She still felt as if she’d been trampled by a team of oxen and then run over by the wagon they pulled, but she was alive. Not for long if she stayed here, wet, cold, and hiding under a clump of bushes.
Standing was a grueling affair, accomplished with a slow ascension from her side to all fours, then to her knees, and finally to her feet, where she yawed from side to side like the ships that docked at Manoret. She embraced the trunk of a young tree next to her with the zeal of a lover and took in her surroundings.
Nothing looked familiar, but with the cobwebs clouding her mind and a veil of rain covering the landscape, she could easily be standing in her brother’s garden and not recognize it. How she had even gotten here was a mystery.
She wiped more rainwater from her eyes. A muddy road stretched not far from where she stood, leading toward a cluster of buildings in the distance, their rooftops almost indiscernible in the steady deluge. A town or village. Shelter.
She glanced down at herself. The frock she wore was tattered and stained, with burn holes dotting the skirt and sleeves. Mud caked her entire back and right side, and somehow she’d lost one shoe. Agna might have carried her handmaiden from the ruin of Kraelag, but she hadn’t exactly dropped her into the lap of luxury.
Gilene plucked at her soiled skirt and took a cautious step away from the tree, then another, until she tottered onto the road.
She made it a dozen steps before she fell. Weak, disoriented, and sick to her stomach, she didn’t move. Hours might have passed as she lay there and let the rain wash over her. She slept, only opening her eyes at the sound of a donkey’s bray and the rolling of wagon wheels.
A face, solemn and pretty, hovered over her. “My gods, Gilene?”
Gilene blinked. She knew this face. The free trader’s niece. Halani of the soothing hands and magical potions that stopped pain. She smiled, drifting away on welcome warmth as Halani lifted her head out of the mud.
“Uncle, come quick! Help me!”
She woke briefly when someone held a cup to her lips. “Drink,” they said, spilling a trickle of cold water into her mouth. She winced as she swallowed, certain glass splinters lined her throat. She fell back against a pillow, exhausted by that small effort, and fell asleep.
Images plagued her dreams. A bear trapped in a cage, Kraelag swallowed up in an inferno of god-fire, Azarion’s desolate gaze as she bade him farewell. These and more flashed through her mind’s eye, wraiths no more substantial than the ghosts of Midrigar, and just as miserable.
The next time she wakened, the sky above her was domed, painted, and familiar. She’d been here before, in similar circumstances.
“How do you feel, Gilene?”
Gilene sought the source of the voice and discovered Halani sitting cross-legged next to her feet. “Halani?” The word came out as a croak, but the other girl smiled, pleased.
“You remember me. That’s good.” She tucked away the ball of yarn she’d been winding and stood. “Don’t say anything else. You’ve been down with fever and a cough for almost a week. I’ve a warm pot of tea waiting for just this moment. I’ll be right back.”
Good as her word, she returned with a cup filled nearly to the brim with tea flavored with herbs and honey. She helped Gilene sit up and propped the pillows behind her so she could drink. “Do you need help holding the cup?”
Gilene shook her head, determined to hold her trembling hands steady and manage the cup herself. Why fate had determined that this particular woman would end up being her nurse, not once but twice, she couldn’t fathom. “I’m sorry you’re playing nursemaid again. I promise I didn’t plan it that way.” She sipped the tea, closing her eyes in delight at the flavor.
Halani laughed. “I physic everyone in this caravan, Gilene. One more makes no difference.” She brushed a hand across Gilene’s arm. “Besides, I’m so pleased to see you again, even if it was under such strange circumstances.”
That was putting it lightly. Gilene sipped more of her tea before speaking. “Where did you find me?”
“On the trade road outside Wellspring Holt. What happened to you?”
That was an answer requiring more energy and discretion than Gilene currently possessed. She handed the cup back to Halani. “I will tell you,” she said as she slumped back under the blankets. Her eyelids felt weighted with stones, and the trader woman faded in her vision. “I promise.”
It was a promise easier made than kept, and the story she told was as much fabrication as truth. “I ended up a Flower of Spring, taken by the slavers and separated from Valdan. I don’t know where he is now, or if he’s dead or alive.” Tears welled in her eyes, honest ones that made that particular lie sincere.
Halani’s mother, Asil, patted her shoulder in sympathy. “But you got out of the city before it burned! Did you see it burn?”
“Wait, Mama,” Halani said. “In good time.”
Gilene smiled. The childlike Asil remained as sweet-natured and enthusiastic as ever. “Another tithed woman knew of a way out of the catacombs. We managed to overpower our guard and escape.” Applause greeted Gilene’s statement. “I still have no idea how I ended up outside Wellspring Holt.” That was partly true. Her memories after she told Azarion goodbye were a blank wall.
Hamod blew a perfect smoke ring into the air. It floated toward one of the trader children, who laughed and slipped her hand through its center like a bracelet. He pointed the pipe stem at Gilene. “Your husband was a capable sort. A good hunter, and I suspect an even better fighter. You’ll find him again. Or he’ll find you.”
Gilene very much hoped he was right.
Spring passed into the first days of summer as she regained her strength. The caravan plied their wares on the trade roads and the Golden Serpent as well. She remained with the trader band through her convalescence and, at Hamod’s gruff invitation, after that.
“You’re welcome to stay. You do your part and help the other women,” he said. “We have enough to feed you.”
Beroe was no longer home, and her obligation to it and her family finished, at least in her opinion. She had lived her life in service to them, a service inherited instead of chosen. Gilene had accepted her lot and did her best to fulfill the role, even as the resentment ate her up from the inside.
Now, she had no reason to stay, no duty to embrace. Kraelag had been obliterated, a city turned into a char heap by a deity who had burned every building to the ground and turned the sands of the arena floor into glass. There would be no more gruesome Rites of Spring.
While she was grateful to Hamod for his offer, she didn’t plan to stay with the caravan permanently. As soon as she was well enough to travel on her own, she’d find a way to return to the Sky Below and seek out the man who had made her see there was more to life than dreary sacrifice.
Gilene shared Halani and Asil’s wagon, though like most in the caravan, she slept outside on clear nights. One night, when the ache of missing Azarion gnawed at her, she had a particularly vivid dream. Agna of the changing faces loomed over her as she slept. Lightning danced down her hands to her fingers, illuminating the spiderwork of veins under the skin. Gilene caught her breath as the goddess pressed her palm to the spot just above Gilene’s navel.
“No more pain for my name’s sake, handmaiden. No punishment for summoning fire. We see each other now, you and I. You and yours have my protection.”