Several watching humans voiced uneasy agreement.

Scott nodded at them in encouragement before turning gravely back to Meoraq. “I have to weigh the risks here and the fact is, Amber Bierce is just one person. It’s difficult to admit this, of course.” He paused and, although his expression remained as grimly serious as ever, something about him smiled anyway, invisibly and fanged. “But a leader has to make difficult decisions.”

“You will not take her in,” Meoraq said. It was not a question. He could feel the color throbbing in his throat, but his thoughts were calm. Black, but calm. “You would let her die to stab at me.”

“She’s not dying!” Nicci shouted before Scott could answer. “Don’t you even say that, you…you…She’ll be fine in the morning! She’s always fine!”

“Will you look after her then?” Meoraq asked her.

Nicci fell at once to a sniffling silence.

Scott patted her shoulder. “If you were offering any kind of real solution, that would be one thing. But to be brutally honest, I’m not sure how we could take care of her for twelve days. She was choking on her own spit a few minutes ago. How are we supposed to give her food and water? I’m sorry, Nichole, I know this is difficult for you. It’s difficult for all of us, but I really think it would be best to let nature take its course. Or let God’s will be done, if you like that better.”

Meoraq’s hand came back to his brow-ridges, rubbing hard enough to hurt. Six breaths, he told himself, and counted them off with his eyes shut. Six breaths, deep and slow, six breaths to Amber.

“I’m not enjoying this—”

“Lies! You’d fuck this moment if you could!” he spat, and took several stabilizing breaths while Scott stood very quiet. At last, Meoraq raised his head and faced them. “I will meditate upon your words and give you my answer in the morning. I don’t want to see any of you until then.”

No one had any reply to that, which was just as well.

Meoraq turned around and went back to his tent, where Amber lay on her side on his mat, just as he had left her. He undressed, placing his clothing in a thin layer atop the blanket before joining her beneath it and pulling her unresisting body against his to warm.

“Father, this world itself moves as You command it,” Meoraq said, pressing his palm gently to her brow. The words were bitter in his mouth, bitter as the bile on Amber’s wet breath. “And whether You choose to heal her or take her into Your halls, I will thank You and love You no less. Only hear the prayer of Your son, I beg, and let Your will be done swiftly, whatever it must be. The hateful little Gann-bastard is right.”

* * *

It was a terrible night that followed. Amber lay silent and cold beside him through every endless hour. He was afraid to give her water, afraid to drown her right there in his arms, but as the day dawned, in a kind of desperation, he did attempt it. She only drooled it out. He tried to imitate the cattle-hands he had seen, who sometimes gave their livestock medicines by stroking their throats to make them swallow. Amber only lay there choking under the weight of his hand. Twice, he brought out the knife of his fathers and held it over her. Twice, he sheathed it again, but he didn’t know if that was the right thing to do. He had dealt deaths beyond counting in his life, but he had never had to wait this way, had never borne the silent struggles of some fragile life his witness and felt so damned helpless and useless and alone as he did now.

He prayed, because that he could do. He said the Healing Chant until the words became as mechanical as any construct of the Ancients. He said the Prayer of Appeal and all forty-three verses of the Bridge of Men. Mostly, he prayed in the words he might use with his father, speaking as thoughts came over him. Sheul might have heard him; Amber never did. He knew long before the dawn showed him her slack face that there would be no surgeon, no medicine, no run to the city. She did not have twelve days to wait for him. She would be dead in three, if she could not rouse to drink. The hope that she might awaken and be miraculously whole had brought him through the night, but when he could see her again and see what those long hours had done to her, he felt even that stubborn hope strain.

The sun rose and Meoraq did not stir. He watched Amber’s clay struggle to hold life within it and listened as the humans outside gathered their goods and made ready for the day’s journey. If they were quieter than usual as they went about these tasks, this was the only sign of their concern. It was as if she were already dead to them—dead and burnt, her memory so far distant that grief was just another word, if they had ever known it at all.

He could not be angry with them, although he wanted to be. Grief, like so many things, was a luxury in the wildlands. And as the first hour of the new day stretched into the second, Meoraq’s heart began to understand what his head had been telling him all night: It may be within his power to prolong Amber’s life, but he could not prevent her death. The longer he tried, the more she—and all the rest of her people—would suffer for it. Between the hated living and the beloved dead, said the Prophet, look to the living, for the dead have done their service and rejoice in Him, but the living may have long roads yet. How many loved ones had Lashraq burnt and left behind him before he came at last to Xi’Matezh and saw his Father’s face?

It was surprisingly little comfort to him, but still Meoraq knew what he had to do. “Take her then,” he said, stroking the smooth curve of Amber’s brow. “Take her, O Father, and receive her well. She is a good woman.”

Then he left her and went out into the bitter cold of Gann’s world.

The humans were waiting for him, all of them clustered around Scott’s fire to share its warmth and whatever was left of the previous night’s meal. They’d struck their tents and taken up their beds, filled the flasks and were even now loading their packs onto the sleds. Scott came to meet him, as he had known he would. “How is she?” he asked, pretending deep concern.

Meoraq looked past him to Nicci, standing small and pale at Scott’s side. “Do you wish to speak to her?”

“Is she talking?” Scott asked, looking so surprised as to seem alarmed.

“No. But perhaps she will hear you.”

“I…” Nicci looked at Scott. He put his arm around her. She bent her head and trembled. She did not go to Amber’s side.

So be it.

Meoraq drew the knife of his fathers from the sheath over his heart. It was the best he could offer her. “Gather fuel. As much as can be carried. The fire will have to burn all day.”

“What are you going to do with that?” Nicci asked, staring at his father’s knife.

He looked at her, knowing that even she couldn’t really be so ignorant as to ask that. And she was crying already, so yes, she knew. “It will be quick,” he promised. And, as much as he detested her, his heart thawed a little, enough to give her an honest tap at her smooth brow with the hand that did not hold a killing blade. “Don’t grieve. She will see her true Father’s face soon and I believe His arms will be open to her.”

“Don’t let him do it!” Nicci begged, clutching at Scott’s arm. Water ran out of her eyes in fresh streams. “Please, make him stop!”

Scott nodded, patting at her back. “You’re not going to kill her,” he told Meoraq.

The words should have carried some hope to him, but Scott’s look of somber joy never faltered. “I don’t mark you,” Meoraq said, sheathing his father’s knife.

“We’ve discussed it.” Scott put Nicci aside and, as she sought out another chest to support her, put his hand on Meoraq’s arm and led him a short distance from the others. A very short distance. He still wanted to be seen. He still meant to be heard. “We’ve decided to leave her here with a few supplies…some water…maybe a blanket…In case she wakes up.”