“That’s good,” Ashok said. He was disappointed that she wouldn’t say more about what had happened to him in the spirit realm, but he didn’t press her. “The caravan won’t return for many days. Skagi and Cree are in favor of meeting them between here and Thesk. They’re restless to be gone from Rashemen.”
She stared out over the lake and didn’t reply. Ashok thought he’d done something to anger her.
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
Her answer pained him, but Ashok dutifully started to rise. She clasped his wrist to stop him. The touch surprised him. He looked at her questioningly.
“Yes, I want you to leave Rashemen,” she said slowly. “Go without me.”
“No.” The word came out before he’d even had a chance to think. She wasn’t making sense again. “Ilvani, we can’t leave you here by yourself.”
She scoffed at that. “I’m never alone, not in this world or any other.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You meant this land is dangerous. You mean the witches won’t accept me. They don’t like me. It’s all the truth, but it doesn’t matter. They’ve agreed to a bargain. It’s done.”
“Done?” Ashok looked at her incredulously. “When?”
“While you slept,” Ilvani said. “I spoke to”-she hesitated again-“Agny and Reina. They will teach me to silence the whispers, to control where my mind strays. In return, I’ll help them prepare Yaraella’s child for her future. If they understand what I see, they will help her to cope with what she sees. The bargain is made.”
Ashok didn’t know what to say. “All this while I slept,” he said faintly.
“You needed time to heal,” Ilvani said. She added, “You still do.”
“I get no part in this decision?” Ashok said, a petulant note in his voice.
“You’ll have to argue with Tempus,” Ilvani said. A rare flash of humor lit her black eyes. “Those disagreements rarely end in your favor.”
“Did he send you a vision?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t ask for that.”
“Then what-”
“He wants me to be at peace,” Ilvani said simply. “The witches are the way.”
“How long will you stay?” Ashok asked.
“For as long as I’m tolerated,” Ilvani said. “Or until Ikemmu calls me back. Not more than a season, I think.”
The wind picked up, and she clutched the cloak tighter around herself. Ashok looked at her slender hands and small, shivering form. How could she survive up here in the cold North, so far away from the place where she was born? Who would protect her?
As if she could read his thoughts, Ilvani said, “You should worry about yourself. Do you want to live or die, Ashok?”
She so rarely called him by his name. Ashok couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard her use it. He read the seriousness of her gaze. She expected an answer. “Does it matter?” he said.
His reply made her unhappy. Ashok saw it in the way she shrank from him and dipped her chin inside his cloak. “He was right,” Ilvani said, sighing.
“Who was right?”
“Is that the path, then?” Ilvani said. She seemed to address the question to herself. “To embrace life before anything after can be considered? We have to mend ourselves?”
“Ilvani, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,” Ashok said, frustrated. He still had so much to learn about her, yet now she was asking him to go.
“You will,” Ilvani said. “Have faith.”
It was Ashok’s turn to sigh. “Why does everyone ask that of me? Why do they try to push me toward one god or another?”
A faint smile touched her lips again. “Not faith in the gods-in yourself and your friends.”
She seemed so sure of herself. Ashok wondered if he was seeing a glimpse of the person she was meant to be, a woman free of the shadows of the past. They both had long roads ahead of them, but for now, Ilvani’s peaceful expression calmed some of Ashok’s uncertainties.
“Why did you come to me?” he asked her. “In that place …” Why was it so hard for him to remember? “You could have died.”
“Why did you help me?” she countered. “Why do you risk death for the brothers, for the humans, for Ikemmu?”
“Because they’re worth protecting. They’re all I have.”
“Yes,” Ilvani said. This time she seemed satisfied with his answer. “A choice-one that has nothing to do with the gods.”
Ashok considered her words. Mareyn found joy in her goddess, a guide to walk the dark roads by her side. Ashok had found that bond in his companions. He needed nothing else.
“I can have faith in that,” he said.
They sat by the lake together, watching the colors drift on the water until the winter sun went down.