Ai Sela sat on the wooden pews at the back of the cathedral. Despite what Ren had said to Bueralan earlier about the god-touched being solitary, they gathered around Sela in such a tight circle that at first the saboteur felt as if he was an intruder. It was not until Aela Ren broke through the ring that Bueralan saw the exhaustion and grief upon Sela that caused such concern in her fellow immortals.
Sela had run from Gtara to Ranan. She had been left in Gtara to watch Glafanr and, because she was not expected join them in Ranan, they had not left her a mount. He could still recall the sight of her when they left the town: she had stood in the centre of the town with a look of relief on her face that he envied. Sela had had a terrible job: she had the blind slaves to care for, and the bodies of the Keepers and the slavers to dispose of, but Bueralan understood why she would prefer to stay.
‘It happened two days after you left,’ Ai Sela said to the Innocent, pushing herself to her feet as he approached. ‘I left Glafanr in the morning to check on the slaves. I had put them in the hulls of the other ships. It was not a long walk, but I did not think that the ship was under threat. What could threaten Glafanr?’ She ran her hand through her dark hair, grabbing at it as she did. ‘It happened once I stepped onto the dock. I felt the air behind me change, as if the wind blowing in off Leviathan’s Blood had suddenly picked up because of a storm. But when I turned around, Glafanr was simply gone. There was a ripple in the water, and I thought – I thought that it had sunk. I dived in after it, but Glafanr wasn’t there. Of course it hadn’t sunk. Of course.’
It could not sink, Bueralan finished to himself. A swell of panic ran through the god-touched men and women around Sela as they whispered and talked to each other. Only he and Orlan – who had pushed through the crowd towards the end of her story – did not share it. Instead, the old man’s blue-eyed gaze met his with a cool curiosity. Something, he knew, just as Bueralan knew, important had happened.
‘I can tell you what befell Glafanr,’ Se’Saera said from behind them. She stood at the podium and looked, Bueralan thought, to have aged since she had arrived in Ranan. She was still young, and still beautiful, but she had cast off the last of her childhood youth and now looked like a young woman. ‘But truly, you should not look for answers among yourselves. I offer this only as advice to you all. Do not look into yourself. Look to me. I have answers for you.’
‘I did not mean to offend,’ Ai Sela said respectfully.
‘You have not.’ The god left the podium and walked towards them. ‘Glafanr has returned to the River of the Dead. It takes Zaifyr to Heüala.’
Bueralan felt a jolt of recognition at the first name – he remembered the charm-laced man standing next to him beneath Mireea – but was confused by the second. The murmurs around him did not help. He did know of a River of the Dead, but it was in Yeala and was named because of sealife that came up it to die. At its end rested a huge lake filled with bones, but he was sure that the long, twisting river was not the one that Se’Saera meant. ‘I can feel him approaching,’ the god continued. ‘The river has no defined length, but it will take Glafanr a long time to reach the gates of Heüala with him upon it. He is accompanied by the ancient dead who threatened me in Yeflam, and by others, of which only one I know intimately. He is my eyes. My first creation and part of my first betrayal.’ She paused, as if she could see the great ship now, travelling the waters of another world. Perhaps, Bueralan realized, she could. ‘What you see here before you is but a small part of me. My parents carried me to Heüala before they began to sacrifice themselves in this world. I can be threatened there, but I am not afraid. I have seen Zaifyr’s arrival. I have seen the staff that he will use to open the gates. My general will fall at the same time and you, Aela, will go to retrieve his body for me.
‘But first,’ she said, her attention returning to those before her in the cathedral. ‘First you and your soldiers will ride to the south. You will find a force there made from the remnants of Mireea and Yeflam. They have been welded together by the Saan, who have come here because of what happened in Ooila.’
‘They will be dealt with,’ the Innocent said calmly.
‘You should know that Eidan is with them,’ she said. ‘He is in the company of both Jae’le and Tinh Tu.’
He nodded, but there was a hint, Bueralan saw, of pleasure and violence in his gaze.
Se’Saera began to leave, but in mid-stride she stopped. ‘Fate is not whole yet,’ she said, not just to Ren, but to all the god-touched. She did not face them, but rather stared at the empty walls of her cathedral. ‘I know some of you thought I would have been better served to find the remains of my parents throughout the world, but the pull to Ranan is too strong, too prevalent in all the futures I see. Here, our victory will be won, and you will all stand beside me after it. None of you will die. You will all be part of my world. You will be the faces of myself in the world. You will define me to both the Faithful and the faithless.’ She turned to them, to all of them, including Bueralan and Orlan. ‘But we should not be complacent. There are dangers. We are not under threat, but the shape of the world I will create is. We cannot allow for that to be subverted.’
After she left, the Innocent turned to those around him and issued a short order to prepare to ride in the next few days. ‘And you,’ he said to Samuel Orlan, after he had given it, ‘I will need you. I do not know the land that lies between here and Mireea well.’
The cartographer met the other man’s gaze without flinching. ‘If I’d rather stay?’
‘Bueralan will stay to care for the girl,’ he said.
‘That’s not what I meant,’ he began, but before he could say more, Bueralan interrupted. ‘Let Kaze stay to care for Taela,’ he said.
It was not just Orlan who looked at him in surprise. ‘Why would you want to come?’ Ren asked.
He could lie, but the saboteur knew it would do him no good against this man. ‘It isn’t about me,’ he said. ‘Taela needs care that I can’t give her. Kaze can do that. I’ll fill her place in your little army while she does that.’
The Innocent had questions, but so did Orlan, and the other men and women in the cathedral. He could see Kaze at the back of the ground, the last of the light caught on her glasses, and he knew that she had questions as well. And they should: Bueralan had told the truth, but it was half a truth, one that hid another, and that other truth was that he had a plan. A sudden, desperate plan, one first born in the conversation he and Ren had had about Onaedo. One that – if he wanted to help Taela – he could not wait to begin.
After what seemed like an eternity, Aela Ren nodded, and the exchange was accepted without further comment.