also knew that might be too much to ask.
“For what it’s worth, Your Highness, I don’t disagree.” She gazed at the bed of flowers. “This war has killed many, and Tertulyn was a casualty of that terrible wheel. We can’t save everyone.”
“That doesn’t mean we don’t try,” I replied, hearing the echoes of Con and myself saying those very words to each other at different times.
“Then go save the rest, my wild daughter.” She came and kissed me on the forehead. “We’ll wall off this garden to be Tertulyn’s resting place, so the others might visit and pay their respects to her memory.”
The others. Blessed Ejarat—what would I tell my ladies? Of course they wouldn’t question me, but … I took a deep breath, mourning the loss of their trust and affection already. I’d executed one of their own, and there was no taking that back. “I must go. If Con has finished?”
“He has. And is pacing, impatient for Your return.”
I smiled, despite the ache in my heart. That absolutely sounded like him.
14
“I thought Mother Ascendant said Lia would be out soon,” I griped to Sondra. Lia’s ladies and a bunch of other Calantheans, priests and priestesses and folk who’d come out of the woodwork, were all dancing in the mossy meadows, flinging petals and singing songs. Mother had said they were celebrating Calanthe’s return to balance. Certainly the ground had stopped shaking. So that meant Lia had succeeded.
I’d never doubted that she would. Still, if she was done, why hadn’t she come out yet?
Sondra rolled her eyes at me and took the stick Vesno brought her, throwing it for him again. “It hasn’t been that long.”
I eyed the cave mouth, considering going to look for her, took a few steps that way, then paced back again. “I worry about what she’s up to, is all.”
“Hmm. Good point. Maybe she’s doing the nasty with some of the temple maidens,” Sondra agreed, then grinned cheekily. “Maidens no more!”
“You are not helping,” I growled at her. “And why are you so fucking cheerful?”
“I told you. Water of truth is cathartic. Don’t you feel lighter?”
“No.” I paced toward the cave mouth, turned back to find Sondra giving me a sympathetic grimace.
“The truth hurt, huh?”
“Not like that.” Vesno brought me the stick this time, so I threw it for him. “I talked to my mother.”
“Whoa.” Sondra looked appalled. “Like your actual mother? Queen Rynda?”
“If I have another mother, I don’t know about her.” At Sondra’s look I relented. “She seemed to be the real thing—knew stuff my mother knew—and said she watches over me.”
“Ouch.” Sondra rubbed her hands on her pants. Vesno did have a spectacular amount of slobber. “I kind of want to ask how she is, but that seems all kinds of wrong.”
I bit out a laugh. “She seemed … good. Happy. Are the dead happy? I dunno. At peace, maybe.”
“Yeah, well. I didn’t get any conversations with the dead.” Sondra sounded relieved, and I didn’t blame her.
“Did you get clarity?” I ventured.
“Hmm. No, but I didn’t expect clarity. I got … ideas, maybe. Some stuff to work on, to think about. Be a better person, blah blah blah.”
“Yeah.” That made sense.
“Remember what we talked about at Cradysica, when we went to see that whirlpool for the first time?”
“I guess?”
She made a snorting sound of disgust. But hey, we’d talked about a lot of things—I wasn’t going to take the chance of stepping in shit because I guessed wrong.
“I said that it would be nice if we could have paradise, settle down here, but it wasn’t for us, that we’d lost that chance a long time ago.”
“I remember.” And it reminded me uncomfortably of Lia’s words. You would be forever second place here on Calanthe, a land that isn’t Yours.
“I think I was maybe wrong about that.”
“About what?”
“Are you even listening to me, Conrí?”
I tore my gaze from the cave mouth and focused on Sondra. “Yes.”
She shook her head and threw the stick for Vesno. “I’m just saying—and I’m still working this out—but maybe we’ve been going about this wrong. Obsessing about the past, vengeance, instead of fixing things. You know, maybe we should be rebuilding instead of destroying.”
That sounded uncannily close to what my mother had said. “Do you mean Oriel?” I asked carefully, wondering if this was more of the message.
“Maybe. Like I said, I’m still pondering. And I guess I wondered if maybe Queen Rynda said something like that to you, too.”
I didn’t want to rehash it. “Not exactly.”
“Well,