Wirrin was two days into travelling with Dartol before she even learned the name of the young woman from the Church. She was sitting with everyone else, helping to cook lunch, listening to the westerners complain about the cold and the four people who’d come from Toravan make fun of them for it.

Dartol had nine workers with him, five who’d come from across the mountains and the four from Toravan who were headed north for the winter like Wirrin. The two people from the Church had come from across the mountains, but they weren’t working.

Having shared a couple of meals, Wirrin had gotten a closer look at the Church people. The woman wore fairly ordinary travel clothes, thick and good quality. Her gold pendant was a solid pentagon with the central symbols chased and silver-inlaid into it. She wore a rose over crossed swords. It was an intensely expensive thing, but Wirrin didn’t see that it justified the presence of a War mage.

Wirrin had gotten a look at the War mage’s face by now, though he had yet to speak. He was probably about the same age as the woman, both of them likely late-twenties, though it was hard to say. Compared to the woman’s smooth face and round cheeks, he was skinny and grizzled, multiple scars marring his whole face.

It was something Wirrin had noticed about mages, and not just War mages. They all had significant scars on their faces. They all wore the same, heavy, grey robes. And they all wore low-karat, brass-gold symbols of only a single God. They were the only ones who wore only a single God.

‘Clearly you all need to work for the Church,’ Wirrin chuckled her way into the teasing. ‘This lady here’ – she jerked her thumb at the lady in question – ‘looks very comfortable in her fancy winter clothes.’

The woman’s jaw and mouth tightened noticeably, only making her look younger as her cheeks bulged out just a little. ‘This lady?’ she said. ‘I have a name, you know?’

The group around cooking fire went dead quiet when the mage looked up from his book.

‘Oh,’ Wirrin said, in the same, teasing tone. ‘What’s your name then, holy one?’

‘Ketla,’ the woman said.

‘Nice to meet you, Ketla,’ Wirrin said, offering her hand across the fire. ‘I’m Wirrin.’

Ketla frowned and shook Wirrin’s hand lightly. ‘A pleasure to be formally introduced,’ she said after a moment’s hesitation.

The mage looked back at his book.

‘So, you should all be like Ketla,’ Wirrin said. ‘Join the Church and get these nice winter clothes for your travels.’

Ketla was just as definitely from west of the Dividing range as Dartol was. She was tan, and much skinnier than most people from these parts, with a sharper nose and lighter hair. In the west, it was generally seen as distasteful to show off your wealth, as if it made you better than others.

So, as the few people from Toravan chuckled nervously, Ketla stared daggers at Wirrin. The mage might have been smiling to himself under his heavy hood.

‘Ignore her, miss Tassavolt,’ Dartol chuckled. ‘She’s from Ettovica.’

Wirrin widened her eyes as far as she could. ‘And she has a last name?’

Dartol smiled at Wirrin, eyebrows arched.

Wirrin shrugged and didn’t say what was on her mind. Eventually conversation started back up as they ate, Ketla and the mage excluding themselves as was their tendency.

After that, Ketla avoided Wirrin for the fortnight it took the caravan to get to Telenva, as was only polite. A couple of the westerners in the caravan talked to Ketla occasionally, but Wirrin noticed that they all eyed-off the woman’s clothes whenever they did.

Telenva was not where Wirrin had been meaning to go, when she set out from Toravan. She’d been planning to take the slightly quicker route through Getola and the plains. Not only was it more direct, but going across the plains avoided all the switch-backs across the foothills of the Dividing Range.

She didn’t mind going through Telenva, though. It felt more like home than she would find for a good while. On the road to Telenva, they had passed a couple of late caravans headed to the pass with wagons loaded down with stone.

Telenva was a heavy, stone town. It was cut flat into the foothills of the Dividing range, where snow floated down from the mountains and had to be regularly shovelled out into big, slushy piles beside the quarries and mines.

The only thing Wirrin didn’t like about Telenva was the big Church right in the middle of town. Given that it was the main feature of the town, Wirrin would have had a hard time arguing that she liked Telenva, if pressed on the matter.

