I knelt down. “My God,” I said, “I see your sign, the blood across the world. I don’t know what it means Tell me. If this thing I have done has displeased you – if I am not on your road – then show me clearly. And I will relinquish it all.”

I stood up. My whole body shook, and I could hardly breathe for fear. I raised my eyes. The skies were livid … and over Kasimarra, its rays like tarnished gold behind the clouds, stood my family sign.

23 My Morning

23

My Morning

I DID NOT SLEEP that night of the great battle. I think most of Kasimarra did not sleep. Around midnight it snowed heavily, and the city seemed as much shrouded in disbelief and suffering as it was with snow. Even though the windows were shuttered and heavily curtained, I could hear the mourning from the houses below: the sounds of women wailing, and the plaintive tones of funeral pipes. And in the temple people lamented, and the priests grieved and tore their robes. It was more than sorrow for the dead; it was grief for the whole order of Chosen belief that was being torn apart.

Until long after midnight, Lesharo and I talked. We shared a celebration meal and a cup or two of wine, and prayed together. He held my face and kissed my brand, and wept. “This is your morning, lionheart,” he said, “and the great day of the Quelled.”

He went to bed shortly afterwards, but for me sleep was nowhere near. I went to the infirmary and worked alongside the physicians. They still had many wounded to see, though they had worked all night and it was near dawn.

It was in the infirmary that I saw Alejandro. I had not noticed him among all the rest in that torchlit, shadowed place; but a soldier grasped my skirt as I walked past, and I looked down and saw that it was he. He was wounded in the chest, and the physicians had operated earlier in the night. A brazier burned near his bed to warm him, and in the firelight his face looked very pale. Blood seeped through his bandages.

“I greet you, Firewoman,” he said, smiling that beguiling smile of his, though he was suffering. “I would pay homage to you, but I fear that if I do, I shall fall and bleed all over your feet.”

“You have paid homage already,” I said, “by fighting for me in the battle.”

“Oh, it was no more than any enlightened man would do,” he said and laughed, though the effort made him blanch. He turned his face away, fighting a fresh onslaught of pain.