She hears.

She pulls a stool out into the sunlight and waits for them to climb the low ridge.

"Well. Fatebinder Kohl, are you?"

"I am. I, and my lieutenant here, are looking for a woman named Clea."

She

Stands a few feet away from the group. Not quite separate, not quite together.

"My youngest daughter. Dead in the second defense of Ascension Hall. Why did you want her?"

"Because I couldn't find Irissa soon enough to punish her for what she did."

Essa's mask of calm slips. "Well. You going to take it out on me? Find some crime for the Fatebinder to sentence? Make that nice young lady watch?"

Verse stares, cold anger wavering.

"Should I, Verse? Your dance."

"Shit, I don't know."

"I'll have you keep a civil tongue in your head, girl. Since you're on my land." For the moment.

She looks taken aback. "Sorry, ma'am," she says, then blinks, surprised she said it.

Kohl looks over, surprised.

"Well... No, Fatebinder. It doesn't seem right. A sister for a sister? Sure. But this doesn't balance the scales."

"We leave with blades dry?"

"I... think so. Maybe we can ask some questions first. Can't satisfy Three Whispers, but maybe Red Geyser."

"Can I ask you one first? How'd Irissa die?"

"Fighting with the Unbroken in the Blade Grave, about four span ago. Against Kyros's armies."

"They didn't listen, damn them. Of all the damn fool things I told them, the only thing they didn't hear was what mattered." She shudders out a sigh. "It's my fault. I raised those girls on the romance of war, on tales of bloodying the Bastard Tier and pushing back Azure."

"You taught them to fight?"

She nods. "And to fight damn well, too. Unfortunately. How was I to know the war coming would be yours? Iron in whole phalanxes, half the scum of Terratus in a horde bearing down on us, and a man of stone who could step clean over a curtain wall?"

"Kyros is mighty. The best we can do is limit the damage as the conquest rolls. And look for opportunities to make things right."

"I told them so. Fine girls, very fine, but they couldn't stand against the Overlord that calls earthquakes and volcanoes from a scrap of vellum. But they listened to too much patriotic claptrap when they were young, so when I told them the better wisdom they wouldn't take it. With Clea I tried twice, but she threw your peace back into their faces."

"I may have killed her myself. I'm sorry."

"No, she died in the courtyard breach." In the enormous fireball, she doesn't say, because that is an ugly way to die and Essa doesn't need to hear it.

"One thing doesn't fit. You sound like you taught them all honor and soldiering, but a mercenary named Krokus told us that Irissa hunted people for sport. That she displayed their heads on spikes. And wanted to do it to my sister-Furies."