very road come warriors from the south seeking to unite the western realms, so we might all fight together.”
The woman seemed to contemplate that news. Finally a smile touched her lips. “That is a fine thing.”
“It is.”
“Then you will fight. I cannot.” With a sigh, the fisherwoman lowered her hook into the water again. “My son was but four years old when he was taken. Now I would not recognize his face. How could I raise a sword against anyone in that army when I might cut down my own boy?”
Sympathy clutched at Lizzan’s throat. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t, either. So it is best that the young lead this fight. The rest of us might lose heart.”
And perhaps that was why the Destroyer took the children. Not just to bolster his numbers but to weaken resistance before he even returned.
But he was not here yet. And might never be, if the alliance stood against him. “Where do you hail from?”
“Oana.” The woman gestured to the other side of the river.
And she didn’t intend to cross? But perhaps she would not need to. Everyone who traveled to Oana from the west would have to pass by her.
“Do you think that your son still remembers this place? If he escapes the Destroyer’s army—or if the Destroyer is killed and his armies are freed—will he know where to return home?”
“Home?” Disbelief filled the woman’s huff of laughter. “What home would he find here? What home would any of the Destroyer’s soldiers find? After what they have done?”
“It isn’t known whether they have a choice.”
“That is true. But what does it matter? Whether they were taught to believe that slaughtering and violating so many is justified—or whether forced by the Destroyer’s sorcery—who would trust them now? Even if his own soldiers rebel and kill the Destroyer themselves, who would welcome any of his ranks into their villages?”
But there must be one place they would be welcome. “If your son returned, would you not take him in?”
“I would.”
“Do you think others who lost their children would not?”
“They would.” A wry smile curved the woman’s mouth. “And their own child might be forgiven. That child might have been forced. But everyone else’s child? No pardon will be made. The only others who will be forgiven are the ones who didn’t live to return home. For that is the way of people. They will claim their loved ones are an exception and deserve forgiveness. But anyone else will be cursed as a villain—and a villain’s only redemption is death.”
Lizzan only had to look to her own experience to know that for its truth. To remember how her mother and brothers had held her so tight, though their own husband and father was dead and Lizzan had been named the reason. To remember how she’d fled Koth with spit on her face and stones hurled at her back. To remember how they’d shouted after her the names of her soldiers who’d fallen, and how she hadn’t deserved to be the one who survived.
Lizzan agreed with the last.
Quietly she said, “When the Destroyer is killed, there will be many with nowhere to go.”
“The inns will be crowded,” the fisherwoman agreed. For it was Vela’s law that no innkeeper could turn away someone with a coin to pay, even if all they had was a copper smidge. A spot must be found for them—though Lizzan knew well that spot was often in the stable. Since leaving Koth, she’d made more friends with horses than people. “But perhaps my son will return, if only to see justice done. To him, I must be the villain.”
Lizzan frowned. “How could he think so?”
“How could he not? He was so small and so afraid when they took him—yet trusting that I would save him. How many times did I say that I loved him? And I was the one to shelter him, to feed him, to protect him. What child would not believe that his mother would come for him?” Closing her eyes, the woman tilted her face to the sun again. The soft morning light gentled the harshest of lines in her skin but did not conceal the pained tightening of her lips. “And how long before his thoughts of me turned bitter, before his love became hate? Before he became grateful to the Destroyer for providing food and shelter and purpose? Before he believed a parent’s love is a lie, and that the Destroyer’s army freed children from that lie? Because he