Adalina squeezed Pasha’s shoulder and rose. A light wind had picked up and it sang through the leaves above them as she repeated:

  “We’ll be ok, you’ll see.”

  As she stood, the girl held on to her sleeve. She paused, wondering at the new affection this prickly child held her in, then gently tugged herself free. She had other families to visit. She had a patrol of her own to complete, like the one her father carried out every evening around the watch groups. He would look for sleepy eyes to swap with fresher faces, gaps in the line that needed bolstering. She looked instead for slipping hope and leaking trust in her father’s leadership. She filled those other gaps in his defences, the ones he barely noticed.

  As she moved between the families, she looked back continually for her father’s return. They had almost reached the waterfall and, when the wind went quiet, the sound of its roar carried from the South. The noise evoked the shadow of a memory. She listened to it through the heat of a fever as she bounced up and down on her father’s shoulders, lolling back and forth and wanting nothing more than to immerse herself in clear, cool water. This was the last stage of that journey her parents had already made before.

  She prayed silently for her father's return and chided herself for her foolishness. While the clan rested and gathered its strength, he had taken a small party ahead to find the Levonin and Elder Mildred. The sight of them leaving, waving and smiling, had filled her with hope. They would get their elder back! But when Heridan and Erlends both joined her father's party, her body had gone numb and a dull rush like the sound of the waterfall had swallowed her thoughts.

  Why didn't I tell him all that I heard? She had warned Luthold of Erlends’ treachery by way of reporting a rumour in the clan. Her father had shut his eyes and shaken his head. He took the news seriously, but it did not seem to frighten him.

  "I'm appalled, but I'm not surprised. There were too many things that didn't add up. That's why they have so few children with them, and yet seem so strong in the face of their loss. Their children are all feasting with the enemy! You've done well to learn this, Adalina, but we won't confront the Sullin with it yet. We'll expose them before the other clans, and that may help persuade them to leave with us. The faithful Seveners can go out into the world together and speak as one beyond the forest. Let the Sullin stay alone and serve their new masters."

  Why did I not tell him about Heridan? He, too, had uttered treacherous words. But she feared that her father, if he heard them, would do something rash. He would not take the measured, calm stance that he adopted in response to Erlends' betrayal, not against the warrior that had always irritated him. She had resolved to wait until they had Elder Mildred back, until her mother was healthy again, until... she wasn’t sure what. What if now it was too late? She pushed the thought aside.

  Her next visit brought her to Thilo, Lien and their sick infant. She greeted Thilo and knelt beside Lien, who was coaxing the babe into taking milk. Each time she pushed his mouth onto her breast, it slipped away. His tongue crept out, looking for the drops left on his face but failing to find them. Lien squeezed her eyes shut and repressed a sob.

  “You should name him,” Adalina said softly. “A name that gives him strength.”

  Lien sniffed. “You put it nicely, but you make the same point as my husband.”

  Thilo looked away and busied himself examining a piece of flint from beside their fire.

  Adalina looked at her quizzically. She did not elaborate, but Thilo filled the silence, still looking down.

  “She thinks I want to name him before he dies, so he does not go before the gods unknown to them.”

  “No,” whispered Adalina urgently. “This boy survived sleepers and a march from one end of Saltleaf to the other. He is not going to die now of some Southern malady. My father will bring Elder Mildred back and she will know exactly what he needs."

  Lien blinked and allowed a hint of hope to enter her voice.

  “Perhaps. I’ll think about it.”

  “Choose a name for him to live with, Lien.”

  Lien nodded and opened her mouth. Her lips trembled for a moment. She looked as though she were about to speak, as though she felt guilty, then she returned to her attempts at nursing.

  Adalina continued from one family to the next: consoling, encouraging or persuading, depending on what necessity she detected. She chose her words and applied them like measuring the cracks in a wall and mixing the right amount of clay and straw. She presented a different face to each person she met, and yet, she did not feel that any of them were false. She arrived at her final call.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Like a sleeper broke the bones in my chest.”

  Adalina smiled. “Better then.” Yesterday, her mother had barely spoken.

  “I suppose.” Winilind grimaced, then shot her daughter a look of alarm. “Where is your father?”

  “He’s gone to look for Elder Mildred. He’d be here otherwise. What’s wrong?”

  “Bad dreams, that’s all. It’ll be the draught they gave me. Sometimes I forget what’s real.”

  “He’ll be alright, Mother. He’ll return soon. Lie still.”

