There was a contrast between the two conclaves of the Mages Guild which Liv had attended, and the meeting of the Eld at the Hall of the Ancestors. At first, she found it difficult to put into words; but accompanying Keri and Calm Waters to the grove where the children were left to play made it more clear.

Blossom and Rei scampered off, immediately scrambling over the time-worn tree trunks and boulders that had been artfully arranged into a complicated, enticing tangle, with places to climb, to hide, and to leap. They mixed into the swarm of Elden children and were lost like pebbles thrown into a mountain stream, leaving Wren’s cousin standing on her tiptoes in an attempt to keep her daughter in view.

“She will be fine,” Keri told Calm Waters. “We always leave guards here. In fact, your grandmother always used to volunteer to watch over the children.”

“Not this time,” Liv said. With her husband dead, Eila tär Väinis would sit on the council, one of the three elders for House Syvä.

The amphitheater was at once simple, far less ornate than the great hall at Coral Bay, or the guild hall in Freeport, but also somehow more welcoming, or at least less exclusionary. The fact that a place had been so lovingly prepared for the children of all those who came, and that anyone could find a seat on the ascending stone rings that encircled the bottom of the depression, where the elders would sit, spoke of a conception of the Vakansa as a people. The Mages Guild, on the other hand, had even made bodyguards like Wren sit outside.

She would have liked it if Keri could be sitting next to her, down at the center of the amphitheater. But he was not an elder of House Bælris, and seating him as one of the three seats given to Whitehill would have meant snubbing either the Grenfells or the Crosbies. Neither family deserved that.

He walked her down the rings of steps, at least, with Master Grenfell and Arnold Crosbie trailing along behind them. Two new benches had been freshly raised from the earth there, of stone not yet worn so smooth as the eleven which had come before. On the furthest of these, Soaring Eagle and Walking Tree sat, a woman so old that her eyes had gone cloudy and her hands nearly become claws. Rather than trust the bench, Ghveris stood behind them.

Liv might have taken the center of the other bench, but she wanted to be able to speak with her grandmother easily. Eila and the rest of House Syvä had – wherever they might have been accustomed to sit – taken the bench immediately to Liv’s left. Next to Eila sat Valtteri and Kaija. Both were noticeably younger than many of the elders who slowly filled in the other benches, but they were not the only ones. Ambassador Sakari, for instance, and every other member of the Iravata delegation, were in a similar position. It was the visible representation of the losses the Eld had suffered during the war with Ractia.

“I’ll be just up there,” Keri murmured, leaning down to speak in Liv’s ear from where he stood, just behind her. He pointed up to where Wren, Miina, and a cluster of Liv’s guards sat surrounded by groups of Red Shield hunters, Whitehill soldiers, and northern Tundra Riders.

Liv nodded, and allowed herself to watch Keri climb the steps, if only for a moment. He was still slow, still uneasy, and he kept his cane. But compared to what he’d been like just after returning from the ring – or those first days after being struck down, lying in a bed on the second floor of the Sign of the Terrapin – he’d improved immeasurably.

Only once she’d seen him seated did Liv turn and look over the benches of elders, all settling into place. She recognized more than half, at this point. Some she’d met with over the past few days, others she’d fought beside in Varuna.

“The Head of the Council rotates,” Eila explained, leaning close to Liv. “When last we met it was the eldest of House Kalleis. That means for this council, Raija kæn Kaulris will be running things. If her house hadn’t come – which they often don’t – the responsibility would have fallen to House Keria.”

It was alphabetical, then. “That means the next few meetings will all be run by people friendly to us,” Liv reasoned. “Aira the next time we gather, and then you.”

The ascending stone rings had nearly filled, and so many voices were murmuring up above them that it felt like an immense pressure, bearing down on Liv’s ears. Finally, Raija stood, still shrouded in her black robes, hood and veil. The conversations among the audience subsided. Master Grenfell, sitting on the end of the Whitehill bench nearest the Red Shields, quietly began to translate for those who did not speak Vakansa. Liv smiled at the sight: it didn’t surprise her in the least that he had mastered the language.

“For the first time since our Houses made peace here, so long ago, we are joined by those who are not of the Vakansa,” the old woman said, extending her arm to indicate the two new benches. “And it is fitting that it should be so. Our people have not fought Ractia alone, but with allies. And as our first order of business is to judge those who made themselves our enemies in war, the voices of those allies must be heard. We shall begin with the judgement of Wren Wind Dancer. Step forward.”

Liv watched her friend descend, and when Wren looked her way, their eyes met. Liv nodded to her, doing her best to project confidence.

