“If Odawa will promise to use his remaining days to make up for all he’s done,” I say, “we should allow him to do so. We speak of the gifts of the Grace. Isn’t compassion one of them? Would it serve our community better if Odawa was dead, or if he lived to help us make this a better world?”

“But if, as you say, he’s mad . . . ?” someone begins.

I shake my head. “Single-minded, perhaps, and he was driven to a kind of madness. But if nothing else, his being held accountable today should make a difference. If he can take responsibility for what he’s done and swear to make up for it, then we’ll know that the madness was temporary.”

Before anyone else can respond, Odawa finally speaks. He turns his blind gaze in my direction, and I swear he sees right into me.

“And what about you?” Odawa asks.

“I’ll make the same promise,” I tell him.

“That’s easy for you to say. You already serve the community . . .”

He breaks off and gives a slow nod. “I see. That’s the whole point of it, isn’t it?”

“Is it such a bad point to make?” I ask.

“You weren’t awoken from a frozen sleep to find the world gone dark.”

“No, I wasn’t. I can’t pretend to know how that felt. But does another death help anything? Would it not be better for you to give your word to serve the Grace?”

“And you’ll just forget all of this,” he says.

“I will never forget,” I tell him, my voice hard. “Just as you won’t. But I’m willing to put it behind me because it’s the right thing to do.”

He shakes his head. “I say again, it’s easy for you to—”

I cut him off before he can start.

“People I loved are dead,” I tell him. “Don’t you dare say this is easy for me.”

The sightless gaze faces me for a long moment, then slowly lowers to the ground.

It becomes very quiet in the meeting field then, as though no one is breathing. I hear, as if from far away, the lap of the lake’s waves against the shore, the wind soughing through the pines, the stir of a blackbird’s wings in the trees behind me.

“Odawajameg?” Moon Song asks. “Will you give your word?”

Those milky-white eyes turn in her direction and he nods. “I do.”

Moon Song looks about at the gathered cousins then.

“And does anyone disagree with Grey’s suggestion?” she asks.

I wait for Raven to speak, but he doesn’t say a word. No one does.

“Then let it be so,” Moon Song says.

______