Chapter Twenty

As dawn neared, the terrain gradually changed, the downhill slope of the twisting path turning upward. She kept the horse's pace at a steady trot, and as the path grew steeper, she gripped the saddle once more, leaning forward with her feet braced hard against the stirrups.

Scrub turned to cork trees interspersed with straggling stands of junipers, a smaller variety than those atop the necropolis hill in the Sanctuary, but the smell of them still reminded her unpleasantly of sacrifice and the will of the gods. She banished the thought, reminding herself that she was refusing to dwell on those things. She had enough immediate problems that she couldn't really afford to, anyway.

As she crested a rise, a small town came into view. The sun wasn't yet quite over the horizon, but even so, the scene seemed unnaturally still. Tanitha was about to urge the horse forward regardless when a slender blue insect darted in front of her. Tanitha released her ongoing command to drive the horse forward, and it stopped with a quiet nicker, immediately lowering its head to investigate a nearby patch of tall grass.

She could admire its consistency, Tanitha supposed. She dismounted as the insect flew by once more, and a moment later, Alethia appeared in her humanoid form. Tanitha tied the horse's reins to the branch of a nearby tree, then turned to face her, waiting.

"This town suffered an outbreak of the Blistering Death," Alethia said quietly. Tanitha's heart lurched. A wave of nausea passed over her, completely irrelevant to her present condition.

"The Blistering Death?" she asked, her voice a whisper despite her determination to appear unbothered and unafraid in front of Alethia.

"Yes," Alethia said. She looked out over the village, her gaze grim. Tanitha remembered how casual she'd seemed in the first Trial, and the contrast made her feel even more afraid. Even Alethia wasn't willing to treat a plague outbreak like a game. "This town is small, but it serves as a waypoint for overland trade caravans, many of which supply our ships in turn. It's a serious loss, even not taking into consideration the suffering that occurred here." She shook her head, her jaw clenched. "We believe it was deliberate contamination," she said.

Tanitha turned to face her directly, the motion quick and tight with horror. "You think it was deliberate?" Tanitha asked. "Why would someone ever do that?"

"It isn't the first time," Alethia said. "Not by any means. If soldiers cannot solve a problem, often disease can. This was a message from Sabria. Demons don't contract the illness, so this allows them to highlight the divide between my kind and yours. It's clever. Fomenting discontent at a time when the coalition's ties are uncertain, forcing demons to guard the area personally, restricting the flow of resources…" Her mouth twisted. "It accomplishes quite a bit, provided you're willing to build accomplishments on boils and pustules and death."

Tanitha swallowed. "What am I doing here?" she asked, stifling a quaver from her voice.

"The town's occupants have been evacuated, and we have healers inbound to the isolation camps to treat the infected that can be saved. But I'm sure you're aware of how long the Death can remain in the environment even after its carriers have left," Alethia said. "We cannot risk further contamination. The town must be razed and rebuilt. Your task is simply to clear the area of any remaining seeds of plague. Anyone with even a slight ability to manage fire should be able to do it." She tilted her head. "You have until sundown."

With that, she turned away. With a loud whirring of wings, she returned to her insect form and vanished from Tanitha's line of sight.

Heart still beating hard, Tanitha turned to the town. Something was wrong, she thought, uneasiness creeping through her entire body. Anyone with a slight ability to manage fire should be able to do this? That was an overstatement; someone with no ability to manage fire could manage this. Given a few live embers and perhaps some oil, anyone could set a town of wooden timbers ablaze.

She bit her lip. It was a trick. No one would be able to sing praises of a Trial like this without resorting to some truly creative interpretations of the event. Was that the point? Did Naratha and Alethia just not want her to do anything impressive? Alethia had mentioned that her public display of abilities had endeared her to the public; did they just not want to give her a similar opportunity again? If so, this would be effective to that end.

But… it wasn't effective at the other objective that Tanitha assumed they had. It seemed clear that they had no intention of allowing Tanitha to pass these Trials. Why give her one that seemed… well, easy? Easy and practically mundane.

Tanitha thought back to Darius, to his words when Tanitha had first awakened in his arms. False hope. Was that what this was about? A way to let Tanitha and Darius think there was some way that she might win this, before that hope was cruelly stripped away in the final Trial? That might serve Alethia's purposes. And as for Naratha… Naratha might simply see this as a way to assess Tanitha's other abilities so that she knew precisely how to craft the final Trial.

