He looked for an hour, and didn’t find Darun. Of the twenty-seven corpses he did find, eight were too charred or mangled even to recognize as male or female. None of the freedmen reappeared, except the one recognizable corpse. Busu was far past saving. The surviving people of Rumshiza remained hidden inside their homes.

Still Ram kept looking. It got him away from Shimrun, and gave him something to do besides think of the enormous void his life had become.

In time, his feet brought him back to the plaza, where he found Shennai staring into the fire by herself. “I’m sure you see it, now,” she said without expression, “if you didn’t before. I told you, I feared more of them than I loved. And it wasn’t always the malicious ones who were most frightening. Malice is predictable.”

“Sometimes,” Ram said, thinking of Ushna. “Not always.”

“You are young, Ram. I’ve had practice. The merely sadistic were some of our easiest charges—they accepted, and expected, that life was cruelty. So long as they could pass on their suffering to someone else, they had no ambitions and asked no questions.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Shimrun knows, and understands, nothing, except that he is ignorant and insufficient. The most basic aspects of life as you know it—such as the political and social limits of life in a hearth—are foreign to him. Even at ordinary conversations with normal human beings, he is clumsy and unpracticed. You will have to be patient with him, I’m afraid.”

“No, I won’t,” he corrected, without raising his voice. “I don’t have to do anything. I could leave you all to flail and die alone; I probably should.” There was another option, of course, a much more tempting one at the moment. He could end this soon enough, for himself. But that was none of her business.

“What about your sister?”

“She’s a sweet kid. But I barely know her. What about—” He couldn’t get her name out.

“Either one of your companions could have died before now. Both were adults, and knew what they were getting into.”

He could have reminded her that he hadn’t been, and hadn’t, but decided not to. That was obvious, and talk was tiring. “Why should I stay, after this?”

“Where else would you go? You are easily the most hated man in the Dominion. There will be no quiet life for you, assuming you wanted it. But I don’t believe you do.”

“No. I want her back, and to throw a spike right through your little bastard’s heart. I’m not getting either.”

“Probably not.” She stared at the fire a moment longer, then added, “The girls would like to perform funeral rites for the dead of this hearth before we go. Would you be interested?”

“No.” Given that the girls had likely killed half of them personally, it seemed more than a little hypocritical. If it gave the kids some measure of peace, they were welcome to it, but he wasn’t going to bother with it just now.

“Very well. Goodbye, then—for the time being.”

“Sure.” He didn’t turn to watch her go, only listened. Her steps were quiet—just as you’d expect from an assassin.

When he was sure she was gone, he spoke again, to the tower fire. “All right, Yellow God. I’m going to assume you’re there to listen. Not because I believe it. Not that I necessarily don’t. Just because I need someone to be angry at right now. I need someone to hate. And you’re all there is. The rest of them don’t count. They’re ignorant.

“I know where this story is going now. I can trace it eight steps back, and eight steps forward. From here on out, it’s only going to get worse. We hit them, and they hit us back. The rest of it’s just more of the same. It’s a stupid story, and it goes in circles, and I know it’s been told before. But I have to assume you’re there to tell it. Otherwise it’d be too goddamn pointless to bother with. Win or lose, the Dominion will come out looking the same in the end, because it has to.

“I just don’t know what this is all about. What’s the point, here? Who started all this, and where’s it going to end? Maybe one corpse every kindling isn’t enough, and every now and then you get hungrier than usual. Maybe that’s what the war is about, too. You need to have more of those dead bodies burn. The girls are fixing you up a snack back there right now.”

The tower fire didn’t so much as flicker. Ram hadn’t expected any different, but he was still angry. “You just couldn’t stand for me to have something good in my life, could you? Even to have a woman who loved me, like a normal man, and forget about all this bullshit for a little while sometimes. Someone who was on my side. Who chose to stick around and help when she had other options. You never get any of that, so why should I? Only eunuchs, children, and crones. Hell, you even got Busu. What did he ever do to you?