Though Telenva wasn’t nearly as religious a place as Teslauk, which gave Wirrin the same feeling when she was travelling west, the Church was bigger. It was one of the few Church buildings north of Bitalen to have a pointed roof to shed the nearly endless snow.

It was the snow and stone that reminded Wirrin most of home.

The Church building was so big, and hung with steel murals, because it doubled as a prison. It was only one of many, of course. Most town Churches doubled as gaols, most big cities had prisons, too.

On the day of the 400th year parade, the Church prison in the Sovet valley had been destroyed and almost none of the prisoners had ever been re-captured. It was only since then that Telenva had been a town of any relevance.

Stolen novel; please report.

Dartol’s caravan drove into Telenva in the late morning, planning to stay until the next day so that Dartol could stock up on more stone and ores to sell in Esbolva. Wirrin, Ketla, and the Mage left the caravan to their work to wander the town.

Ketla and the Mage apparently headed straight for the Church prison in the middle of town. Wirrin headed for the Tegaya tavern to see if anyone she knew was in town.

As always, Wirrin immediately spotted the two people who were supposed to be inconspicuous, apparently minding their own business in the general vicinity. They looked just like normal people, wearing their winter clothes and with simple, copper pentagon necklaces.

If it hadn’t been for the third person, an elderly woman in thick furs, staring intently at the two ordinary people, the two Church observers would have blended in perfectly with their surrounds.

Wirrin didn’t have any concerns about her presence being noted by the Church, though, so she nodded to the woman on the roof and let herself through the thick, padded door.

It was a sweltering din inside Tegaya, as it always was at this time of year. The padded doors and shutters were all closed against the cold. A fire burned merrily in the big fireplace against the west wall, and there were too many people.

The only real space in the tavern was around a two-seater table near the fireplace, where two, ordinary-looking people sat. One had a bronze pentagon necklace, the other had a pentagon pattern sewn into his furs.

Wirrin grinned at the barkeep, an elderly man married to the elderly woman on the roof. He grinned right back. ‘Still alive, then?’

‘How much you owe Granny?’ Wirrin asked, leaning on the bar and nearly shouting over the din of conversation and drinking.

‘Not so much, not so much,’ Granpa called back. ‘Always a bad bet against you, Wirrin.’

Wirrin swore she heard someone in the crowd say ‘oh, is that Wirrin?’ but for all she knew it was just the random chance of crowd noises.

‘I’m after some of that blackberry cider,’ Wirrin called across the bar. ‘Is it too late in the year?’

Granpa nodded. ‘I’m not too sure, I’ll give it a look.’ And he trundled off down the bar to check a big cupboard against the north wall. It wasn’t long before he was back with a wax-stoppered bottle that looked black in the dim light of the tavern. As he cut the wax seal off, he used the bottle to point to a table not too far from that same cupboard.

Wirrin paid premium price for the bottle, as was the procedure, and looked around for a few moments. She recognised a fair number of people in the crowded tavern, but only by face. There were too many to see them all, of course.

She didn’t even need to give the little table’s current occupants a significant look, they got up conveniently at the same time she approached. So she sat and sipped the cider.

All of Tegaya’s fruit ciders were good. The blackberry was deeply sour, which Wirrin liked. And she figured it was too early to drink anything with any substantial alcohol in it.

Wirrin had been sitting alone at her two-seater for all of twenty seconds when a middle-aged, southern man draped his jacket over the other chair and sat down. Like Wirrin, he was wearing quite light clothes compared to the locals and westerners around the tavern.

He smiled a wide, cracked smile at Wirrin.

‘Oh, you’re out of prison, are you?’ Wirrin asked, smiling back.

‘For now, I’m out of prison,’ Ensal said, his smile changing to more of a smirk that pulled at the faded scars around his mouth.

Wirrin leaned in. ‘Well, you’re the perfect person, then.’

The crowd around them seemed to approximately double in volume, as was the procedure.

