Instead she lowered her hand with a sigh. “What you need is to move on,” Isyllt told the woman. “Go.”
And like a gust of wind, she was gone.
“What did you do?” Asheris asked. His warmth lined her side as he leaned in. Cold sweat beaded on her back; the fever was coming on.
“Just a banishment. It’s not permanent, but maybe she’ll have time to think.”
Xinai stirred, tears tracking through the mud on her cheeks. “Mira,” she whispered, one hand groping at her neck.
Isyllt turned away. “Deilin.”
The ghost appeared beside her. Her lips parted as she looked up at the dome of water. “What’s happened?”
“Everything the Dai Tranh wanted, mostly.”
Black eyes turned back to Isyllt. “What now, then?”
“I’m going home. You spoke of going east, of the Ashen Wind.” She gestured to the gray ceiling. “The wind is nothing but ashes now. Will you try it?”
Deilin cocked her head. “Does that mean—”
Isyllt nodded. The words were only ritual, but she spoke them anyway. “I release you. But for the love of heaven, leave the children alone.”
The ghost nodded, then looked down at her wound—the bloodstain on her shirt was shrinking.
“Tell my granddaughters…” She shook her head with a rueful smile. “No, never mind. Let them be. Good-bye, necromancer.” And then she was gone.
The ground shuddered softly and brick dust trickled from the broken walls. Adam stood, Xinai in his arms. “Time to go.”
Vienh started to harangue them when they returned to the dock, but stopped when she saw Xinai and Adam’s grim face.
“Will she live?” he asked Isyllt, easing her down.
She touched the woman’s shoulder carefully. Bruises and scrapes, strained muscles, a broken arm and fractured ribs. But no damage to the heart, no poison in the blood. “I think so. She needs rest, medicine, but no miracles.” She glanced up. “Are you going to stay with her?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “No,” he said after a moment. “She made her choice.” He nodded toward the Tigers. “They can look after her. And I promised to see you back safe.” He glanced at her sling. “Or as close as I’ve managed.”
She gave him a lopsided smile. “Close enough for government work.”
“I’m not rowing you to Selafai in a storm-cursed longboat,” Vienh shouted across the quay, kicking the boat in question. “Let’s go.”
Isyllt turned to Asheris. Her arm itched and she’d started to shake; her voice was dying fast and taking her wits with it. “If you’re ever in Erisín—” she said at last.
“Yes.” He smiled, took her hand and pressed a kiss on her filthy knuckles. “Or come to Assar. I’ll show you the Sea of Glass.”
“If it’s anything like the mountain, please don’t bother.” She grinned, squeezing his hand. He didn’t flinch from her ring this time.
His smile stretched and he leaned down to kiss her brow. “Go home, necromancer.” It sounded like a benediction.
She couldn’t wish him the same. “Good luck,” she said instead. She turned toward the waiting boat and didn’t look back till they’d crossed the river’s shining veil.
Epilogue
The news beat them home. Only days after the destruction of Symir, Rahal al Seth, Emperor of Assar, was dead. He and several of his mages had burned when a palace laboratory caught fire. No one knew what had started the fire, but it was assumed to have been a spell gone wrong. It occurred during the demon days before the start of the new year—always an ill omen.
His half sister, Samar al Seth, would be crowned before the month was up, and already promised aid to devastated Sivahra.
Isyllt smiled when she read it. For a time she considered walking the labyrinth beneath the temple of Erishal and releasing the rest of the ghosts in her ring. Pragmatism won, however, and she settled for opening a bottle of Chassut red and toasting the embers falling in her hearth.
The physicians at the Arcanost opened her hand and stitched it up again full of silver pins. The damage was too great for even their most cunning surgeons, though, and she’d left it too long untreated. She retained the use of thumb and forefinger, but the two middle fingers curled uselessly and the smallest followed them, muscles already atrophying. She wore a ridge of scar tissue in the shape of a man’s hand around her left wrist—that would last longer than the payment sitting in her bank account. She began to wear her ring on her right hand, and learned to wash her hair one-handed.