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The god within her scraped a gentle talon. You didn’t have me before.

Revni paused at the top of Sheep Street. The dirt street was wide, to allow for driving cattle, and filled with rattling awnings, under which workers carded and negotiated. The thunk of a butcher’s cleaver made her jump. The aproned man didn’t look up, but others did as she passed, gossip traveling faster than her feet. A woman at a loom had a Faenish look about her—dark hair—but she stared at Revni with such intent that Revni hesitated. The woman flicked her head towards the next building, then went deliberately back to her weaving.

A short, old woman stood at the door, arms crossed. Revni slowed as she approached, and the woman’s eyes roved over Revni. Revni stopped, and the woman smacked her gums.

Finally, she made a noise. “Tk-tk.” She crooked a finger, a vague gesture towards the interior.

Revni flexed her hand on the sword. The woman seemed harmless, but Revni couldn’t see inside.

“I—”

The woman shook her head quickly, and with surprising strength, wrapped cold, thin fingers around Revni’s arm and pulled.

“Wait!” Revni said in Brigfaen, but the word only made the woman’s face brighten and she shoved her even more forcefully inside. Revni felt like she was being hustled by her grandmother to wash up before a meal. Inside were piles and piles of pelts—not pelts, sheep wool—and to one side was a worktable with carding materials and other bits and bobs that Revni barely noticed, because standing nervously in the back⁠—

“Sulvi!” Revni guttered a breath and skirted the corner of the table so hard she bruised her hip. Sulvi, with her dimples and big eyes, clean and healthy. They collapsed into each other’s arms. “How— What are you doing here?”

It was sunshine. A warm breeze. Sulvi, alive. In Eaborik.

“What am I doing here? You were dead! And then everyone was talking about the sudden Isfolj stranger. Gods, if I’d known it was you—! Where have you been?! Are your parents—?” Sulvi didn’t need to finish. Off Revni’s reaction, she striped her lip with her thumb and went on. “A few of the warriors made it back to the boats,” she explained. “We took off, but the Fang had been too badly burnt. By the time we realized it wasn’t going to make it, the Serpent and Flyer had already disappeared. We ran aground, hoping they’d turn back, and when they didn’t…we found our way here.”

Revni looked around as if the rest were all waiting in the other corners. “Who’s we?”

Sulvi’s eyes watered. “Not many. Oen Redsson and some others decided to try to walk, to find the settlements. They followed the Snake. I…I couldn’t.” Sulvi’s tears spilled over. “I know you think I’m a coward, but it was such wilderness! We heard animals in the night! What if there had been wolves, or bears? And the people—we’d already been attacked once!”

Revni squeezed her hands, forcing Sulvi to hold her gaze. “I don’t think you are a coward, Sulvi.” There was a time in her life when she might have, but weeks on this strange island had changed that. “I think you did what you had to do.”

Sulvi gave a weak smile.

“But why are you hidden in here?” Revni looked around again. It was a bleak space, with no windows. The rank smell of sheep grease permeated everything.

“Fayla took me in.” She gestured to the woman, who had taken a seat on a stool and was happily stabbing roving into felt. At her name, the woman looked up, nodded a squinting smile, and went back to her task. “She’s from a tribe they call Varo.”

“Varou,” Revni corrected, and again the woman looked up, pleased. Revni felt an odd twist in her stomach. Sulvi looked surprised at Revni’s knowledge, but carried on.

“There was a Varo man that spoke Isfolj— You were right, I should have let you teach me Brigfaen, but I didn’t. I don’t know what we would have done if he hadn’t found us. His name was Pitr. Me and Runa and Steni, and Aesa, who was injured⁠—”

“Aesa made it?”

“Originally.” Sulvi ran a thumb across her lip again. “Her wounds were too deep. But Pitr pulled us aside when we arrived. He warned us about the jurls, and said we couldn’t just walk on in, or we’d be sold.”

Revni’s fire returned in a rush. “You can’t be sold. You are cousins of the Gonsson⁠—”

“Not sold sold, but still—they’re very strict here, about name ties and things. Anyway, the only way out of it was to tell them who we were, and if we did that, who knows what they would have done? Everyone knows the Eaborik jurls hate us. So Pitr found people that would take us in, keep us hidden from the rolls. I work here, and Runa and her boys went over to the feller⁠—”

The cruelty of it all renewed Revni’s rage. How dare they do this to Sulvi, the sweetest girl that ever lived? To Runa, with two babies? They needed to be stopped, all of them, not just Aleteria.

“I want revenge, Sulvi,” Revni interrupted. “Kyrianos demands it.”

Was it Kyrianos? A god was hovering over her shoulder, crawling down her spine. Revni wanted to see bodies.

“What are you planning?”

Revni didn’t know. She had told the woman in the Hall to warn everyone—but about what? The new emperor and the Aleterian ships? The corruption of the Isfolj jurls? It all felt so massive and beyond her control. Snakes out of the bag, Eavus had called it.

Hasgle. Ischi. An idea slithered into place. Eavus had been right—whatever he did or didn’t do made no difference. He wasn’t the one giving orders.

Prefect. She knew that word so well by now—the prefect ordered it. The prefect will pay me.