Tanitha considered that angle for a moment. It seemed like a fair explanation for the strangeness of this, but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else, some other element that she was missing. It was barely past dawn, and Alethia was giving her until sundown to burn down an empty village? It was just strange.

Of course, given the fact that Tanitha had yet to take a single step forward, perhaps Alethia hadn't been wrong in her estimate of how long this might take.

Tanitha lifted one foot, then set it down again. She took a deep breath, almost managing to make herself start forward before freezing in place again. Maybe, she thought, feeling ill, maybe she was overthinking the matter. Maybe the demons were simply assuming that a child orphaned by the Blistering Death wouldn't be able to force herself to enter a plague-town.

There was more than half a chance they were right.

She realized her limbs were shaking, and she took several deep breaths, counting the seconds of each one. When the trembles had faded, she took one step forward, then another, then another, focusing on the terrain immediately ahead of her. The hill was steep, its soil loose and treacherous, for which she was bizarrely grateful. Each slip, each pause to steady herself served to keep her thoughts tightly focused on the descent and her own motions. On anything besides her destination.

As she came to the bottom of the hill, she changed her focus, still keeping her gaze directed at the ground. It was true that she was avoiding looking toward the town, but she had a specific objective. At this time of year, the small creeping herb called dirimia would be in full bloom.

The thought brought with it memory, and she paused, closing her eyes and forcing herself to breathe once more as her mind conjured up memories that she would have preferred remain at rest. Dried dirimia blooms, symbolic of purification and cleanliness, rattling as wind skittered them across the cobblestones of empty streets, while the cloying scent of blossoms that hadn't been dried properly choked the air… She took several more deep breaths, trying to calm her rising heart rate.

Maybe she didn't need dirimia, she thought, pushing down a rise of nausea at the thought of its scent. Yes, it had protective properties against illness, but this town had already been cleared of any living who might still carry the disease.

Of course, Alethia had said nothing of the dead.

Tanitha closed her eyes hard, and a pair of tears leaked out. No matter how much she hated the scent of dirimia, no matter what memories it brought, she'd be a fool to walk in without it. And she'd also be a fool to forget how convenient it would be for her enemies if she conquered another Trial only to be tragically brought low by an illness that she'd failed to adequately guard herself against.

She walked into the tall grasses that swayed gently in the wind, scanning the ground as she went. Dirimia was a creeping plant, and it generally grew in shaded areas, so she pressed through the grasses to walk into a stand of corkwood trees. There was something disconcerting about the trees, their gnarled and still boughs, but perhaps it was just the eeriness of the whole scene. The utter silence of the town at her back.

She found the first tangle of dirimia nestled against the roots of one of the larger trees. She knelt beside it. Though her hand was trembling, she grabbed a handful of the plant's creeping tendrils. As she did, the sharp scent hit her, and she retched, memories flaring with full force. She turned to one side, unable to fight it anymore, and vomited.

When she'd brought up more than should have been possible, she sat back on her heels, breathing heavily. Tears were streaming down her face from both distress and the pain of vomiting. She wiped them away with a trembling hand. So much for not showing weakness to Alethia , she thought. But even in the moment she knew that the thought was just a distraction, a lesser cause of distress that she could cling to so she could avoid thinking about the real problem. The fact that she was about to walk into a plague town.

Holding her breath, she seized the dirimia once more, tearing up a chunk of it from its roots, then grabbed another handful and did the same. She took both bundles and staggered away from the grove, as if it would help to escape the scent while she still carried it. Still holding her breath, she reminded herself that the plant's smell wasn't unpleasant. It was sharp, yes, but it wasn't a bad smell. The only reason she found it objectionable was because of association. And while that was perfectly understandable, it wasn't helping her right now. Right now, she needed to take what aid she could of the tiny white blooms to protect herself from what their scent reminded her of.

Tanitha dropped the bundles, seizing the fabric of her right sleeve. She could smell the herb's scent on her hands, and she stuffed down another rise of nausea as she gripped the fabric tight. A strange, distant part of her mind was protesting, bringing up considerations like the worth of the dress, the value of such fine fabric. She didn't push the thoughts away, perhaps out of gratitude for even a tiny and useless distraction, but neither did she allow them to dissuade her from what she needed to do. Bunching the fabric just beneath the shoulder, she leaned back and wrenched on the sleeve.