“This woman has made no secret of the fact that she served the Lady of Blood,” Raija declared. “In fact, she stole the vial of god-blood that enabled Ractia’s resurrection. She followed the goddess across Varuna, and took part in the assault on Soltheris. But upon seeing the deaths of our people, she abandoned the service of her mistress, and fled south. At Whitehill, she gave information on the enemy that House Syvä presented to this council when last we met. Since then, she has fought against the enemy in Lucania, in our lands, and in Varuna. The question before us is this: should this woman be held to account for the harm her actions have caused?”

Nearly as soon as the veiled elder had finished speaking, Veera of Soltheris had risen, and after receiving a nod from Raija, she began to speak. “This woman attacked our people,” Veera argued. “As surely as the traitor Calevis attacked us here in the Hall of Ancestors. She went to Soltheris, weapon in hand, as part of not an assault upon enemy soldiers, but a slaughter of innocent people. How many of you here were there at Soltheris? I was. I watched the bodies being dragged into rows on the street. Some were riddled by arrows, some had throats ripped out by the Bats of Ractia. Some were burned. Not only Wren Wind Dancer, but every captive who took part in that assault should be executed for what they did.”

Liv’s glanced at Wren, and saw that her friend was visibly trembling. The huntress’s eyes were fixed on some point behind the council.

“Furthermore,” Veera continued. “Her actions are directly responsible for the resurrection of Ractia. Can not every death, every instance of suffering, every tear shed by a child who has lost their mother or father, even the assault on this council itself, be laid, ultimately, at this woman’s feet? Had she not stolen the blood of a dead goddess and brought it to Varuna, none of this would have happened. Not the attack on Soltheris, not the desecration of this hall, and, finally, not any part of this war.”

Liv had expected, from the behavior of Juhani in Varuna, that the argument against Wren would come from this quarter. She’d expected it, but she was still impressed by how eloquent the elder House Kalleis had chosen to speak actually was. An angry murmur had spread throughout the ascending stone rings in which the audience had gathered.

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She had not expected that Ghveris would step forward next, though now Liv thought that it should not have surprised her. With a great clanking and the echoing impact of heavy steel upon packed earth, the Antrian strode forward, hardly waiting for a signal from Raija before he began.

“What Wren Wind Dancer did, she did as a soldier following orders,” Ghveris practically roared, his deep, artificial voice easily filling the amphitheater. Liv guessed that he might be clearly heard in the camps, as well, from the way some of those in the front row of stone benches flinched back.

“Her chief and her father sent her to return a statue that had been stolen from her tribe,” the war-machine continued. “Would not the Eld wish the return of something stolen by Lucania? Would not Whitehill seek the return of something stolen by Lendh ka Dakruim? How could she know that this one act would lead to war?”

“Wren Wind Dancer is a good woman,” Ghveris declared. “I have watched her fight and bleed to win this war. I have seen her hurt and sick. She killed Baron Erskine at the battle of the pass, and defeated her own father before the gates of Nightfall Peak. She faced Ractia herself. Ask yourselves not how much guilt she bears for her mistake, but how many lives she has saved since. And ask yourself, you who sit on this council, how many of you have given so much as she has.”

The war-machine’s shoulders, those great pauldrons of enchanted steel, shook in the wake of his words. Liv thought of the morning she’d found Wren asleep in the desert, leaning up against Ghveris, and thought that she understood. She stood up from her place on the bench, walked over to her friend, and put a hand on his etched vambrace. Gently, she led him back to his place behind the Red Shield bench. Only after that did Liv look to Raija for permission to speak.

She was already standing, and at the elder’s nod, Liv looked out across the hundreds of people seated around and above her. That old urge to hide came upon her, for just a moment: to hunch her shoulders and lower her head and hope that she would be ignored. But she’d spoken at the conclave at Coral Bay, sat the high table in the great hall at Castle Whitehill, and led men and women into battle in Varuna. So instead, she squared her shoulders and raised her chin.

“This question is not truly about Wren,” Liv declared. “It is about how we treat the people we have defeated. Every soldier of House Iravata, every Lucanian mercenary, and every Red Shield that we’ve captured, they all fought against us. They were our enemies. The Lucanian soldiers who attacked Whitehill were our enemies. But simply being a soldier who fought against the alliance is not enough cause to treat someone as a criminal,” she argued.

“The blood-letters who dragged our men up the slope on Nightfall Peak and sacrificed them? If any had survived, I would argue for their deaths,” Liv said. “Calevis, who brought weapons to this place, set an ambush, and killed members of this council? He would deserve punishment. Those who have tortured, who have slaughtered the innocent, who have committed atrocities, by all means, punish them. But Wren thought she was helping her people. When she realized what Ractia intended, when she was confronted, she came to us with information that we needed. At every step of the way since then, she’s been one of the people most committed to stopping Ractia – because she saw what the Lady of Blood was doing to her people. She made a choice, as terrifying as it must have been to come to us, and she’s kept to that choice since, no matter how dangerous it’s been. I would trust her with my life, and I have, for nearly two years now. There are those among us far more deserving of punishment than she is.”