‘Not even going to ask how I’m doing?’ Ensal asked, pulling a deep frown and putting a hand to his chest.

‘You’re out of prison and you’re still in Telenva,’ Wirrin said.

Ensal choked. ‘Alright.’

‘When did they let you out?’ Wirrin asked, fairly shouting. ‘All of you?’

‘All of us that are left,’ Ensal said. ‘End of winter. Same day as the festival.’

‘Are you all still here?’ Wirrin asked, looking around like she would be able to see through the packed crowd. There was no chance the Church observers could still see her, but that didn’t mean much.

‘I’m all in the Tegaya,’ he said. ‘Fifteen went north on whatever caravans would take them. Eleven more of us left in town. We just… didn’t know what to do with ourselves.’

Wirrin crooked a finger and leaned right across the table. ‘I have an idea.’

Ensal’s face smoothed over and most of his wrinkles and scars turned invisible again. He’d put on a lot of weight since Wirrin had seen him last, it was good. He’d been far too skinny in prison.

‘I found Mkaer in the snow,’ Wirrin muttered right into Ensal’s ear. ‘It’s awoken.’

Mkaer rumbled in Wirrin’s mind. ‘What use is he?’

‘No one else is going to your statue,’ Wirrin thought back.

Mkaer didn’t reply with any words, but the rumbling faded slowly this time.

‘You…’ Ensal spluttered for a moment. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure, Ensal,’ Wirrin muttered. ‘I sent word back to Ettovica, too. It’s probably too late in the year already, but I’m absolutely certain.’

‘I…’ Ensal sighed and leaned back in his chair, eyes wide. ‘You…’ That massive grin spread over his face again, all those scars around his mouth becoming prominent against his brown skin. ‘I… that is… something… do you have anything to write on?’

Wirrin pulled some of her homemade vellum out of her pack, along with a pen, and handed them over.

‘This is wonderful news, Wirrin,’ Ensal said. ‘I hope you’re alright with me telling some of our friends. I just…’ Ensal scribbled for a moment. ‘I know your sister’s been trying for a while and it’s…’ Ensal sniffed, not bothering to eye the loudly chattering crowd.

‘I’m sure she’d appreciate it if you congratulated her in person,’ Wirrin said, digging in her pack for a duplicate she’d made of the map to Mkaer. ‘I’m going with a caravan up to Esbolva anyway, so I can’t get back for a while.’

‘You left her all alone?’ Ensal smiled to himself as he wrote. ‘That’s so callous of you.’

‘She’s staying with Willamette,’ Wirrin said. ‘But I’m sure she’d appreciate the help through the winter.’

Ensal finished the note and slid it back across the table. ‘I wouldn’t want to impose on Willamette, would I?’

Wirrin cut off a piece of the velum and scrawled a quick note to Arin. ‘Just let her know I sent you and it’ll be no imposition at all.’

‘Even if I take more of our friends?’

Wirrin slid the note across and nodded. ‘She’ll let you stay, with a certainty.’

‘Now it’s just a matter of getting there,’ Ensal said.

Wirrin slid two gold flowers across the table to Ensal.

‘I would hate for my very own sister to be alone in such a trying time, Ensal,’ Wirrin said. ‘And I’m already busy, aren’t I?’

Ensal’s eyes started to water and he stood across the table to hug Wirrin. ‘After all this, it’s finally here, sister.’

Wirrin patted him on the back a few times.

‘I feel almost as if all this life wasted were worth it,’ Ensal muttered. ‘I…’ He choked on his words and sat back down. He was earnestly crying. Somehow, Wirrin hadn’t expected that.

Ensal was one of the more than two hundred people who had been arrested in Ettovica after the 500-year riots. He had been only seventeen when he was locked up in Telenva, one of the youngest arrested. When she had last visited two years ago, there had been forty-six of them left.

She awkwardly patted his hand a few times.

Finally she tried to say something comforting. ‘Even if it’s been wasted,’ she said, slowly. ‘There’s more life still, is there not?’

Ensal smiled through his tears for a moment. ‘I suppose there is.’