It took several attempts, but after a few minutes, the sleeve finally tore free from the shoulder of the dress at the seam. Tanitha slid it down over her arm, dislodging it quickly, then knelt. She'd considered using her hem, but the sleeve had the advantage of creating a natural pocket, and she truly couldn't stand the idea of dirimia directly against her face like she would have to do if there was only one layer of fabric. She stuffed the strands of the plant into the remains of her sleeve, lifting both ends to shake it so that it was bunched in the center. She twisted the fabric on either end, then lifted her makeshift mask, tying the sachet of dirimia over her nose and mouth.

She had to tear it loose almost immediately as she retched once more, but to her gratitude, she didn't actually vomit. Carefully, she pulled it back into place, taking shallow, tentative breaths as she became acclimatized to the smell. Slowly, gradually, it seemed less pungent, and her mind seemed to accept it as less of a herald of sickness and pain.

She rose to her feet. She still felt unsteady, but she forced herself to turn toward the little town regardless.

Just a village , she told herself, though the thought felt weak and tremulous. Just an empty collection of buildings. Nothing to fear. This isn't Spaudia.

Though she would have been a fool to think it wasn't meant to remind her of that.

She stifled a rise of anger, though she was unsure if she should be directing it at Alethia or Naratha or perhaps both. Then she decided it simply didn't matter who had put her in this situation. It didn't matter which of those two women had made the calculated choice that Tanitha should walk into a reenactment of her own nightmares, of her deepest fears. What mattered right now was that she had to overcome this.

She passed a few buildings of stone with straw roofs at the outer edges of the town. She kept her gaze straight ahead, trying very hard to ignore the glimpses of swollen and infected bodies that she'd sighted through unsecured shutters. There was still a scent of sickness on the air, one Tanitha knew well, but the breeze was at her back, driving the worst of it away from her. As she passed by another abandoned home, the wooden shutters to its windows creaking slightly open, her heartrate surged again. She stopped, closing her eyes against the prowling anxiety in her breast that seemed about to give way to full-blown panic. Not Spaudia, she reminded herself again. This isn't Spaudia, and you are no longer a child. You can do this. It's a simple task.

But that very fact was still bothering her. She kept her eyes closed, breathing slowly through the bundle of herbs still tied over her face, trying to ignore the moments when the scent seemed stronger. Surely Naratha hadn't been counting on Tanitha being too overcome with the pain of her memories that she wouldn't be able to manage a little fire?

Of course, it wasn't going to be a little bit. It was going to be a conflagration. Was that the plan? Let Tanitha set a blaze that would cause destruction in the nearby countryside? She supposed it was possible, although it didn't really answer the central question. Even if she lit the entire mountainside afire, so long as the town was purged of plague, she'd have accomplished the task. Of course, that possibility would do quite a bit to dampen the human population's hopes for her. Their enthusiasm would wane considerably if they thought she was reckless and uncontrolled, willing to wreak destruction in the service of the demon queen.

She glanced at the brightening sky, biting her lip. Until sundown, Alethia had said. A sensible voice in Tanitha's mind suggested that she should take her time and do this slowly, to make it less obvious what her actual limitations were. But the thought repulsed her. Aside from her own natural aversion to lingering, there was a deeper urge at play. An urge to burn this place, to destroy the seeds of plague so utterly that no one else would be harmed by it.

She walked through the town, past the disfigured and swollen bodies, past the empty buildings, past the wells and shrines and half-collapsed market stalls. She knew she couldn't wipe the Blistering Death from the face of the world. She knew she couldn't offer further help and aid to the people who'd fled this place. But she could stop it from spreading any further. She could cauterize this wound, stop it from spreading to more of her people from here.

She reached the far limit of the town, the point where she'd originally entered it. At its border, she stopped, having planned her route. She raised one hand over her head, laying it flat against the roof of an open-walled workshed to her right.

The structure caught fire easily, the flames warm and red, growing larger and brighter as they spread along the reeds and rushes of the roof.