“You’re not going to answer me. You never did, and you never will. Fine. I don’t need to hear your excuses. But you’re going to listen.” Ram took a deep breath—and found, to his surprise, that he had nothing left to say. The fire shone as bright and clear and tranquil as ever. If it felt any shame for all the people it had just killed, it didn’t show it. The house Ram had fled to earlier was a pile of debris now, along with most of the buildings along the plaza.

He could feel the eyes of a hundred frightened people watching him from the shadows as he left. “He won’t help you,” he told them. “And I can’t. Help yourselves, if you can. And good luck.”

The worst of it was, he knew he hadn’t lost much. He couldn’t say he’d loved Darun, the way Father loved Mother. He’d enjoyed having her around, sometimes. It might have turned into more than that, someday. As it was, he cried for her, but quietly, and knew that he was only crying for a shut door, and a road closed off. The same as most everything else he’d lost. Mason, militiaman, fugitive, each dream more modest than the last, and quicker to die.

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It was tempting, so very tempting, to simply leave, and make his way down the river to the pyre. Once he was there, he could pick a fight with the first flamekeeper he met, and then the one after that, and by and by they would kill him, and none of this would be a problem anymore. The haranu would cheer him on as he attacked the Ensi’s enemies, idiot that it was, and Shimrun wouldn’t have the courage to stop him.

There was the thought of Father, Mother, and little Zemni, to stay him, but Ram had no more hope left for them than he did for anything else. When his luck ran out—and it would—Zasha would have no more use for them, and dispose of them as he liked, if Tirnun couldn’t save them. And why would she, for the sake of the man who’d gotten her sister killed? Even more than that, Ram didn’t want to look at his parents’ faces and tell them what he’d become, or what he’d done. He’d left them troubled but hopeful. Now their elder son was a walking dead man. It would be better to hear, by rumor, that he had died in battle.

Except, now that he thought on it, he really didn’t want to make it that easy for Jushur, did he? It felt stupid, to live for spite, but it was something. And he didn’t have to decide now—he had work left here.

At least one way out of the hearth was clear; he could hear the girls singing away over the men they’d killed. He took a side street, jogged down an avenue, and sprinted around the bondsmen’s tenements through the gate without anyone seeing him. The fields were empty now—the women had bigger things to worry about than weeding.

The skybarque had all the money they’d collected thus far; he could quietly slip it to one of those women, or hide it somewhere in the wreckage and trust the Rumshizans to find it. It wouldn’t quite be enough to rebuild all this, but it might be enough to save the hearth from going the way of Urapu. Shimrun wouldn’t starve without it, and Ram could …

He stumbled to a halt. Someone was standing next to the barque. Not standing, exactly. More leaning against it, like she’d been hurt. Breathing quickly, too. He couldn’t see her—if it was a her—very clearly, in the shadow of the barque. And he didn’t want to. What would he see?

The figure lifted her head. “Didn’t move fast enough,” Darun’s voice croaked. And she slid, slowly and painfully, down against the side of the craft, until she was sitting in the grass.

Ram stood and stared until the silence grew too painful to bear, then blurted out, “Nobody’s lucky forever.” Then he winced—why had he said that? But Darun laughed.

“Tir warned me, didn’t she? It’s true. Now calm down, and stop making that face. I didn’t survive all that time, and make it all the way out here, only to die the moment you showed up. I just hurt like hell, is all. No, don’t get any closer! You’ll either make an even worse face when you see me, or try to hug me. I don’t even want to think what a hug would feel like right now, boy. I’ve got a burn all down my right side.”

“I’m so sorry,” Ram said, and made himself leave it at that.

“Hey, you said it: nobody’s lucky forever. I was headed this way anyhow. Overdue for some pain. And I’d still rather be here than whoring in Misishi. She’d have a hard time selling me now. There’s the bright side for you.” Her voice was tight with pain.

“The handmaidens probably know something about burns,” Ram offered.

“What, since they cause so many? Do you reckon flamekeepers all know about patching up black eyes and stab wounds?”

“Darun.”

