“You dare to excuse…” Something muffled, maybe reason? “Can’t understand. How…” again incomprehensible… “without my knowing?”

Sabíana pushed gently, and the door opened a crack.

“It is not for you to determine, Mirnían!”

“Father, these rumors come from the wilds every five minutes. Do you remember when all of Vasyllia was in a flurry over a rumor about nomadic armies massing in the Steppelands? When was there ever a nomadic army that threatened anything?”

“Oh, Mirnían. You will not stand there and tell me you see no difference with this situation.”

Silence, tense as the lull before a storm.

“Father, I really don’t see how I should be held responsible for…”

“A Dar is always responsible, you fool!” Father sighed audibly. Sabíana heard more in that sigh than exhaustion. It was old age. “If you will not take responsibility for your lapse in judgment, perhaps you will be kind enough to explain how it is that a future Dar allows himself to publicly berate a future member of his own family?”

“Pah! You don’t actually think Sabíana will go through with it.”

Sabíana pushed the door and advanced on Mirnían. Seeing her, Mirnían’s eyebrows shot up, and he blanched. He retreated three steps and raised his hands in self-defense.

“You idiot, Mirnían! Why is it that I, a woman, can see the ramifications of your actions better than you can yourself? Have you stopped to think for even half a second? You know what sort of element likes to feed the rumors about Voran’s family. You have publicly allied yourself with the babblers. You appear weaker than my future husband. Is that a good vantage point for a Dar-to-be?”

Mirnían stiffened. Sabíana had a sharp desire to strike him across the face.

“Enough, Sabíana,” said Dar Antomír, but his voice was gentle. “He has enough to think about without you berating him.” He pulled her toward him, then leaned on her, grimacing with pain. She helped him sit back down.

“Tell her, Mirnían,” he said, wheezing. “That will be punishment enough. And it is time you learned to respect her counsel more. You will have no better counsellor when I am gone.”

Mirnían looked at her as he did so often in childhood. It was a silent cry for help. How often she had seen that face, whenever he was at his wits’ end, whenever he knew he couldn’t do without her. Poor Mirnían. So talented with people, so generous of heart, so beloved for his beauty and his charm. But just enough wit to know that he lacked the wisdom needed to be Dar. He was once again a little boy in her eyes, face unwashed and eyes wide. She smiled at him, the pity nearly overwhelming her.

“About a month ago,” began Mirnían, “I was finishing an inspection of the door wardens. It was late evening. The doors were already shut when a merchant caravan came into sight at the far end of the plateau. It was one of our second-reachers, one of the more prosperous ones, I believe. I ordered the doors open, though it was after the closing horn-call.

“Everything seemed in order. The Karilan wares—the silks in particular—were exquisite, and the merchant reported nothing amiss with the journey. Just when I was about to send them home, the merchant’s daughter, a little sprightly thing, probably five or six, took a liking to me. She ran up to me. Told me she had a big secret. She said she saw a hawthorn tree weeping tears of water.”

Sabíana failed to understand the significance of the story. Dar Antomír smiled mischievously. “So, you do not know everything, do you, my swan?”

She felt a flush creep up her cheek. “I’m missing the key to the cipher, Father. What does this story have to do with what happened today in the square?”

“Then today,” said Mirnían, more boldly, “Tolnían, a young scout, reports that Living Water has been seen in the form of a weeping tree. At least one healing has been recorded.”

“Oh, by all the Heights,” she whispered in shock. “This is not your fault, Mirnían, but how terrible that you said nothing.”

“I don’t understand why everyone is so disturbed by this news,” complained Mirnían.

“Do you not?” said Sabíana. She shook her head. “Mirnían, what happened after the last appearance of the Living Water?”

Mirnían’s whole body sagged and he raised both hands to his face. They were shaking. “Internecine war between the city-states,” he said. “But how was I to know? It was just a little girl’s story.”

“Enough of that,” said Dar Antomír, more firmly. “No time for it. Now, lest someone in Nebesta or Karila decides to start another internecine war, we must act. Mirnían, stay with me and help me see through this mess. Sabíana, I want you to find Voran. Bring him here.”

She was grateful. Father always knows what I need, she thought. She walked out without another word.

Sabíana found Voran wandering the streets aimlessly, seeing nothing and no one. He looked thinner than he had in weeks, with dark shadows under his eyes that made their green color shine with an eldritch light. Where were his thoughts? Would he be upset to see her after Mirnían publicly insulted him?

He caught her eye standing across a cobbled street in the second reach amidst the merchant homes and public houses. People walked between them, only pretending not to see the daughter of the Dar and her future intended. It was not normal for them to appear in public together, certainly not like this. Luckily, he hurried across the cobbles to her.

“My love, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,” he said, breathless, though he had not been walking fast. His face was grey and sickly. He took her hand in both of his. They were hot to the touch.

“Voran, what has happened to you? You don’t look well.”

“Don’t mother me yet, dear,” he whispered, flashing his usual smile. It was brief, but enough to warm some of her doubts away. “There will be plenty of time for that later.”

“Voran, I came from the Dar. He needs to see you now. Will you come?”

A storm cloud passed over his face for a moment, but he nodded. His eyes glazed over again, and she felt no responding warmth from him when she took his arm.

Sabíana led Voran toward the waterfalls, up a narrow path hugging the headwall of the mountain, overlooking the empty marketplace of the second reach. The path rose gradually until it entered the mountain’s wall through a thick curtain of ivy, near the canals flowing from the twin chalices. It was her private way back home, a secret path in a city full of them. She vaguely remembered that her nanny never liked her taking this way. Apparently, there was an old tale about the Raven escaping Vasylli prisons through this passage.

“Sabíana,” Voran whispered as they walked through the torch-lit passage within the mountain. “What do you make of all this?”

“I don’t know, Voran, I haven’t had time to think.”

“Did you know the Pilgrim has been staying with us these past nights?”

It explained much of Voran’s absence. “No. No one bothered to tell me.”

He was silent, though she was sure she could smell his embarrassment in the dim light. Good. It was high time he apologized for neglecting her.

“Do you remember what your nanny used to say about this passage? About the Raven’s escape?”

She stifled her annoyance. She would make sure he would apologize later.

“Yes. She would still tell me the tale now, given half a chance.”

“You were not at the storytelling, were you?”

She had been expecting something about Mirnían’s outburst. She braced herself. “No. I’m sorry, Voran. Mirnían has so little self-control, sometimes.”

Voran looked at her with a confused expression. “Oh, that? I had forgotten about it already. No, I mention it because the story the Pilgrim told was about the Raven. One I have never heard before. It’s certainly not in the Old Tales.”

As if on purpose, a chill wind howled through the passage, dimming the torches. Sabíana’s blood chilled.

“Pilgrims don’t say anything without good reason,” she said.

“Yes, exactly. Just after the story, Tolnían came with news of Living Water. It made me think.”

“About the traditional link between the appearance of Living Water and the Raven’s eternal quest for immortality?”