She walked from building to building, smoke rising high in the sky behind her. She worked in an order, her calm and deliberate methodology a contrast against the raw crackling flames that rose as she worked. Fire was a dangerous tool, but a tool nonetheless. Fire meant death, but in many ways, it meant life. It meant warmth and protection against cold. It meant cooked meals and community. And now, it meant purification, safety from illness.

Periodically, she stopped, forcing the flames to burn at a lower heat even though it meant spending longer in this silent, deserted hell. Her dress was soaked through with her own sweat, and she frequently had to kneel to the ground to breathe a few lungsful of smokeless air. Each time, she had to fight off her earlier urge to simply set off a conflagration and have done with it all. She couldn't risk rushing this. It hadn't escaped her that Naratha's plan could simply be for Tanitha to fall victim to her own flames.

She wasn't going to be careless, and she also wasn't going to be caught unawares if the situation shifted abruptly. She could vaguely sense Alethia's presence as well as that of the other two demons, so she knew she was being observed, but Alethia seemed to be maintaining a reasonable distance between them so far. Tanitha didn't have any reason to suspect interference, and she supposed it was possible Alethia wasn't even capable of manipulating fire, and that she was worrying herself to distraction over nothing. Nonetheless, she kept her senses open for any surges of power, any unexpected shifts in smoke and flame, always monitoring her surroundings to make sure that she had clear avenues of escape.

But nothing happened. The blaze burned as Tanitha had intended and directed, and even when it had grown far beyond what she could comfortably control, nothing changed. The town continued to burn, and the smoke continued to rise to the sky.

When she had burned perhaps half of the town, it was early afternoon. The sky was orange and brown where the sun shone through the smoke, making her feel short of time despite how she logically knew that she still had hours until sunset.

The relative smoothness of her task thus far was making her feel perversely more suspicious than ever, and she found herself checking her senses to determine the demons' relative locations every few moments. She stopped planting new flames, then walked directly down the town's central avenue. As she walked, she kept her senses alert and open. It wasn't too late for some kind of ‘accident' to occur.

There was a loud crash behind her, and Tanitha jumped, looking around. She saw nothing, and though she knew it was likely just a door slamming in the wind or some such, it still set her on edge. The town seemed empty, but…

Her eyes still closed, Tanitha reached out with her mind. At first, she picked up very little—small minds, small consciousnesses. Rats, mice, insects, and the like. Keeping a part of her mind focused on managing the slow, steady blaze of flames at her back, Tanitha pushed the radius of her consciousness outward, and seconds later, she went still, her blood running cold. On the east side of the town, the furthest from her position, she felt several more complex minds. They were shining only weakly, dim stars in a sea of black, but there was a feverish, torpid sort of activity to them. Human minds. Human minds rendered dull and lethargic by the ravages of a plague.

Tanitha dropped to one knee, the realization driving her down. There were still people here. Not very many. But they were here, and they were alive.

Tanitha didn't think further than that. She lunged to her feet and ran forward.

She had to pause several times, checking her senses and correcting her direction. The minds she could sense were weak and flickering, enough so that sometimes she doubted that she really was sensing other humans, but the doubt never lasted long; there were occasional flares of brightness from the consciousnesses she sensed, occasional moments of lucidity.

Not every survivor had been evacuated. Perhaps they, like Lithra and Tanitha so long ago, had simply had no one to care for them. Or perhaps they had simply been left to die.

Tanitha ran past a small huddle of houses, then skidded to a halt. That sound, that moan… it could have been the wind moving over an open urn or barrel. But it could have just as easily been something else.

Her heart pounding, she closed her eyes. Though she felt as if she were trembling down to her very spirit, she reached out with her senses once more.

The presence of the sickly human mind she'd been sensing immediately struck her, seeming much brighter now that she was close. Eyes still closed, she turned, orienting herself toward it.

The building she saw when she opened her eyes was large, the crudely painted mural on its side marking it as a brewery, a fact which was borne out by the rancid smell that permeated from it even through the haze of smoke that was growing thicker on the air. Tanitha sent an anxious glance over her shoulder as she mentally dampened the flames again. It was harder than it previously had been, and she applied a harsh shove of pressure, driving them back. She couldn't afford to lose control of them. Her life wasn't the only one on the line now.

