It was me.
Agnieszka stands braced against the wind with her mother's hand-knit gloves and hat; caught in the freezing wind, the scarf flickers and flies behind her, tugging at her throat in a way that reminds the councilwoman entirely too much of a hangman's rope.
Miles away in Myrkentown, dissent flies through the streets, caused primarily by a seamstress and a madman, and wasn't it a sign of the times that Myrken would prefer their words and empty promises to Glenn and Ariane and her own self, a group of people who had literally moved though the shadow of death to make sure their countrymen were safe? That Myrken Wood refer madness to sense? That at the heart of it all, the only thing that remained or mattered in Myrken Wood was always naked, brazen ambition? It had always been evil, before -- the Ashfiend, the cults, the Baie, all scrambling for the power fear gave them. And now Myrken Wood learned from them, turned their faces from the sun, allowed that evil to crawl in and burn alongside the white-hot winter hunger, and could she honestly blame them? It had happened to Agnieszka as well. It drove her to Razasan and back, and now, landed her on the top of this hill among the ruins of a dead church.
It's all right in the end, she thinks, taking a gulp of cold winter air. They'll tire of her, too. We're hungry, ugly. Rats, all of us, and we'll turn on each other as soon as a look askance, and the only loyalty is in blood. If Gloria Wynsee wishes to be the Rat-Queen, who am I to deny her? They'll turn on her well enough later. I won't even have to intervene.
Rhaena.
It didn't matter if her blade had landed the killing blow or not -- Agnie feels that she's Rhaena's murderer as sure as the sun rises, standing there on the top of the church-hill. She hadn't been there for her friend. She hadn't seen the changes, hadn't wondered, hadn't been smart enough to see that something was going wrong, hadn't even thought to drag Aleskei home from Thessilane. And then Noura -- the thing -- had taken from her Kostroma's final gift, the one thing that stood between the King's Own and the All-Consuming in her service to the Lady, and now her eyes were opened. She saw things differently. She hadn't been strong enough for Rhaena. She hadn't been strong enough for Aeryn, or for the three Kaczmarek graves in the back of the cemetery, or for any of them. Their blood was her fault, her sin. They were dead because of her. She isn't strong enough for beautiful Aleksei, who could very now be dead or worse on Thesil soil.
But she was strong enough for this, she thought.
Behind her, her brother Dominik breathed out, white steam announcing his presence. "We'll have to wait until the snow melts, and we can't dig until the thaw," he says.
"That might be a problem," Agnie answered, shoving her hands further into her coat.
"Well, it's not like I --"
"I just need a wall for now," she interrupts. "Round. The height of a man. I can take care of everything else. We don't have much time left."
Dominik pauses for a moment, and shakes his head before heading back to the sleigh for his measuring devices. "Whatever you want, Agnie."
The wind howls through the round sanctuary of the ruined church, but Agnie's mind is hundreds of miles away, hearing the waves of the ocean crash long below her from the grand tower belonging to the King's Own. She had told him about Myrken's fidelity to good, Myrken's commitment to life. Of her beautiful, sensitive friend Rhaena, of the brave Brothers and Sisters in their stalwart defense, of people who stood up to anything -- together. She hadn't understood the words that followed, the sad shake of Kostroma's head.
But Kostroma was right. Myrken Wood isn't different, she thought. It's not different at all.