At those words, Liv deliberately turned to face the left side of the seated crowd, where she found Juhani of Soltheris, and met his eyes. Then, she turned, and once again took her seat on the stone bench that had been provided for the Whitehill delegation.

Raija stood. “We have heard a speaker each from House Kalleis, from the Red Shield Tribe, and from Whitehill,” she said. “Is there any other house that would speak on this issue?”

Liv was certain Juhani would have leapt to his feet if he could: but like Keri, he was not old enough to speak, and unlike Liv, he was not here as part of a separate faction. Instead, the soldier from Soltheris was forced to sit there, stewing in his own anger.

“I would,” Elder Aira said, getting to her feet with a sigh. She placed both hands on top of her cane. “It is as simple as this. If you punish people for realizing they were wrong, and having the courage to not only admit it, but take action, then how can you ever expect anyone to do that? The idea that we have anything to judge her for is ridiculous. Take the votes and let’s move on to something reasonable.”

“Very well. Those for putting a rest to this issue, and letting mistress Wind Dancer return to her seat?” Raija said.

Liv raised her hand immediately, as did Arnold Crosbie and Master Grenfell from the same bench. All three Red Shields voted in Wren’s favor, of course, as did House Syvä, House Däivi, House Iravata, and House Kaulris. All three elders of House Asuris raised their hands, as did Keri’s father and one other from House Bælris. Väina, pointedly, did not, nor did anyone from Soltheris. When Elder Aira raised her hand, not only did the rest of House Keria follow her, but a moment later House Isakki as well, and then, like pebbles rolling down the mountainside and building into an avalanche, House Esteri, who had told Liv they would support a consensus.

At thirty-two hands, Elder Raija spoke. “It is settled. Wren Wind Dancer, thank you for all you have done in the war against Ractia. Your service outweighs whatever mistakes you have made. You are welcome in the north, and let none take issue with your past.”

Liv let out a sigh of relief. Days of collecting votes, of making bargains, for this moment. Oh, the decisions yet to be made about the alliance might be more important in an absolute sense – but she had promised her friend that she would be exonerated, and it was a promise that Liv had been determined to keep.

“It will only get harder from here,” her grandmother said, leaning in.

“I know.” Liv nodded, and slipped out of her seat just long enough to catch Wren up in her arms and give her friend a hug. “I told you I had it handled,” she murmured.

“Thank you,” Wren said. “I feel like I haven’t been able to breathe since we got here, and now I can.” Liv could feel her friend’s body shudder. “What about my father?”

Liv took a step back, but kept her hands on Wren’s shoulders. “That’s going to be harder,” she admitted. “I’ll do the best I can, but – I just don’t know.”

Wren nodded, and then Soaring Eagle and Ghveris were there, so Liv stepped back out of the way. She found her seat again, and waited there quietly until Wren had a chance to climb the steps again, and rejoin Keri, Miina, and the others.

“The next question we must address,” Elder Raija said, once the crowd had settled, “is that of Nighthawk Wind Dancer. As the former chief of the Red Shields, he was the one who made the decision to revive the dead goddess. He was one of her commanders, and even fathered a son upon her. He is the only one of her commanders who was captured, rather than killed in battle, or fled. What shall be done with him?”

“Death!” Elder Veera said, springing to her feet immediately. “Every one of Ractia’s commanders must meet death. It is the only way that our people can be safe.” A roar of applause and cheers came from the audience, echoing down from the concentric half circles of benches that rose above.

“You were not recognized, Veera,” Raija chastised the other woman, when the noise had subsided enough for her to be heard. “We will keep to our traditions.”

Liv hesitated for just a moment, and then stood. If she did nothing, she feared that there was little point in arguing for mercy, not after a response like that. She needed to break the momentum, somehow, to confuse things. It might not have been the timing she was planning on, but –

“Livara tär Valtteri,” Raija said, her veil and hood giving a short nod. “Ironic that someone so young, who comes to the Hall of the Ancestors for the first time, shows more patience than some elders. Speak.”

Veera scowled, but sat down.

“I believe there is actually another issue that should be addressed first,” Liv said, taking a moment to look out over the crowd. “The Red Shield Tribe was invited here to speak regarding the fates of both Wren and Nighthawk Wind Dancer, but as of this moment, they are not formally part of this alliance. I propose that that should change. Soaring Eagle and his people aided my father in his journey through the jungles to establish our foothold in Varuna. Both Ghveris and Wren have fought at our side. Let us welcome them into this alliance, as full members, with the corresponding voice and votes on every one of the remaining issues that will come before this council.”

Once again, the crowd erupted in noise – this time, a mix of agreement, vociferous argument, and even applause. If nothing else, Liv had bought time.