She passed a pair of abandoned handcarts to enter the front door of the brewery. There were vats sunk into the floor, most of them still filled. Scum encroached from their edges, a sickly yellow-brown froth. The air stung her eyes, though the dirimia blooms were keeping the worst of it away from her nose and lungs. The room was utterly still but for occasional bubbles rippling to the top of the vats, the sound unnaturally loud in this quiet, dead place.

But it wasn't completely dead. She could sense that much. She cast her eyes about, and they landed on a heap of grain sacks, some filled, most empty. Warily, she approached.

As she'd both hoped and feared, she saw a human form lying behind the pile, loosely covered with a few of the empty sacks. Despite expecting the sight, her heart still jolted unpleasantly when she saw him. He was older, perhaps Ivathi Yarun's age, although that was hard to determine with how badly disfigured his skin was. Tanitha wrenched her gaze away, but the sight was seared into her regardless. The man's skin, every inch that she could see of it, was covered in pale pustules. Some had burst, leaving a foul-smelling pus in their place.

The man stirred weakly, and Tanitha glanced away and then back, at war with herself. She had no idea if this man could be saved, if he was too far gone. But one thing she did know for certain. She wasn't going to leave him to burn while she purged the town.

Getting the man to one of the carts outside the brewery was a near impossibility, mostly because of the memories and searing revulsion that tore through her at the briefest contact with the plague-ridden man, but somehow she managed. A crawling sensation that made her want to claw her own skin off wouldn't leave her, and it was a battle just to keep her hands at her side, to resist the urge to scratch at herself. All the while, a suspicion about the true purpose of this Trial nagged at the back of her mind, one that she didn't want to fully acknowledge.

She shoved it away in favor of checking the power of the fire. It had regained momentum since she'd dampened it mere moments before, and if it grew much stronger, it might well be beyond her ability to safely control. But she couldn't risk simply extinguishing it; she wouldn't have time to safely grow it to the necessary strength again, not before sundown. Gritting her teeth, she siphoned a little strength, a little momentum, from the fire. Just enough to buy herself some time.

She closed her eyes, sending out a pulse of her own consciousness. Immediately, she felt several more human minds, all as hazy as that of the man behind her.

Tanitha didn't hesitate. Securing her repurposed sleeve over her face, she took off at a run.

Though she had to stop several times to orient herself, she eventually came to a small cluster of homes. Swallowing back tears born of nightmares, fear, and stinging smoke, she entered one and searched it quickly, but found nothing. She moved to its neighbor, and this time found far more than she'd wanted— the bloated, distended bodies of four people. She turned away, gagging for several painful seconds before she was able to master herself. She closed her eyes, extending her consciousness. She was in the right place, and the mind she felt seemed… alert. Very alert, actually— enough that she suspected her presence was noted.

She gently touched the mind. Come out, she thought, pushing her will gently against the fear and anxiety she felt there, overlaying it with a sense of calm that she herself couldn't feel. Come out. I'm a friend.

There was silence for several seconds, and then, the wardrobe door opened. Tanitha turned quickly as a small pair of legs swung over the lip of the wardrobe. The child, dark-eyed and thin, stepped out, staring at her solemnly.

Tanitha stepped forward, and the child flinched. She stopped, raising one hand in a calming gesture.

"It's all right," Tanitha said, looking him over. To her intense relief, she didn't see any signs of infection. "I'm here to take you somewhere safe."

Slowly, she approached. The child just looked at her, a strange yet familiar numbness in his gaze. Tanitha swallowed. She knew that look. She'd worn it herself. The look of being completely overwhelmed, of having felt and feared too much to feel or fear anything at all. She almost wished she could be in that state now, but she couldn't let herself slide into it. Not now, not yet.

"It's all right," she said again. She knelt beside the child, taking his hand lightly in hers. His hair was lank and dirty, his face streaked with the trails of old tears. Tanitha gently reached out once again with her mind, then caught the child as his eyes fluttered closed and he began to fall to one side.

Carefully, gently, she gathered him up in her arms and stood. She didn't know what horrors this child had already seen, but she'd step into the Abyss before she let one more nightmare sear itself into his mind.

She took him back to where she'd left the older man. Though her natural instincts railed against bringing an apparently healthy child anywhere near someone infected, there was little choice.

