Chapter 97. The Night Without a Moon

We did not sleep.

You don’t, the first night after a god changes your diet and tells you dessert costs your soul.

Syra doubled the watches and then doubled them again. Orla counted the extra heartbeats my body tripped over and told me I was not dying; I told her she was very kind to lie. The brand didn’t warm. It didn’t do anything. I missed it like you miss an ache after it’s gone: with relief. With grief.

Kael took off his armor. Not because he was tired. Because metal felt rude in a night like this.

“Eat,” he said, passing me bread I did not want and would, therefore, eat.

The Quiet Duke slept with his eyes open. Neris sat cross-legged beside him, knife on her knee, mouth moving as she silently mouthed the dirtiest jokes she knows to keep herself awake.

“Explain the price,” I told Mavienne when the chapel had run out of polite noises.

“The Goddess hates parasites,” Mavienne said, voice low. “She will not stop your war without making sure