Halfway back to Ardusk, the drizzle began turning into rain. By the time Rhoa reached White's Ridge and started down into the valley, what had been miserably damp was now miserably drenched, and a stiff wind had picked up, whipping the rain ahead of it, stinging her face. She made it through Ghaffig's Bog but wound up leading her exhausted mare the last mile to the village; getting home to a hot kitchen fire and a mug of spiced wine was all she could think about.

Nevertheless, she brought the mare to a halt on the hill above the village, looking down over the picket walls at the cluster of drab wattle-and-daub buildings and muddy, unpaved streets. The market square was empty, the stalls boarded up. No one was there to buy goods or hawk their wares because there wasn't anything left to sell. All of it had been handed over to the Divine Order for safekeeping in the Storehouse.

There was still movement, though.

A door slammed, and Old Marjan went galumphing across the wagon-ruts of the square to the alehouse. Three of the village crones were sitting on Mother Mouri's front porch, smoking their clay pipes. Boz Ghaffig came slogging along the street that ran perpendicular to the main road, heading for the mill, his watchman's club slung over his shoulder. Sedir was in his smithy, the sound of his hammer striking hot iron audible even in the rain.

Worse than that, on the northern edge of town she could make out several people standing in a soggy line outside the Diviner's Storehouse, waiting to get their rations.

Rhoa caught herself reaching to cover her scars again and sighed. Her mother was right. The villagers didn't all hate her. Sedir didn't. Neither did Orla and her parents, or Tettony's family. It wasn't hatred that had driven Reinosh and his followers, either. He had been afraid and desperate, and now he and his followers were dead.

She wasn't seven, anymore. She was fully capable of defending herself.

Rhoa looked at the mare. "Maybe no one will notice us and we can sneak right through?"

The mare snorted, then whickered, flicking her ears forward.

"Is that so?" Rhoa muttered, cocking an eyebrow. "Yes, well, figures you'd say that, they don't throw rotten eggs at you... But you have a point. We're not going to get home standing here."

With a quick check of her dagger and throwing axe, she gave a tug on the reins and started down the hill.

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Boots squelching through ankle-deep puddles, Rhoa walked down the middle of the main road, head down. It was easier to avoid the stares that way. Easier, but not entirely possible. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Old Marjan making a warding sign with his thumb and forefinger, his lips drawn into a cruel, disgusted leer as he watched her from the shelter of the alehouse doorway.

The three old women smoking their pipes on Mother Mouri's porch scowled and whispered as she walked past, and one of them spat in her direction, then made that same warding sign, forefinger crossed over thumb. Mother Mouri lifted her Diviner's amulet and made a show of pressing it to her wrinkled lips while mumbling a prayer for protection.

Rhoa turned away and kept going, thankful when Sedir came to the front of his open-air smithy and lifted his hand in a friendly wave.

They might not all hate her, but the new Diviner's tithe certainly wasn't making her any friends. The two dairy maids ahead of her in line for the Storehouse took one look behind them and hurried off.

Being born under a Warmoon did have some benefits. Teeth pressed tight together, Rhoa shook her head and moved up two spaces, then leaned against her mare's shoulder. At least it was Diviner Longstruik manning the counter and not First Diviner Rokstag. Rhoa suppressed an involuntary shiver and shot a glance around. Rokstag could still be lurking somewhere, but perhaps he had gone on an errand, or been called back to Lubelin. Or fallen off a cliff. She could always hope.

One by one the other villagers were recorded and given their rations. Mother Gaffig took her sack of grain and rasher of beef and shuffled off. Then Eira, Orla's younger sister, followed by one of the farm hands who worked for Larush Gaffig. Then it was Rhoa's turn.

Longstruik finished scribbling in his ledger and looked up at her, squinting against the drizzle. "Hallo, Miss Strongcastle. The usual?"

She dipped her head in a curt nod.

He found the Strongcastles' record and started making notes while his assistant began filling a sack with their allotted measures of oats and barley.

Rhoa chewed the inside of her lip, eyeing the windows of the Temple of the Divine Order across the street, counting the seconds while the assistant gathered their supplies and loaded them onto the mare. As soon as he was done, she began moving, urging her horse forward.

She had almost reached the end of the Divine Order's garden fence when a familiar voice had her groaning under her breath.

"Rhoa Strongcastle."

Rhoa paused for a split-second, then kept walking, her heart pounding. Maybe she could pretend she hadn't heard him.

"They think you're to blame, you know."

She stopped, the air leaving her lungs. Slowly, she turned on her heels to face the man standing beneath the arcade arbor on the other side of the fence.

Diviner Rokstag lifted a delicate eyebrow, a tiny smirk tugging at his thin lips as his gaze traveled down her body. Then he raised one slender, pale hand and beckoned. "Have you considered my offer?"

Rhoa ground her teeth, but took two steps closer to the fence, her stomach churning. "We are preparing for the Warmoon," she rasped. "There hasn't been time."

He frowned slightly and tilted his head, giving her a reproving look. "I would think it would be wise to find the time, my dear. As First Diviner, my word is the only thing keeping you safe. You should be grateful I have taken an interest in you, but even I can only hold the people of Ardusk off so long. If you are not under my protection, I cannot vouch for your safety."

She stared at him, unblinking in spite of the rain. If she were a normal Keeper's Daughter, he wouldn't dare speak to her that way, but she was not, and he was right. He could turn the tide of the villager's suspicion and fear against her with a twitch of his little finger.

