“This is all your fault. The stupid mattugrs prove nothing. All they did was make those banished hate you enough to starve you, to hurt your women, to place burdens on your backs for revenge. You have no one to blame but yourselves.”
“Rasmira,” Irrenia says as a warning. These men all hold my fate in their hands, and I don’t care one bit. I survived the wild. I survived a god. And whatever else they decide to do to me next, I will survive that, too.
“Perhaps,” my father finally says. “But we have you to thank for our salvation.”
Father reaches down and hoists me onto one of his shoulders. I nearly lose my balance, because I’m unprepared for the movement. “All hail Rasmira Bendrauggo, God Killer!”
Deafening noise engulfs me. I know Father tacked on my surname so he would receive recognition, so all would know it was his daughter that slew the man who terrorized all the villages.
And for once, I don’t care.
I feel whole.
* * *
EVERYONE GOES HOME TO their villages afterward. And Peruxolo—Cadmael? The leaders decide to leave him right where he is. For the ziken to feed on, just as he’d doomed the previous leader of Restin. An order, I now realize, Cadmael gave to hide the metallic triangle he used to kill him.
It’s difficult dragging myself away from the crowd. Shouts of “God Killer” follow me all the way from the Payment site to the village. People swarm me, want to talk to me, want to offer compliments up to the goddess on my behalf, thank me for killing the false god.
It’s only by Irrenia insisting she needs to tend to me back at the house, where her supplies are, that Father finally makes the crowds go away.
He’s only too happy to turn their attention onto himself.
Now I sit on Irrenia’s mattress, with an army of ointments staring at me from the shelves in the room. Soren, Iric, and Aros sit on the pillows and furs on the floor of the room, watching. Despite witnessing me kill the god, they insisted they would see me home.
So here we are.
“Are you almost done, Irrenia?” I ask. “I’m ready to sleep in my own bed.”
“Not even close,” she says. “I still have to treat the cuts on your face.”
“They’re barely scratches!”
“You’re my patient, and you will sit through any treatments I deem necessary.”
As I’ve long learned, arguing is pointless. It’s partly an act, anyway. The familiarity of my sister tending to my injuries is a balm to my homesick heart. I was not lying about my bed, though. I crave it desperately.
“And I thought Rasmira was bossy,” Iric whispers to Soren.
“I heard that,” Irrenia says.
Iric grins before scooting closer to Aros.
“If she decides to smack you, I won’t stop her,” Aros says.
“To think I suffered through monsters only to be done in by Raz’s little sister.”
“I’m older,” Irrenia says.
“But littler.”
Irrenia closes her eyes and draws in a deep breath. “You willingly lived with this person?” she asks.
“I didn’t have much of a choice,” I assure her.
She throws a look over her shoulder toward Soren, who watches her administrations carefully. “I suppose I would have suffered through it, too, if it meant spending more time with the handsome one.”
Soren’s cheeks redden, but Iric speaks before he can say anything. “I’m the handsome one!”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, he is,” Aros says.
I can’t help it. The bickering is contagious. “No, he’s not.”
Soren rewards me with a perfectly handsome smile.
“Two against two,” Irrenia says. “That means Soren has the tie-breaking vote.”
“He doesn’t get the tie-breaking vote regarding his own looks!” Iric says.
“In that case, your vote doesn’t count, either. So Soren wins.”
Aros eventually calms down Iric’s outrage. Iric doesn’t know Irrenia enough to know she’s only teasing him, and I’m far too amused by the exchange to make her put a stop to it.
The door opens suddenly, and all talking comes to a halt as my father steps inside.
Inwardly, I groan.
“Are the worst of her injuries tended to?” he asks. “There’s a matter Rasmira needs to see to.”
“Can it not wait until tomorrow?” I ask. Is he going to make me talk to the elders? If he intends to parade me around to seek more praise from villagers—
“I don’t think you’ll want to put this off. It’s to do with your mother.”
That has me on my feet so quickly, Irrenia nearly drops the damp cloth in her hand.
* * *
I FOLLOW FATHER THROUGH the streets, Soren behind me. Iric opted to stay and argue with my sister more, but really I don’t think he wanted to leave his close proximity to Aros. Fine by me.
“I’ve had a talk with the elders,” Father says. “You should know you have been reinstated as my heir and proclaimed a woman and a warrior for all the village to hear. I would have done that with you present, but I didn’t think Irrenia would permit it. This, however, is a matter that needs your immediate attention.”
Those in the village have already returned to their work for the day, despite the earlier battle with the god. A blacksmith hammers in his forge. The smell of freshly cooked valder wafts from the open door of an eatery, which will only be available for purchase at an exorbitant price. Peruxolo may have been defeated, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t already hurt our meat supply—
“Father. In the mountain where the god—Cadmael—lived, there’s food. He’s dried our meat to preserve it. It’s still there. We must send people out to retrieve it. The other villages will want to be notified so they can retrieve their goods as well.”
“It will be done,” Father says. “Will you lead a group of warriors through the wild?”
If he asked me that question before my banishment, I wouldn’t have been able to do it, but now—“Of course.”
And that’s the end of it.
Father eventually stops in the open air of the village square. The elders of Seravin survey two figures kneeling on the ground, a warrior on each side of them to prevent them from running.
One of the bent figures is my mother. The other is Torrin.
“Kachina Bendrauggo has admitted her guilt before myself and the elders,” Father says. “She freely stated that she lied about what happened at your trial and revealed the truth. She says this man, Torrin Grimsson, sabotaged your test.
“This village cannot take back the punishment that was dealt to you. What’s done is done. However, these are those who have wronged you. They have told lies before the goddess. And as the person most affected and the future leader of Seravin, I leave it to you, Rasmira, to decide their fate.”
I blink. Whatever I thought my father might say, I wasn’t expecting this.
“You want me to choose their punishment?” I ask.
“It is the least we can do for what you have done for our people.”
It is a strange thing to have the two people who caused me the most suffering bowed before me, awaiting my judgment. I could do anything to them. Have them beheaded. Issue them their own mattugrs to see how they like it.
Those are my first thoughts. I can’t help it. I suffered greatly because of what they did. But if there is anything I learned out in the wild, it is that a mattugr proves nothing. It does not turn one person from a child to an adult. It does not suddenly turn you into a great warrior or fill your head with wisdom. It is a pointless task meant to restore honor. But honor cannot be given. It is something that you find within yourself.
And I think Mother finally found hers.
Mother cannot bear to maintain eye contact with me, it would seem, for she turns her gaze downward. In a hollow voice, she says, “I begged the goddess for forgiveness every night you were gone. I prayed for your deliverance from the wild. Now that she has answered my pleadings, I will accept any fate you choose for me.”
She’s probably telling the truth, and there may be hope for our future together—but right now, I don’t trust her, and I don’t want her in my life.