“Maybe if Pimna had some dope on her, now—and I wouldn’t put it past her—I’d take her up on that. Don’t usually partake, but have I mentioned this hurts like a bitch? I think so. Anyway, I think she’s only got that crap for his lungs, and not much of that. If she had anything fun, she’d be using it herself. I’d have made her take it, just to stop her pissing and moaning.”

“Darun, you’re talking too much. That’s not a good sign. Let’s get you back there, and …“

“And what? What are they going to do? I traveled with an expert doctor for blooms. There’s not a whole lot anyone can do without medicine—and even the medicine doesn’t go far, unless they got it off tinapi. Those women don’t have anything. There’s not a damn thing they can do about this. And it’s not like I want to see more of them right now, you know?”

He hesitated. “Well, you’re not going to die.”

She sighed. “Ram, have you ever seen a burn scar? Busu’s left hand, for instance? It’s not pretty.”

It was true. Busu’d never been handsome, but he’d been downright ugly after the attack on the mountain. And his burns had barely touched his face. “I’d still love—“

“Don’t. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Ram. I’m the liar here. You stick to what you’re good at.”

“What if we got tinap medicine, like you said?”

“Sure, there’s hope. You’ve always got hope, don’t you?” She leaned over, letting herself carefully down, until she was lying on her left side. “But I’ll stick to what I’m good at. I try to only lie to other people. Can’t keep the stories straight when I’m not sure what I believe myself.”

“Darun.”

“Ram, dear, if you really want to be helpful, get me a drink, would you? Moving doesn’t feel great, and I’m thirsty.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t have a cup. I’ll have to—“

“Go dig around in the rubble? Yes, I know. That’s the point. Do go away, love. Mommy wants to have a depressive fit now.”

“Okay, if you want. I’ll be back.”

“I know.”

He ran for the gate. Only one thing cheered him: he’d found Darun at the barque. Not the riverside, which would have made more sense, and been closer. The only reason for her to wait at the barque was to avoid being left behind. He hadn’t lost her yet.

The funeral rites were over, the souls of the dead free to assume their spectral stewardship of the hearth under the watch of Rumshiza—whoever Rumshiza had been. Ram hoped, for Busu’s sake, that whoever died to make this hearth hadn’t been as aggravating as Shimrun. His old watchmate deserved a better end than this. And what about Urapu’s ghosts? Were they watching over an empty hearth now, with the odd looter or squatter, or had they dispersed to follow their descendants all over the Dominion?

Now Rinti and Mana huddled in a doorway together, looking lost and miserable, while Pimna and Shennai administered one of Shimrun’s medical treatments right in the middle of the street. The Ensi was already starting to hack into his preferred jar, so they’d been at it for a while.

Ram got close before speaking, and kept his voice low; the girls didn’t need any more guilt just now. They were children, in a situation where children did not belong. He’d no more blame them than he’d blame a mule for kicking when surprised from behind. “Pimna. Who’s had more practice treating burns, you or Shennai?” She’d done Busu, back on the mountain.

Pimna looked surprised, then wary. “I have. Who is hurt?”

“Darun. By the barque. She won’t let me see her, but she says it really hurts.”

“Good. The worst burns don’t.” She spared a glance for Shimrun, still busily horking away. “Very well. I’ll need bandages.”

Ram tugged his sash off at once. It was torn anyway. Pimna pursed her lips, but took the shirt and marched off without another word.

Shimrun wiped his mouth and looked up. “Ram? What’s going on?”

“Nothing you can help with,” Ram told him. Not that he meant to be mean; he simply didn’t have time. He ducked through the gaping doorway of the nearest intact house, over the charred splinters of its old door, and emerged thirty seconds later with a chipped clay beaker. There was no trace of its residents.

He’d left a full copper on the table. As for the rest of the money, they’d have to see. He still wanted to help these people, and he felt like an awful hypocrite to think it, but Tinap medicine didn’t come cheap. They’d crushed half a pyre in moments. Making just one life right again might be beyond their means.