Zev and Jolakaia were up and running – kind of clumsily, like their legs were weak – the moment they saw us.

“She needs healing,” Skalla said urgently, lifting me slightly away from his chest to show Jolakaia my shoulder.

“Oh, Suvi,” Jolakaia said softly, examining my shoulder and then my face. She called out some instructions to a nearby Mother’s Hand who then sprinted into the temple to fetch supplies. “No sign of infection like last time,” she said. “We will likely need to suture the wound, though. Your flesh tears so easily and these claw marks are deep.” She sighed, cast her eyes up to the sky, then down again. “The Mother was truly protecting you tonight if this is all my brother did to you.”

“Actually, this wound was from Koltar,” I said in Bohnebregg. “And if he’d had his way it would have been much worse.”

The silence didn’t budge, but tension bloomed inside it like fungi. As if every single person present had suddenly gone rigid. It almost made me feel guilty, like I was the bearer of bad news. I knew how much the Mother’s Eye was respected. Koltar had been both the religious and political leader of this entire city. The devotion and respect he’d been shown was monumental, and to hear that he’d been involved in something like this, that he wasn’t who people had thought, was no doubt devastating to the citizens of Callabarra.

But this was the truth. And it needed to be heard.

“Where is Koltar?” Koraba came forward from the others. “He must be held to account.”

“He is dead,” Skalla snapped. “As is every other foul creature I found at that house.”

Jolakaia flinched slightly, then breathed out, as if in relief but the kind of relief that hurts a little bit. Zev pressed her snout to the side of Jolakaia’s, a silent comfort.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Jolakaia. I wasn’t sorry that Joleb was dead. But I was sorry for her, because he’d been her brother and no matter how you looked at this situation, shit was weird and layered and really fucking hard.

But when Jolakaia met my gaze, she didn’t look sad or angry. She looked very calm. Like a violent storm had passed through her and all that remained now was quiet. Peace.

The crowd, though, was not as peaceful. They didn’t seem too worried about the local murderous warlord dying, but Koltar’s death was another story. Some citizens of the city fell to their knees. Others clutched at each other in shock. Some gazed furiously upwards, as if wanting to drag the Callanna moon down so she could explain just how her Eye could have gone so astray. But the moons were hidden still. And Koltar was too dead to explain anything to anyone.

“A new Mother’s Eye must be made to see,” Koraba said. She spoke firmly, with authority. As she was the oldest Mother’s Hand, I supposed she was probably the highest-ranking person around without Koltar.

“I nominate you, Koraba! Wisest of the Mother’s Hands!” called someone from the crowd.

“Ha! I am too old for such a position,” Koraba shot back.

“You cannot defy the nomination. The Mother will decide,” Jolakaia said, and Koraba jerked her snout to the right.

“Yes, young one. I know. Fine! But being in the running does not prevent me from choosing my own candidate. I nominate Jolakaia!”

Zev grinned and puffed up with pride at the exact moment that Jolakaia shrank back. The reason for Jolakaia’s awkwardness became clear very quickly when complaints and jeers began to spew like vomit from the gathered citizens.

“She comes from metal!”

“Same foul blood as Joleb!”

“Bah! A stain on the Eye!”

“We are going from one murderer to another!”

“It should be Koraba!”

Koraba raised her hand high then closed it in a fist. Slowly, though unhappily, the others quieted.

“The Mother will decide!” she called out sharply, echoing Jolakaia’s words. “But my nomination stands!”

She raked her eyes mercilessly over the people watching, snout raised high.

“Who among us is more worthy than one who has been on the path of metal and has turned from it? Where is the wisdom in following the path of cotton when you were born on its smooth road and you know no other way? Jolakaia has walked in the world, has tasted the bloody glories of metal, and still, she chooses Callabarra. Still, she chooses cotton. She has been relentless in her service to our city because her true spirit is that of a healer. That is the way of the Mother! Let any citizen who disagrees with me prove that they have cared for more of our sick or injured than Jolakaia has!”

No one spoke.

“It is as I thought. None can make such a claim.” Koraba turned her stern eyes onto Jolakaia, who was still slouching shyly. “Stand tall, young one,” she commanded, and Jolakaia straightened, as if disobeying Koraba was far worse than any of her current feelings of embarrassment. “You are as worthy as any other. The Mother will decide.”

In the end, one other person was nominated, a male named Porat whom I vaguely recognized in his green robes as one of the Mother’s Seeds I’d seen working in the temple gardens.

“Now what happens?” I whispered to Zev as the three candidates assembled in the centre of the crowded courtyard.

“Now, the Mother of Cotton will decide,” Zev said. At that moment, two Mother’s Hands came out of the temple. One carried the medical supplies Jolakaia had sent her for, and she made a beeline to me. The other went towards the candidates carrying what appeared to be a pile of folded cotton rags.

Skalla held me close as the young Mother’s Hand began cleaning my shoulder. It stung badly, but soon she’d applied some kind of numbing cream for the sutures, allowing me to focus on what was happening ahead as she closed up the wound.

The three candidates removed their robes and then lay flat on their backs on the ground. Koraba, old and stiff-jointed, took a while to get down into the position, but she shooed away anyone who offered assistance. Once all three were lying flat, the Mother’s Hand went along the row of them, laying a square cloth of white cotton on each of their bellies.

“They must remain lying there,” Zev explained. “Wind will come and tug at the cotton, but that cotton will hold fast on the body of the Mother’s chosen eye.”

“What if no wind comes?” I asked.

“It is the beginning of the rainy season. There will be wind.”

As if on cue, a breeze whispered through the courtyard, making the cotton on the candidates’ bellies flutter. Porat’s was raised a little higher than the others, and after a moment of butterfly-like hovering, his cotton square drifted onto the ground beside him. He rose and left the row, leaving only Koraba and Jolakaia.

The Mother’s Hand working on my shoulder finished up her neat sutures, applied bandages, then dabbed ointments around my eye and onto my cracked lips. I could sense the tension in Skalla, letting someone else get that close to me when I was injured, but he kept his possessive growls to himself, though I felt the restrained rumble of them in his chest as he held me.

“Thank you,” I whispered, and she nodded at me before heading to join the other Mother’s Hands. I returned my attention to Jolakaia and Koraba lying on the blue river and gold stone ahead. I frowned, noting cracks in the stone beneath their bodies. Had those cracks always been there?

I didn’t have time to dwell on it, because another wind was blowing, now. This one stronger, humid, insistent. It tousled my damp hair, skimming my skin like a physical caress. The crowd was so quiet that the sound of my own heartbeat, and that of Skalla’s, flooded my head. I realized I was holding my breath without even meaning to as the wind reached Koraba and Jolakaia.

It wasn’t an aggressive gust of wind. It wasn’t grabby or greedy or pushy. But it was strong, and like the hand of a firm but fair mother, it did not yield until the job that needed to be done was complete.