The madwoman is running, weaving, staggering as her weakened muscles threaten to revoke support. She’s making straight for the keep, and Treila hesitates. Racing to intercept her might draw attention, when Phosyne is, at least, alive, and likely headed back to her room. But then Phosyne pitches forward, and Treila can’t stand to let her hit the ground that hard. She springs across the dusty space between them.

Treila catches Phosyne before she can fall, but can’t hold her upright. She sinks slowly to her knees, laying the madwoman across her lap, cradled in her arms. Phosyne flinches away, babbles something incomprehensible.

Treila slaps her.

It doesn’t help. She’ll need to take a different tack.

“I need your help again,” she says, even as she fumbles in her pocket for another nibble of fruit. “Listen. Are you listening?”

But Phosyne is just shaking, not saying anything, gaze darting behind Treila again and again. Back toward the chapel.

With a sinking feeling, Treila turns to look, too.

Ser Voyne is staring at them.

She’s not in armor. She’s not even armed. But her hands are covered in blood, and for just a moment, Treila is a girl again, staring at her father’s headless corpse, staring at Ser Voyne’s impassive face, splattered crimson.

She lets go of Phosyne. She barely hears her flee.

Ser Voyne crosses the dusty yard to her in long, rolling steps, proof of the muscles that lie below her arming jacket, her breeches. Her eyes are fixed on Treila, and Treila thinks, distantly, that she should be running too.

She doesn’t move, not even when Ser Voyne stops right in front of her.

“Why are you on your knees, my lady?” Ser Voyne asks. Her voice is low and rough, as if she’s been screaming. But her expression is kind, entreating, wholly focused on her.

Treila can’t breathe.

“Come,” Ser Voyne says, and places one gentle hand beneath her elbow, guides her to her feet.

This is an opportunity, Treila thinks, but the thought is distant. She should be triumphant. Here is Ser Voyne, soft and caring. But where is the guilt? The confusion, even? Just confusion would be enough, would make sense, where this kindness does not. This is not how their second meeting was supposed to go. Ser Voyne was supposed to find her again, and approach cautiously, ask her name, ask if it is really, truly her. And Treila would have playacted fear, flinching away from any touch, begging for mercy.

Mercy, Ser—mercy, for the price my father has already paid for his treason.

But everything is different now, and Treila can’t get the words out, can’t even pull away as Ser Voyne steers her toward the garden where they sat together not three days ago. All because Ser Voyne looks at her with adoration, not disbelief.