Rikke looked towards her father’s grave and winced. “Then why does it hurt so much?”

“Said you did your best. Didn’t say it wouldn’t hurt. One thing I can tell you…” And he frowned down at that ring on his little finger. “Doing your worst feels no better.”

“By all the fucking dead, don’t tell me you’re sitting here pining.” Isern strutted into the garden, chagga squelch, squelching as she worked her jaw.

Rikke ground her own teeth. She was tiring of the sound of Isern-i-Phail being right. “Doubts and regrets, Isern. They’re the cost of casting a shadow.”

“Surely, but you’ve no time to indulge yours. You’ve the whole North to lead from the darkness and into the moon’s silvery favour. Tell me this—what else could you have done?”

“Nothing,” grunted Rikke, slumping further into her hands, flicking the ring through her nose with a fingertip so it knocked against her lip. “Nothing at all.” Hadn’t stopped her turning it over every spare moment since they set off from Adua. Didn’t stop her turning it over now.

“Brought him back here?” sang Isern, in a voice leaking mockery. “Put a string on him like a puppy? How d’you keep a king o’ the Union secret? He’d have drawn trouble like a ram’s arse draws flies, d’you see. And folk here would’ve blamed you for that trouble and called you a selfish bitch thinking with her quim and said this is what you get when you’re fool enough to put a woman in charge, and they’d have been right. Selfishness and folly. All we’ve worked for would’ve done like cake in a hailstorm and turned to soggy shit. This way you’ve got peace. And not just for you. Peace for all.”

The same arguments Isern had whispered in her ear that morning, while Orso lay sleeping in her bed, helpless, all his trust put in her. She’d been right then, and she was right now, and Rikke knew it, and it only made her grind her teeth harder.

“I know that,” she snapped. “Said there was nothing else I could’ve done, didn’t I?”

“Then why d’you look like you ate a thistle?”

“I know it with my head.”

“But what? Your heart hurts? Told you to make a stone of it, didn’t I?”

“You might’ve uttered the phrase a time or two,” growled Rikke.

Isern didn’t notice her bubbling anger or, more likely, didn’t care. “We need to get back to Skarling’s Hall.” And she planted her hands on her hips and frowned at the garden like it was a midden. “That’s where the big choices are made. That’s where Skarling turned down a crown and Bethod took one up. Where Black Dow stole the North from the Bloody-Nine. Where you stole it from Stour Nightfall. Every corner of the place, covered in great men’s footsteps.”

“No.”

Rikke was shocked, almost, that she said it. But the moment she made the choice, she was sure of it. “The only place those great men’s footsteps lead is round and round in circles of blood,” she said. “The only history there is violence and betrayal. Send to Hardbread and the rest. Tell ’em I’m staying here.”