Sour bile churned in my stomach as I listened to Bain’s explanation. Reyad and Mogkan’s tactics in Ixia to increase Mogkan’s magic had been sickeningly familiar. Although, they hadn’t raped or killed their thirty-two victims, they tortured their souls from them, leaving them mindless. Just as horrible.

Ferde had gained eleven souls. According to the ritual, the twelfth soul must go to him willingly. No kidnapping for the final ritual, which, when completed, would give him almost unlimited power.

Debate on why Tula survived the initial attack led to a guess that Ferde had been close to being discovered and fled before finishing the ritual.

“Yelena should be protected at all times,” Irys said. Her words brought me back to the meeting. “If we can’t find him, we’ll set up an ambush near the exchange site and apprehend him that way.”

The magicians continued to argue. It seemed as if I would have no say in the plans. It didn’t matter. I would either find Ferde or be at that exchange site. I had failed Tula; I wasn’t going to let Opal suffer the same fate.

A messenger from the Council arrived as the meeting ended. He handed Roze a scroll. She read it then thrust the paper at Irys in what appeared to be disgust. Irys’s shoulders drooped when she scanned the document.

What else has gone wrong? I asked her.

Another situation to deal with. This one is not life threatening, though, just bad timing, she said. At least this will be another chance for you to practice your diplomacy.

How?

An Ixian delegation is expected to arrive in six days.

So soon? I had thought the messenger with the Council’s reply had just left.

Yelena, it’s been five days. It’s a two-day ride to the Ixian border and a half a day to theCommander’s castle.

Five days? So much had happened in those five days that I felt as if I lived one endless day. Difficult, too, to believe I had been living in Sitia for only two and a half seasons. Almost half a year gone in what seemed like a fortnight. My ache for Valek hadn’t dulled, and I wondered if meeting the northern delegation would cause me to miss him more.

I followed the others from the room. In the hallway outside, Zitora linked her arm in mine.

“I need some help,” she said, guiding me from the Keep’s administration building, and toward her tower.

“But I need to—”

“Get some rest. And not go searching the Citadel for Opal,” Zitora said.

“I will, anyway. You know that.”

She nodded. “But not tonight.”

“What do you need?”

A sad smile touched her face. “Help with Tula’s flag. I believe asking her parents would only increase their grief.”

We entered her tower and climbed two flights of stairs to her workroom. Comfortable chairs and tables littered with sewing and art supplies filled the large chamber.

“My seamstress skills are limited,” Zitora said. She moved around the room, adding fabric and thread to the one empty table near the chairs. “But not for the lack of practice. I can sew and embroider, but I’m better at drawing. When I have the time, I’ve been experimenting with painting on silk.”

Satisfied with her collection, Zitora dug through another pile of cloth and pulled out a sheet of white silk. She measured and cut off a five-foot-by-three-foot rectangle.

“The background will be white for Tula’s purity and innocence,” Zitora said. “Yelena, what should I put in the foreground?” When she saw my confusion, she explained, “A grief flag is our way of honoring the dead. It’s a representation of the person. We decorate it with the things that made up a person’s life, and when we raise the flag high, it releases their spirit into the sky. So what would best represent Tula?”

My thoughts went immediately to Ferde. A poisonous snake, red flames for pain and a jar of Curare all came to mind. I scowled, unable to imagine Tula’s spirit free. She had been trapped in the blackness of Ferde’s soul because of my stupidity.

“He’s a cunning demon, isn’t he?” Zitora asked, as if reading my mind. “To have the boldness to live in the Keep, to have the skill to kill under our roof and to have you blame yourself for it. A masterful trick, I’d say.”

“You’re starting to sound like a certain Story Weaver I know,” I said.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Zitora replied. She sorted through colorful squares of silk. “Let’s see. If you had listened to Irys and remained behind, the killer would have gotten Tula and you.”

“But I had gotten my energy back,” I said. Irys had thought it best not to mention Valek’s help.

“Only because you wanted to follow Irys.” Zitora raised a thin eyebrow.

“But I wouldn’t have gone with Ferde willingly.”

“Truly? What if he had promised not to kill Tula in exchange for you?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it, considering. She had a point.

“Once you say the words or move with intent, it’s done. What follows after will not change that, and he would have killed Tula anyway,” Zitora said. She lined the colored squares along the table’s edge. “If you had stayed behind, you would both be gone, and we wouldn’t have the information from the Sandseeds.”

“Are you trying to make me feel better?”

Zitora smiled. “Now, what should we put on Tula’s flag?”

The answer came to mind. “Honeysuckles, a single drop of dew on a blade of grass and glass animals.”