“Thought it silly, the first time I heard it,” Lady Zoya said, long hair streaming behind her as she scanned the sea with a practiced eye. Under her command, the ship purred like a cat, keel pointed unerringly toward the future. “It’s an old legend. Myth. Who cares what some senile old fool wrote centuries ago? We don’t deal in ancient stories and potters’ tales. What does that have to do with the here and now? Blade that Soars can’t help us. Hollow Knife can’t help us. There’s nothing more useless than the devout follower of a dead god, unless it’s the dead god himself.”

She tore her gaze away long enough to survey me head to foot, as if I were an unknown specimen, and turned away again. “I’m not as big on tales as Tea was,” she said, her flinty, gray eyes once more marking the horizon before her. “Old tales aren’t going to change the world. I’ve performed the darashi oyun for a few years now, and I’d never once believed in the words, only in the dance. That’s what’s important, isn’t it? The things you do. But lately, I don’t know. I never knew about the Blight rune. Never realized there were blighted creatures until I disemboweled one myself. What else didn’t the elder asha tell us? What else hadn’t Tea told us?” Her hands clenched the ship’s bow. “Why would she attack Ankyo?”

I had no answer. All that I knew of the Lady Zoya, I learned from the Dark asha. They were former enemies, rivals and friends, confidants and close companions. And now Lady Zoya directed her anger against the bone witch into the whirling winds that jettisoned salt and other furies into the air.

“We had a bad run of blighted a month ago,” she continued. “Fox saved us. He fought off a couple single-handedly, saved Inessa and Her Majesty’s life. Even had time to rescue Hestia of all people, that ungrateful derriere, as Polaire often liked to say. She would have been blight fodder if I had the choice. I’m the worse of us two, but even I draw the line at what Tea’s done. I could understand why she hated them, but not why she would allow her hatred to harm everyone else.

“Maybe Tea was right to tell you her story. It’s no use keeping emotions bottled up inside. Sooner or later, you burst with all you want to say. Shadi would always listen, but Shadi’s in Ankyo and I’m still here.” She stared at me. “Well, go on. You said you had a song to tell, didn’t you? The crew is clinging to one another, but here you are, holding on to those papers like they’re your lifeline. What do you want to know, while I’m in a mood to talk?”

I looked down at the letters. I had been tempted many, many times to skip forward, to read the end of those pages first—but something held me back. It was not the right way to read a story. “Do you miss her?”

She seemed taken aback by the question, her slate eyes meeting mine again. “Yes,” she said. After another pause: “And no. I miss what we used to be. Did she ever tell you how I used to push her around? I never gave her an apology, and she never asked for one. We just kept on until the moment for it had passed. I wish all were as it used to be.”

Her fingers fluttered, and the ship picked up speed. “But those days are over. She harmed my friends, Bard. I lost so many good people these last few months.”

“So did she.”

Lady Zoya smiled with lips a shade of cruel. “It’s not considered ‘losing them’ if you’re responsible for their deaths, Bard. She torched my city. What kind of hatred runs that deep? That’s the quandary, isn’t it? Besides, if she goes down, we lose Fox. Why take you into her confidence? What does she have left to say?”

She stopped speaking as more heavy gusts of wind roared by.

“What does she have left to say?” she asked quietly. Her gaze turned to the letters I held, and I realized it was not a rhetorical question. “Tell me.”