  Her mother’s eyes narrowed, and she propped herself up on one elbow. “Don’t you tell me what will be alright. I haven’t got that old yet.” She let herself back down with a groan and looked up at the wisps of cloud above them. “Neither you nor I nor the gods themselves know what will be alright in the end, and what won’t be.”

  Adalina looked down. “Sorry, Mother. I was just trying to help.”

  “You’ve been doing a lot of helping. That’s good. But don’t try that with your family. That's not the help they want from you.”

  “I’m trying to help Father. To help him do what he needs to.”

  Her mother continued to observe the clouds. Her expression was so stony it could have been one of Aimar’s carvings.

  “I know why you're angry with him," said Adalina. “But who else should be leading us?" She lowered her voice to a whisper. "At least for now we have to keep the secret. You can ask him to reveal it after."

  The chiselled expression softened slightly around her mother’s eyes.

  “You’re right. Who else should it be? But you're wrong to talk about an 'after.' What after will there be? Oslef is dead. As soon as we can breathe, your father will be made an elder in his stead. He'll be a wonderful elder – wise and clever. And I'll live with that secret forever, while he drifts away from me..."

  Winilind shook her head as though waking up. She blinked and mumbled:

  “It's the scursleaf talking. These are my worries, not yours.”

  But Adalina knew her mother’s thoughts. She hated secrets, and she had kept one all her life. A secret visit to a forbidden power – she had risked the clan to save her daughter. For years it must have stung her every time she heard someone mutter about Oli getting lost or the bad luck he brought. For years her guilt must have simmered beneath the surface of her thoughts like a stubborn, hot ember that refused to be quenched. Now she trod again the steps of that journey, watching disaster befall her people at every turn, and the embers of guilt that still held heat fanned into flames.

  “You wanted to confess,” whispered Adalina. “To come clean to our people. And now you can’t, for the sake of Father’s position.”

  “I thought the price was paid when we lost Oli.” Winilind propped herself up again and looked around at the hunched and huddled families. “Now I wonder if that was only the beginning. What if all the misfortune to befall our clan is all...” Tears stopped her words for a moment, but then her hand found Adalina’s cheek, and she stammered on “...I still wouldn’t choose to lose you. I’d still gamble everything for the sake of your life. I think that makes me wicked. Don’t you? Selfish, at least.”

  Adalina could find no words. What if the fierceness of her parents’ love had undone them all? What of her little brother, whose bouncing curls and clumsy grin had always brought a smile to her lips? Was he the herald of their destruction, set amongst them as an object of tender affection? A cruel reminder that it was an excess of love which had led them astray. She recalled the first moments of his life and the screams which accompanied them. The metal tongs and the red hot scissors hissing in a bucket of water. No birth before or since had called on so many of the midwives’ methods, as though he was not meant to leave the womb. Had they known the story, she wondered, would they have tried so hard to pull him out alive?

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  Adalina sank down until she lay beside her mother, the way she had done at bedtime since as long as she could remember. She held her hand. They both stared up at the sky together.

  “It’s our burden, not yours,” Winilind repeated, but it was not true. She owed her life to her parents’ lie and the secret now bound her as tightly as it did them. And yet, in the clear sunlight, watching the wisps above them merge and part, she felt calm and focussed. It was as though all the weight bearing down on her, the responsibilities she had taken on, the fears about her own misjudgements and mistakes, accumulated to such a force that they passed through her entirely and left her free. Who knew that at their heaviest, the pressures of life could make her feel so light.

  “Elder Mildred!”

  Beresa's cry pulled Adalina from her reverie and she rose as though picked up and set upon her feet by the breeze.

  There, swatting arms away that reached for her elbow and stabbing the ground with her walking stick, came one of their two surviving elders. Her eyes caught Adalina’s, who held them and smiled until a throng of bodies surrounded the elder, welcoming, questioning, beseeching her. Adalina assessed the party she’d arrived with. Her father and Heridan were busy trying to calm the clan and make some space for Elder Mildred to sit. Erlends had already slunk away. Standing farther back, on the edge of their encampment, stood two Levonin – a man and a woman. Adalina had never seen a Levonin before. They were tall and slim, and she felt cold looking at their mostly bare skin. The signs of the gods and the spirits of the forest decorated their bodies in swirling colours of blue and green. The flame of Hurean rose from the man's knee. Farlean swam across the woman's belly. She wanted to admire the art on the rest of their flesh, but Adalina's eyes were drawn also to their jewellery. Their long hair was braided and woven with glittering trinkets, and threads with sparkling stones hung from the lobes of their ears. They turned to look at her, then conferred between themselves and looked again with renewed interest. Adalina returned to her mother. When Mildred was ready to speak, she would speak to all the adults.