The air was noticeably warmer than when she'd left, and far hazier. Her eyes stinging from smoke and tears she could no longer suppress, she laid the child as far from the man as she could on the cart, then positioned herself between the cart's traces and began to pull. All the while, she kept her senses open, both for other people and for the strength of the ominously growing blaze.

She managed to get the man and the boy to the edge of town and off the cart, leaving them to rest beneath the shade of a nearby stand of trees. And then, fighting her instincts to their very edge, she entered the town once more.

In the end, she'd gathered up thirteen people. Three more of them were children; the remainder were elderly men and women. All forgotten or abandoned by the death of their loved ones, all somehow missed in the chaos. Some could walk of their own power, but most she had to half-carry to the cart, her muscles trembling as she supported them while soul-speaking, directing the movements of bodies that could barely obey. All the while, she strained against the hunger of the flames that fought against her control, eagerly seeking more to burn and devour.

Once she was absolutely certain there were no more living beings within the town's borders, absolutely certain she had gathered all those who'd been abandoned, she collapsed beside the cart, perhaps ten paces from those she had rescued and then led to the refuge of sleep. Leaning against the cart's wooden wheel, she forced herself to look back at the town, its outline dark against the glowing backdrop of flame that angrily burgeoned against her hold on it.

With a quiet gasp of relief, she let go.

She felt more than saw the sudden rush forward as the flames greedily consumed the fuel that she'd been restraining them from. With a shudder, she pulled her thoughts away from them, retracting her consciousness back into herself.

Her muscles trembling, she turned back to the row of supine people she'd pulled from the town. Despite the slumber she'd put them in, occasional whimpers of pain still escaped some of them. Her stomach twisted. It was entirely possible that they'd just been missed in the evacuation, and there was nothing that pointed conclusively to foul play. But a part of her, a deep, uncomfortable part of her was wondering nonetheless if perhaps they'd been left deliberately.

It made a twisted kind of sense; Naratha wasn't the sort to leave very much to chance. It could be that she'd assumed Tanitha would surrender rather than enter a town ravaged by plague. But in the event that Tanitha did push through her own fear, if she had set the town ablaze and then fled, these people would have died of flames rather than plague. And if that story were told… well, that was a very different story from a human woman who loved a prince and was willing to step into danger to prove it. It was a story of a human woman filled with such cold, calculated resolve that she would burn her fellows alive to curry a demon queen's approval. Someone who would kill innocents in the pursuit of her goals.

She swallowed. The thought made her sick, but at the same time, she knew she'd never have an answer one way or another. Not from Naratha. Because an answer to the affirmative told a very clear story of its own. A story of a demon queen so determined to undermine the woman her son loved that she'd sacrifice human lives to do it. Or perhaps a demon queen so entrenched in her belief that Tanitha was a danger to her son that it didn't matter who died to protect him from her.

With a groan, Tanitha sat upright, shielding her face from the growing heat of the flames. Whether the point of this had been to break Tanitha, sour public opinion toward her, or both, it didn't matter. She had more immediate problems. She'd have to move her little group farther up the road soon, away from the heat. But she didn't have the strength for that quite yet.

The demons arbitrating the task had yet to make an appearance, though Tanitha could vaguely sense them. With a quiet groan, Tanitha struggled to her feet and picked up a bucket she'd grabbed at one point during her frenzied rescue. Satisfied that her group would be all right for a few moments, she began the walk to the stream. She might be worn to exhaustion, but she could still do something for these people, at least make them slightly more comfortable while she waited.

She found the stream several minutes later. Fortunately, it ran from the east, so she was upstream of the town, of the ashes and embers that she was certain would be contaminating and clogging its banks further downstream. Grateful for this small mercy, she filled the bucket, then made her way back.

The plague victims were as she'd left them. She knelt by the side of one of them, a woman whose frame had been so twisted by agony when Tanitha found her that Tanitha hadn't been sure she'd be able to walk. Her skin still crawled from the contact she'd made with these people, but she shoved that away. She could feel revolted by the symptoms of the Blistering Death later. She could likewise later succumb to the fear of infection herself, later . But right now, she needed to offer what help she could. She reached for the bucket.

