a faint ringing sound against the stone.

When he stands, he looks thinner, less lustrous. He offers them a small, silvered smile, and leaves the throne room.

Voyne lets free a deep and exhausted sigh.

“Treila,” Voyne murmurs, “tell me more about what waits outside those gates.”

“I confess I know very little,” the woman says, but she circles around to the front, holds out her hands. “Except that it is autumn, and there is a small band of soldiers waiting for us. Ours, not Etrebian. The world beyond is safe, for now, and waiting for us. But they will ask where the king is.”

Phosyne goes very pale, even as Voyne rises and reaches down to bring her along with them.

“The king,” Phosyne says, “is dead.”

“He is,” Voyne murmurs. Slowly, they make their way to the door. Down to the yard. Out into a crisp autumn day, the sun shining down from its right place against the blue of the sky. “But in all likelihood, one of the princes took up his mantle months ago. There was, after all, no relief force.”

In scattered tents, far fewer than there should have been, they see people sleeping. Dreaming, in the shade. The dirt no longer bears any trace of blood or silty storm. Everything is still and quiet.

“The world goes on without us,” Voyne adds, softly. She leans heavily against Treila, against Phosyne, as they approach the gate.

There is nobody there to man it, but it stands open.

“The way I worded it,” Phosyne says, after a moment, “they will think there was a miracle here. The Constant Lady and Her saints, in truth. A visitation. An intercession.”

She’s right, of course. And their role in it will be lost: three starving women who struggled for mastery of themselves in the face of a spiraling world.

“Can we leave here?” Treila asks, softly, sounding unaccountably young for the gore that stains her to the bone.