  Before dusk, a message came around the camp like the wind dancing between the trees. Luthold summoned the Hallin adults to hear Elder Mildred speak. Adalina glanced at one of the men tending the sick. He was older than her, but he nodded deferentially.

  “You go.”

  Fewer than the usual numbers assembled. Many stood with spears around the perimeter, with fires nearby. Adalina could not see Beresa, or either of Heridan’s two younger cousins, Algar and Finn. Mildred waited until all they could hear was the distant rush of water before she spoke.

  “The Levonin are a tight lipped, joyless bunch of doomsayers,” she began. A few mouths curled into smiles around the circle. They had missed their elder. “But they are close to the gods, and they too have received a message like the one which Luthold read. The oracle which Elder Oslef gave his life for.”

  Those who had been hoping she would pour scorn on this whole journey and demand their return already sagged with disappointment. Her emphasis on Oslef’s sacrifice assured them she did not take the oracle lightly. Her support for Luthold buoyed Adalina.

  “They have cast similar oracles, through similar means.”

  Adalina’s chest tightened and she glanced at the tall, silent guides that had escorted Elder Mildred and her father’s search party back to camp. She had heard the Levonin were comfortable, too comfortable, with the notion of sacrifice. The two guests watched the proceedings with silent curiosity, perhaps as intrigued by the Hallin as Adalina was by them.

  “They have been told that the forest is falling to an enemy of the gods. But they will not leave with us.”

  “Then why are we to leave the forest?” Heridan demanded to a rumble of agreement from some and tutting from others.

  “Because we are not bound here,” replied Mildred, “by the promises which bind them. Their oracle did not instruct them to leave, as ours did, but to fulfil the final request of a dying man. The oldest among them still cling to a hope. They believe if our clans follow the paths laid out for us, somehow we will preserve the Sevener's ways."

  The clansfolk glanced at each other with hollow looks. Could the land of the Seveners fall under the shadow of the Godless Republic? Why have the Hallin been chosen to survive and the Levonin to stay and die? Adalina wondered.

  “Which dying man?” She spoke up. “Whose request are they staying to fulfil?”

  Elder Mildred looked at her, then narrowed her eyes. “I seem to have missed a few developments. Such as Adalina entering the way of council."

  “I...I,” Adalina stuttered. She looked to her father who smiled awkwardly.

  Otmer broke in. “There hasn’t been time for the ceremony, but she’s grown older quickly. What about her question, Elder Mildred?”

  "Fair enough,” replied the Elder, still locking eyes with Adalina. “How old have you grown, girl? Old enough to know about the medicine men?”

  Adalina nodded. Her father’s face flushed and he wiped his brow nervously, but no one else was watching him. They all stared at Elder Mildred. Their expressions were not entirely of fear, Adalina thought. The mention of medicine men evoked just a little hope as well as horror.

  “The need for secrecy is passing, anyway,” she began. “The last of them died before Spring.”

  A mix of relief and disappointment passed through the crowd.

  “The Levonin were always too close to the medicine men. They put their faith in Tion’s gift, until almost the end.”

  Her voice mixed disapproval and admiration in equal measure.

  “The last one raved to them about finding a sacrifice. A seed planted by the forest to cure it of some illness. He had this task, he said, to bring a sacrifice to the lake. He promised them all the boons his kind could bestow if they gave him a good apprentice to continue the search. But even they stopped sending their children to him. The madness began to take them within a single season. Then an outsider came, who the old man made an apprentice. They say he lasted longer than any of the children, that he resisted the madness with an almost inhuman strength spirit. But in the end it took him, too. They drove each other over the brink of insanity. The apprentice fought his master and left him dying, then fled alone into the forest before his training was complete. When they found the old man, bleeding out beside the fall, he begged them to always protect the lake, and to bring a sacrifice there.”

  Luthold’s cheeks had lost their colour and he stared disconsolately into the distance. Elder Mildred continued:

  "Since then, they have fought a bitter struggle against the sleepers for control of the paths. The beasts have woken early and tried to break through to the lake. They've had scouts out searching for the madman's apprentice and they've cast oracle after oracle to try to understand what is meant for by this sacrifice. They've had no answers, though, beyond the first which told them to do as the medicine man requested. The gods have been silent."