"Tanitha." She jumped; Alethia had appeared beside her. Chastising herself for not keeping her senses partially open, she tilted her face upward to look at the demon woman. Alethia wasn't looking at her. Instead, her gaze was sweeping over the plague victims, her expression giving nothing away.

"What are you doing?" Alethia asked, finally turning her inscrutable dark eyes on Tanitha.

Tanitha stood. Her knees were trembling. Save for when Alethia had half-carried her to Darius, she didn't think she'd ever stood so close to her. But despite how uncomfortably aware of Alethia's strength she was, she had another matter on her mind.

"Did you know?" she demanded, her voice harsh with smoke and exhaustion and anger. Alethia turned her head slightly in a question, her gaze still inscrutable. "When you told me my task, did you know these people were here ?"

"I relayed all information that I had been given," Alethia said, but despite how level her tone was, there was something in her gaze, a slight discomfiture in her eyes and posture. Strangely, despite her anger, Tanitha found herself believing her.

She took a calming breath. "Can you heal them?" she asked. The air around them was beginning to haze with heat and some smoke, though it wasn't impacting her breathing yet. Alethia sent her a startled look, and Tanitha pressed on, "You are a demon, which means you are a soul-speaker in at least some capacity. And if you are a soul-speaker, you have the potential to be able to heal." Alethia didn't speak, just watched her, brow furrowed. "Can you do it?" Tanitha asked again, a hint of plea entering her voice.

"Do you understand what you are asking?" Alethia asked softly, her tone so unexpectedly gentle that it took Tanitha a moment to process the words.

"Do I understand… I'm asking you to save their lives," she said, bewildered.

"You're asking for assistance with your Trial," Alethia said quietly. "Do you know what that would mean? If I assist you, it means that you are accepting defeat, accepting that you cannot succeed. And as for me, if I did that without a statement of surrender from you, I would be violating one of our most honored traditions." She folded her arms. "This leads to death for you, and disgrace for me," she said. "A high cost for us both, I think."

"What are you talking about?" Tanitha demanded. "The Trial is— look around!" she exclaimed, motioning toward the town that burned behind them. "It's done, or close enough! You told me the town needed to be razed, and I have done it! I've burned these people's homes, their possessions, their livelihoods, in the name of preserving their lives and the lives of others! Saving them has nothing to do with that!"

"Your task," Alethia said, "was not to simply raze the town. It was to purge the Blistering Death from this area." Tanitha went still, staring at her. Alethia nodded once to the people lying motionless at their feet as dread coiled in Tanitha's stomach. "Whatever the state of the town itself, the Blistering Death is still very much here," she said. "Your Trial is not over. And it will not be until you either admit defeat, or until you truly have purged the plague." Strangely, there was a faint air of reluctance to her words, but Tanitha could barely register it in the face of what Alethia was implying.

Tanitha swallowed. "Are you saying… that I need to kill them?" she asked, her voice a tight whisper.

Alethia met her eyes. "That would meet the requirements," she said, with no particular inflection.

Tanitha's hands were shaking. "And you'd let me do it?" she asked softly. "You'd stand there and watch, then declare my Trial fulfilled after I murdered them?"

"I am forbidden from interfering, or even advising any course of action," Alethia said quietly. "Make your choice."

"What is wrong with you?" Tanitha demanded, furious. Alethia didn't answer. "These— these are people !" Tanitha said through her teeth. "Not pawns in a game!"

"I'm glad that you see it thus," Alethia said. "But you know the terms. Surrender the Trial and ask me to help again, and I will. But don't think to pretend that I didn't warn you what the cost would be."

Tanitha stared at her for several agonizing seconds, then wrenched her gaze away. This shouldn't be surprising to her. This shouldn't be shocking. As Alethia had said, she knew the terms.

She looked at the plague victims, taking a ragged breath. She couldn't let them die, let alone kill them herself. She simply couldn't. But if she didn't… if Alethia healed them, if Alethia did that, then it was Tanitha who would die. She'd return to her cell, and she'd never see Darius again.

She closed her eyes. Darius. Maybe he'd be able to do as he planned. Maybe he'd be able to escape. Maybe she could surrender and yet still survive. Darius had asked her once if she would be content in a small life, and perhaps once she would have been, at least for a time. But she wasn't the same as she had been then, and she never would be again. A life on the run, a life constantly buffeted by the whims of a demon queen rather than her own choices… in her heart, she knew it wouldn't be enough.

