“But—”

“I’ve already given Lisana my word. Pick the berries for me, Epiny.”

She stood a long time considering it. Then she spread her handkerchief on the moss and began, one-handed, to pick berries and drop them on it. When she had a goodly pile, she gathered up the four corners of her kerchief and picked it up.

“The way home?” she asked me again.

I made a decision. “Going home the way you came is far too long. Follow this stream,” I told her. “It has to flow downhill. It will take you closer to the end of the road. From there, I think you can beg aid of the men working there. They’ll put you on a cart and get you home.”

It was a long and weary walk for her. The berries, she told me, seemed to have calmed the fear in her and lent her strength. Even so, my heart ached for her. She’d had the sense to put on boots before she stole the horse and cart, but her heavy skirts were scarcely the best hiking garb. I greatly feared that night would fall before we were out of the forest. I wondered if I’d misjudged the way until we heard the muted sounds of axes falling and smelled the smoke of burning brush. “We’re nearly there,” I said quietly. “All you have to do is go toward the sounds. The men working on the road will help you.”

Her response was as subdued. “She took me to the end of the ridge and made me look down on what we had done to her forest. I don’t pretend to understand completely what the ancestor trees mean to her. But for that moment, I felt what she felt, and my heart actually went out to her, Nevare. Different as we are, I still understood that all she wants is to keep things as they are, to protect her people.”

“But we both know that things never remain as they are, Epiny. It’s a lost cause already.”

“Perhaps. But I’ve already said that I’d stop them from cutting the ancestor trees. Do you know exactly what they are?”

“I think that when a Great One dies, the Specks give the body to a tree. And that the tree absorbs the body, and somehow that person lives on as a tree.”

“That’s what Tree Woman is? Lisana?”

“I think so. We’ve never discussed it directly. There are so many things that she assumes I know, and—”

“But that’s horrible! We’re literally killing their elders when we cut those trees! By the good god’s mercy! No wonder they think we’re monsters! Nevare, when you went to Colonel Haren, you should have told him what those trees were! If only he had known!”

“Epiny. I know you’ve read my journal. I did go to Colonel Haren, the morning before the Dust Dance. I told him what those trees meant to the Specks and even warned him that if the cutting did not stop, we’d be facing a different kind of war.

“He dismissed my concern, and said that he thought less of me for having it. He’d heard it before. He saw it as silly superstitious nonsense, and said that once the trees were gone and nothing bad happened to the Specks, they’d see they’d been foolish and come around to our way of thinking. It was as if he believed that if we took their culture away from them, they’d instantly convert to thinking like Gernians. As if our way of seeing the world were the only real one, and that anyone, given the opportunity, would think like we do. I couldn’t make him see any other point of view. Even if I’d told him that the trees were actually the Specks’ ancestors, he’d have been unable to believe me. But, yes, we knew those trees were sacred to the Specks. We’ve evidently known it for a long time. And we keep trying to cut through there anyway.”

“We’ve been fools! Couldn’t someone, for just a moment, have believed the Specks knew the secrets of their forest better than we did? We’ve brought all this on ourselves! The fear, the despair, the Speck plague! It’s all our own doing.”

“I wouldn’t go that far—” I started to say, but she interrupted me.

“So what did you try, then, to stop the cutting?”

“I—well, that is, what else could I do? I told the colonel and pleaded with him to stop it. He refused.”

“Well, you should have done something more!”

“Perhaps I could have, if I’d had time. But on my way home, your friend Hoster’s men shot me.”

“He thought you were a murderer,” she said. She sounded angry and embarrassed.

“I still can’t believe you trusted that man!” I retorted. She stopped and looked up at me, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

“You should just say it and get it over with, Nevare. It’s my fault that you’re in that cell facing death. I betrayed you. I’m so sorry! So sorry.”

“Oh, Epiny, I didn’t mean it that way! You didn’t betray me. All you did was what you thought you should do, keep faith with a man you trusted. And maybe by his own lights, he was a good man. If he believed me such a monster and a threat to the women of the town, then maybe he was justified in sending those men after me. It’s all about what we believe, isn’t it? Not just Gernians and Specks, but even down to individuals like Hoster and you. All we can do is what we think is right, driven by what we know, or what we think we know.”

“Nonetheless, I feel it was my fault. And that was why I had to go to the forest today. To do whatever I could, at any cost, to free you from that cell.” She was no longer meeting my eyes. She trudged on. The forest brush was getting thicker. She pushed her way through.

“Epiny, you don’t have to do anything more.” The ringing of axes came louder now. I could see the sunlight at the edge of the clearing ahead and smell the drifting smoke of the burning slash piles. The work crews were close. “Just get yourself safely home. And if there is any way you can get those berries to me, please do that. And then stay away from whatever happens next, knowing you’ve done your best.”

“Would you go back on your given word, Nevare?” Her hair had tangled in a bush. She stopped and made an exasperated sound as she pulled it free.

“Of course not!”

“Then how can you suggest that I do that? I told Lisana that I’d do whatever I could to save the ancestor trees. I intend to keep my word.”

“Epiny, I don’t think that Major Helford is going to give you any more credence than Colonel Haren gave me. Less, because you’re a woman.”

“Such a comforting thing to say to me, Nevare!” I could sense her anger coming to a boil and felt helpless to stop it. I feared that when it bubbled over, we would all be scalded.

“Epiny, what can you do?”

She halted. We could hear men’s voices ahead of us. I felt a sudden bolt of fear. I’d brought her here assuming that the work crews would offer her help. What if they didn’t? What if they abused her?

“I shouldn’t have brought you this way, Epiny. Most of the men on these crews are prisoners. And their guards don’t strike me as much better.”

“Actually, I think this is the best way you could have guided me, Nevare. It will give me the opportunity to see how they are working, and where, and what they are using. That is information that will help me stop them.”

She was patting her hair back into order and brushing at her skirts as she spoke. She was tidying herself, I realized, before she walked out to meet the work crew.

“Epiny, what can you possibly do to stop them?” I asked in a low voice.

“I was thinking explosives,” she replied brightly. “I’ve heard they’ve been using them to fell trees. Perhaps they’d work to make them stop felling trees.”

“Oh, the good god’s mercy on us all! Epiny, let that idea go. All you’ll do is succeed at hurting yourself or others. Where would you get explosives, anyway?”

She turned and gave me a sly smile. “Have you forgotten? My husband is in charge of supply.”

Then she lifted her hand from mine. All around me, the forest sparkled unbearably and then dissolved into floating dust. A moment later, I was staring up at the ceiling of my cell. I groaned and covered my eyes.