  The crowd pondered the enormity and mystery of the elder's report. Then Thilo exclaimed:

  “The man by the river who Oli saw, the one with outsider's clothes and wild ways. It must be the apprentice! He wasn’t lying, he–” Thilo’s eyes found her father and he closed his mouth.

  “He’s lost to us now,” muttered Luthold. “The oracle told us so.”

  “He must have been caught and killed by the madman,” Thilo said, head lowered. “Both he and Ingo.”

  Heridan pursed his lips and stared ahead. Mildred’s tired eyes darted between everyone’s faces, trying to read the stories behind them. When she met Adalina’s they held each other’s gaze for a while longer. She resolved to try, as difficult as it might be, to speak alone with the Elder.

  The Levonin did not remain in camp. Adalina watched Erlends engage in a heated argument with the man before both left. It was only really an argument on one side. Erlends gestured wildly and shouted, while the Levonin man shook his head and looked at him with growing disdain. When Erlends stormed away, Adalina overheard him bark to his man Marlo:

  “Get ready for a trip up there anyway. We’re not going North without answers. Where is Heridan?”

  She did not hear if Marlo answered that question, but it made her look around. She could not see him anywhere nearby, but she knew where she could find him. He would be just beyond hearing of the rest of the clan, alone in his usual spot. Even though they had moved every day, he had a spot: as far North as he could go without becoming separated. His lost son pulled him in one direction, his duties in another. Adalina could not believe that he would be pulled into betrayal. She did not want to believe it. If she went to her father, he would believe it in a second. But she did not want to tell Luthold, even after her fears in the morning. She did not want to see him confront the warrior.

  Heridan grunted as Adalina approached. He turned to see who it was then faced away. She did not ask for his permission before sitting beside him. Am I sitting beside the enemy? Eventually, she spoke.

  “The Sullin are looking for you.”

  “When are they ever not?” he growled.

  “They think very highly of you. You don’t like them?”

  He turned to look at her. She wondered how close she could skirt to what she wanted to say.

  “I owe them. When my parents were killed by sleepers, they took me in. They raised me, taught me, made me who I am and never asked for payment. And then, when I was old enough to look after myself, they returned me to my people.”

  “How much do you owe them?” Perhaps they returned you, knowing you'd be in their debt.

  He looked again and didn’t turn away. Anger flickered in his eyes, and they darted around behind her for a moment, as though doubting she was alone.

  “I miss him too, Heridan. Not just Oli. I miss Ingo. But the gods told us he’s gone.”

  “You left him before he left us. Why?”

  “I was afraid.”

  “You should be afraid now.”

  Adalina nodded.

  “I know, but I choose not to be.”

  They stayed like that, neither taking their eyes from the other. Adalina noticed that the sky had grown dark. She had seen Heridan move in anger. She knew his speed. Would she be able to scream before his attack? Would she even know before it happened? For the second time that day, she cursed her foolishness. And yet, each time she chose the same foolishness again. Perhaps she had not grown so old after all.

  Heridan moved and despite herself she flinched, but he only pushed himself to his feet. He stood over her.

  “I’ll look for Ingo until I find a body. Whatever the gods say, I’ll hold him again.”

  She hoped he could not see her hands trembling in the darkness.

  “I’d do anything to find them,” she replied, “except something I know they’d hate me for.”

  “What do you imagine I might do for Ingo?”

  “Anything,” she replied, rising to stand beside him. “Anything, but what you’ve taught Ingo never to do.”

  “What do you know?” he rasped.

  “I know you. I trust you.”

  Suddenly, Heridan gripped her by the elbow and brought his face close.

  “You might regret that. You might do better to leave.”

  “We are leaving. All of us.”

  “Perhaps some should leave sooner, rather than later. For their own sake.”

  She returned his stare and his grip softened, then he released her and looked away. Adalina opened her mouth to speak again, then realised she had nothing left to say. Slowly, she moved to leave him and, as she did so, he called after her:

  “What happened to my homehold?”

  “I lost it in the sleeper attack. I'm sorry, Heridan.”

  “I didn’t have much to hold onto anyway.”

  Adalina had seen inside. She had seen the locks of hair bound in a small clasp. The remains of his wife that he had saved from the pyre, contrary to their custom. Tears obscured her view until she wiped them away and hurried back to the others.