Sarka could not sleep that night. She did not know whether Tayo and Karsa would succeed in saving the sailors on the Jewelwave; she could not go outside to call for Tayo to ask. Without him, she was open to attack by others of the Beloved. She had enough to worry about without tempting fate.

Konn had not woken when she had brought Ro into their sleeping quarters. The ash-walker had slumped onto his pallet and fallen asleep almost before he could cover himself, still dripping wet from the rain. He did not seem to have trouble sleeping. Sarka looked across the dim chamber and saw the planes of his dark face highlighted by the ruddy glow of the dying embers on the hearth.

She sighed and stared up at the ceiling, turning her predicament over in her mind. Finally, in the middle hour of the night, she rose from her pallet as quietly as she could so as not to disturb Konn and Ro, and she took her sewing things into the sanctuary. There, she lit a lamp, sat down, and began to work.

Sarka had always been an ill-tempered woman: impatient, selfish, and impulsive. In life, she was restless and overeager to achieve her own priorities, all of which centered around survival. But when she sewed, she found a peace that was distant at all other times of her life. Only when she plied the trade her mother had taught her during endless, patient hours did she ever feel truly at rest. She had almost hated some of the work she had done in Rohk's shop; it had all been for his gain. But now, sewing for herself, she found stillness and a welcome clarity of thought.

When morning came, she was still sitting there at work. Her damaged shoulder was stiff and sore, but she continued to stitch, oblivious to the world around her. She had not noticed that the room had lightened, making her sputtering lamp useless.

"You are awake early. Have you been here all night, my child?"

"Yes." Sarka set aside her project. "When were you going to tell me about Lord Jalea?"

Atai sat down next to her, resting his head on his knee. "When it concerned you," he said mildly.

"I should think it concerns me," Sarka snapped. She drew a breath, frowning at herself, and tried to soften her manner. "I'm sorry to be sharp."

"You need not be sorry, Sarka. I'm coming to anticipate your insolence." He smiled. "I find that insolent mortals are often the honest ones. But in this case, my child, you are only half-right. Yes; Lord Jalea and I have discussed you. He believes you are to blame for the tragedy that befell the crew of The Crescent."

"I am. They would all still be alive were it not for me. I didn't know..."

"Precisely. You did not know. And I have expressed to Lord Jalea that you are serving in my temple; priestess you are not, but an acolyte, certainly. The God of the Crescent may not touch a hair on your head, for you go under my protection. Were he to harm you, he would set himself at odds with me and all those who hold the bond between deity and servant as sacrosanct."

Sarka looked down at her work. "But that puts him in the right, doesn't it, my lord? I violated his own bond with his servants. The Annari were his people."

"You did not violate that bond. Kogoren did. You simply accepted the help that was offered to you. Furthermore, you are no longer a servant of Kogoren. You are-in deed, at least, if not in heart-" and here he winked- "a servant of mine."

Atai's matter-of-fact explanation assuaged Sarka's fears, strange though it was. She had been doubtful that Lord Atai could protect her from another god, but he seemed to have no concerns whatsoever about his ability to keep Jalea at a distance. "It really is my fault," she whispered. "I should never have run."

"And remained in Kogoren? Would you still be alive? You are skin and bones. We all of us know how it is in Kogoren for the people she left behind. You escaped for your own life, and it was not your intent to harm the Annari. You deeply regret their deaths. I read it in your face. In my perspective, you are blameless in this matter. And," he continued, playfulness entering his tone, "you will be glad to know that my perspective is the only one to which I attribute any value."

Rolling her eyes, Sarka twitched her lips into a smile. "Gods. Can your conceit be measured?"

Atai chuckled. "Tell me, Sarka: what's on your mind? I should think you would be happy to have your companion back. I was glad indeed to sense the ash-walker Ro among us. Is the small matter of Lord Jalea's demands the reason you did you not sleep?"

"Konn snores," Sarka said, which was not a lie even if it was not the truth of the matter at hand. She began packing up her needles and floss.

"Ah. And squinting at a needle in the dark is more restful than lying wakeful in bed?"

"It kept my mind occupied." Sarka picked up the square of cloth she had been working on and spread it on her knee so it would catch the light. "It's almost finished. Just a few more embellishments here, and then a border. I thought you might put it somewhere. Perhaps to drape over the back of your chair up there." She nodded toward the front of the room.

Atai's smile was broad and handsome. "What do you mean, my child? Is this some gift?"

"I'm sure you gods are accustomed to prettier things, or finer things, but this is all I have."

He shifted his head so it sat more securely on his lap, then reached for Sarka's work. He held it up low so his head could see it, shaking out the folds. The central image was a depiction of him-of his head, at least-with his blue eyes gleaming and his lips curved into a warm, beneficent expression. Around the head was a broad, plain frame that drank up the ruby color of the droplets of blood falling from his neck. From the frame exploded a riot of color in curling tendrils and lovely medallions, calling to mind a field of flowers.