He took a deep breath through his nose, his sloping shoulders lifting beneath the extravagant purple silk of his robes before he let out a heavy sigh. "I will grant you till the Warmoon. After that, I cannot guarantee the Order's continued goodwill. It would be so unfortunate if you were to bring shame upon your family."

Rhoa's flesh crawled. His meaning was crystal clear: if she didn't give herself to him, he would have her declared apostate. There would be nothing her father could do to keep the villagers from bringing charges of witchcraft against her, her mother, and Gran. The thought made her sick. She looked away. "My father is expecting me," she said, turning to leave.

"A fortnight, Rhoa."

She dipped her head in a half-nod and tugged at the reins.

As if to prove a point, the clouds thinned for a moment, parting to reveal the Warmoon hanging above the horizon like a half-closed, swollen, brick-red eye, staring sullenly down at her.

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The rain began falling even harder, lashing the ground in sheets as she rounded the first hairpin bend at the bottom of the hill.

She almost missed it. It looked like a stick, and if she hadn't slipped in the mud in that exact spot, she would have kept her head firmly tucked to her chest and passed right on by without noticing it, lost in thoughts of getting away from Ardusk.

But she did slip, nearly going down on one knee, and she put a hand out to steady herself. Her fingers met something softer than gravel or mud, and she glanced down. What she had thought was just a random stick lying in a puddle suddenly looked much more like a fighting staff with a sodden, muddied sheepskin grip.

Frowning, she got to her feet, bringing the staff with her. She pulled her hood forward, shielding her eyes from the rain, and looked around.

There was a knapsack hanging in a bramble only a few paces from where the staff had been.

Rhoa lifted an eyebrow and shot a glance up and down the road, her hair prickling at the back of her neck. She tethered her horse to a nearby bush, then walked slowly over to the knapsack, her hand on the hilt of her dagger.

The knapsack was empty.

She had just pulled it free of the bramble canes when she caught sight of something long and brown lying at the bottom of the gulley that ran along the edge of the road.

It was a leg. Two legs, in fact, clad in a pair of muddied leather breeches. The legs ended in a pair of very dirty bare feet. Her eyes traveled upward, picking out a set of broad mud-covered shoulders, and what might be the back of a head of long dark hair, also caked with mud.

Casting another quick glance around, Rhoa started down the rocky edge of the road. When she reached the bottom, her boots instantly sank calf-deep into slimy ooze, and the stink of decaying leaves rose to meet her. Rhoa wrinkled her nose and kept moving, weaving between boulders and under drooping brambles until she was standing over the body. Then she bent and gave his shoulder a cautious jiggle. He didn't stir, so she did it again, harder.

Nothing. Not even a twitch. Upon closer inspection, there was blood on the back of his peasant's tunic, dark in the wan light of the storm. He wasn't breathing, either, although he hadn't been dead long. His arm was still pliant, limp as a wet rag.

"Wonderful," she whispered, pressing her lips into a grim line. Just what Ardusk needed. Thieves on the road. "So... Who are you?" she asked the corpse, tilting her head, a little perplexed. "One of the Ghaffig brothers?"

She grabbed the corpse by the shoulder again, lifting and shoving what turned out to be considerable weight until she had gotten it onto its side.

His face wasn't as dirty as the back of him, and she frowned. He wasn't a local. She had never seen him before at all, actually, not even at the market in Lubelin. His features – what could be seen of them above a scruffy black beard – were longer and more angular than the men of Ardusk, and his skin was quite a bit darker. His hair wasn't styled in the efficient close-crop preferred by the farmers, either, but shorn along the sides and pulled back from his face in a crest of what looked like narrow, curling braids.

What had a Southerner been doing on the road to the fortress?

Or had he been heading for the westward road that split off halfway up the hill?

She pursed her lips. Maybe the Council would be able to figure that out. They would need to know about him, anyway, if there was someone hunting travelers in these parts. She moved to crouch behind him and slipped her forearms under his armpits. She was just preparing to muscle his body up the rocks and onto the road when the sound of a low, raspy cough brought her up short.

With a hiss, she sat down hard on the muddy bank of the gulley, her arms still around the man's chest.

He coughed again, then moaned and raised one hand as if to touch his head, his entire body beginning to shake.

Rhoa swore and let go of him, quickly gathering the edges of her cloak and wrapping it around them both. She bit her lip and craned to look up at the road. He needed to be taken somewhere dry and warm, whether it was the village Council Hall or the Keep. The Keep didn't have villagers in it, and if he really had come all the way from the South, perhaps he had seen or heard of a sprak nest somewhere.

That was enough of a reason.

Grinding her teeth, Rhoa slipped her arms back around his chest. "Alright. Here's the plan. I'm going to pull you up the hill to my horse, but if you could help me, that would be wonderful. Do you understand?"

Thick dark lashes fluttered, and she felt more than saw him nod his head against her shoulder.

"Alright." She rose onto her haunches and tensed her legs. "One, two, three," she grunted, and straightened her knees. She succeeded in hauling the man's backside up onto the boulder she was standing on. "What do you southern boys eat?" she muttered, stepping up onto the next rock and repeating the process.

Another five minutes of hefting a mostly-dead, barely conscious man up a fifteen foot incline, she managed to drag him to her horse. It took some very loud, insistent coaxing, but she got him up and over the saddle on his belly next to the ration sack. Then she covered him in her cloak and set off.

By the time she reached the lean-to of the Sifting Room, she was shaking hard and soaked to the skin.

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