She turned back to the unconscious plague victims.

She closed her eyes once more, tears leaking from the corners. Gods, she had no idea if she could do this. Soul-speaking as a way to heal… Alethia had been right when she'd deduced that Tanitha had a gap in her education there. She took a bracing breath, though the surge of the scent of the blossoms in the makeshift sachet was enough to make her want to retch. She sank down to sit in front of the young boy. She lightly brushed against his consciousness, then pushed deeper, keeping the contact as gentle as she possibly could.

She felt at the junction between the young boy's body and soul. It felt strong, though his spirit itself was rattled and strained. Pushing farther, she gained a sense of his body. Healthy. Hungry, weary, and strained by fear, but healthy.

She withdrew. So, that was the goal. To get the other twelve to the same state as this boy. The task Alethia had delivered to her was simple; she was to purge the Blistering Death from this area. And she intended to do so.

Alethia was still present; Tanitha could sense her. But she didn't look up, didn't open her eyes. She just shifted her attention to the older man to the boy's right, using his consciousness as an access point to his body as she had before.

It took her several seconds to get her bearings, to feel his body in the same way she could feel her own, to distance herself from her own sensations while still remaining connected to them. As before, time seemed to both shrink and stretch, and she had no sense of it but for a vague idea that it was passing.

All at once, she came to a strange, unsettled awareness of a wrongness, a fundamental misalignment in the man's body. As if... as if the body was a garden, and there were seeds of disease and pain. Seeds that had sprouted and taken root.

Distantly, she felt her jaw clench. She might not be able to fully heal the way this disease had ravaged these people's bodies, but she could remove those weeds. She could stop them from deepening their own roots, from feeding themselves on the strength of these people, and from spreading.

Slowly, she reached into the root system of the seeds of illness, and she tore the invading disease apart.

She couldn't say how long it took. All she knew was that she slowly moved through the man's entire body, finding the invading seeds one by one, killing them one by one. Death in exchange for life.

When her eyes fluttered open, the man's horrible rattling breath had calmed dramatically. The sores on his skin were still present, but they looked less putrid, less angry. She nodded wearily. That hadn't been easy, but her weariness was from simple expenditure of effort; it wasn't the same frazzled and disjointed pain she'd experienced upon splitting her consciousness a thousand times to direct a cloud of sparrows. She could keep doing this.

And so she did. One by one, she knelt in front of the still, sleeping forms of the people she'd brought from the city. One by one, she tore apart the roots of disease that had twined themselves through these people's bodies. One by one, she gave them a chance to heal, to come back from the brink where they'd stood.

When she'd finished, she got to her feet, swaying slightly. Everyone was breathing, the motion slow and sure, without the labored rattles and pained whimpers that had brought back such intense memories and fear. She kept her hands at her sides, determined not to touch her face, not to swipe her hands over her eyes as she shed a few tears, the moisture wicking into the fabric of her makeshift mask. They'd live. They still needed additional care to recover their strength, but they'd live.

Feeling tired in a deep and indescribable way, she turned to face Alethia, then realized with a jolt that she wasn't alone. The other two demons were there as well. All three were watching her, their expressions utterly inscrutable.

"I've done as you asked," Tanitha said. Behind Alethia, the last orange sliver of the sun's rays were receding over the edge of the mountain. Tanitha took a shaky breath. "You told me to eliminate the plague from this town," she said. "I have done so."

The demons glanced at each other. Then, without a word, Hathia knelt beside the first of the human plague victims, the older man. She placed a hand on his chest, and Tanitha forced herself to remain still despite a massive surge of anxiety and fear. Hathia frowned, then removed her hand and stood, moving to the next person, then the next. When she was done, she turned to Alethia and Torius, then motioned them to follow her a short distance away.

Tanitha stayed where she was, trying not to let her raging anxiety show in her expression or posture as the demons discussed among themselves in a low murmur. Had she done it? Had she truly purged the plague from the area? Or had she missed some tiny seeds of illness in one of the remaining survivors?

At last, they turned back to Tanitha. She put her hands behind her back, keeping her bearing level and poised as Hathia stepped forward.

"We rule this Trial successful," she said.