The god laughed. "This is me! Why this rainbow of colors, Sarka?" He rolled his eyes to indicate the room around them, his hands being occupied with holding the portrait. "It seems almost too pretty a thing for this humble temple of mine."

Sarka lowered her head and looked away from him. She struggled for a moment. Her first instinct was to brush the matter aside with some excuse like, When I make something, anything, I do my best work, but that wasn't the truth. There was a significance to the colors and shapes she had chosen. It had just come from her heart, and Sarka was not very good at feeling, let alone expressing, her emotions.

But she decided to try.

"It's hope, I guess. I didn't have much of it when I came to this city. Then, I found Konn. And then you. I still don't know what to do," she said, remembering Tayo's words: The God-Song is beyond my reach. "But I feel like I will. Someday."

Startling her, Atai placed his hand on her shoulder. She looked over to meet his gentle gaze. "You will, my child," he said. "And it warms me more than I can say to know you've found hope here. It is what I aspire to give: hope to the hopeless."

"I was told you are the god of lost causes and broken things."

Atai winked. "Who needs gods more than the lost and the broken?"

"I'll finish it tonight, and then-"

"If you please, Sarka, may I have it as it is?" Atai lowered the work onto his lap. Sarka watched the unfinished edges flutter in the light. One of the colorful patterned medallions remained half-completed, and her hands itched to take it back from him, to fix it, but he went on. "I think it is perfect. Hope, in this wicked world, never comes in one perfect whole, does it? It often comes in pieces, imperfectly. But it is no less beautiful for all that."

Sarka hesitated, but she found herself returning Atai's smile. "Alright, my lord. You may have it as it is."

Atai put his head under one arm. He carried the cloth across the temple to the chair on the dais at the front, Sarka two steps behind, and shook it out to drape it over the back of the humble wooden throne.

When he turned around, Sarka said, "I had a lot of time to think last night. I can't simply free Tayo and be done with my promise. With the Beloved prowling the world, I'll never be safe. And besides...there are others in Kogoren. Others who suffer. I escaped, but everyone I've ever known and all the ones who didn't, they're still there. Starving. Dying."

Atai waited.

Sarka dropped her voice down to a whisper. "I think we must fight to bring an end to Kogoren herself. If I free Tayo...even if I free all of the Beloved to save myself from being hunted...Kogoren would never rest until she had her revenge."

With a sigh, Atai sank down to sit in his chair. "That is a bold thing to suggest, Sarka, and would be unwise in other company."

"The more I think, the angrier I am. When I remember how it was in my homeland compared to how it is here, it drives me mad." Sarka touched one of her long, jagged scars. "The animals starve. We have no gods to turn to. As long as Kogoren is the queen, it will be nothing but death and ashes for my people."

"What do you propose, Sarka?" Atai's expression had softened at her appeal.

Sarka was a selfish woman-there was no other way to be, no other way to survive, in the ashlands. But she had tasted freedom now. Tasted hope. The thought of the suffering she had endured in Kogoren and the knowledge that she might never truly be free of it made her sick-that, and the thought of her people suffering still under the reign of the goddess who had left them to perish. "I must be the one to intervene. I must find her God-Song, and I must destroy it."

Atai looked reflective, his eyes searching Sarka's face. "You are bolder, I think, than any other mortal girl I have met."

"You have a very kind way of calling me stupid," said Sarka.

The god laughed, then, and the merry, full sound of it remained as incongruous as ever when compared against the sight of him standing with his severed head beneath his arm. "And you have a very clever way of winning allies, child. You came to perhaps the one god in the world who cannot say you nay when you ask for aid in this venture. You do not propose an easy solution. A god does not die immediately when her God-Song is destroyed. She lingers, her powers waning, perhaps for the space of the year. I know, because I have seen it.

"There was a goddess of the countryside here in Galdren once, a goddess I knew well. Misfortune struck by way of fire; her temple burned, her two priestesses and her God-Song with it. She lived on, perhaps for the space of a year, with no one to re-write her holy book, before she faded from the realms of gods and men. Were we to destroy Kogoren's God-Song, Sarka, she would use the last of her strength seeking revenge: it is her way."

Sarka searched his face, trying to see in his expression whether there was any chance that her plan might work.

"The thought of your people suffering in that ashen land is almost too much for me to bear. I have offered you protection, Sarka, and I will continue to do so. But I cannot speak for the other gods. Whether they will stand against Kogoren to defend a wayward ashlander I cannot say."

Sarka folded her arms around herself. At least she would have one immortal ally. "I understand. I know it is a lot to ask even of you, my lord. But I risked my life in coming here. The only difference now is that the danger is more immediate, and it will have a face." She hesitated. "I would ask one other thing."

Atai chuckled. "Of course. After this first inconsequential request, I would expect no less. Go on."

"Please allow the Beloved to enter here-the ones who do not mean us harm."

With a smile, he said, "So long as they mean no harm to any human soul, they are welcome within these four walls."