The temple smelled of oil and old stone, a place long accustomed to wounds that did not always close cleanly. Quiet moved through it by habit—measured footsteps, murmured prayers, the rasp of cloth torn for bandages.
Nalin was finishing with a soldier when we arrived, binding the man's arm with hands that worked from memory rather than urgency. Once the knot was set, he turned toward us, his expression settling into attentive reserve.
"Ah," he said, inclining his head slightly. "You have arrived."
Imoen leaned closer to me. "You ever notice how temples always smell like they're bracing for bad news?"
Rasaad answered quietly, more reflection than reply. "They are places where pain arrives honestly. People come only when they can no longer carry it alone."
Introductions followed. When the reason for our presence emerged, Brage's name found its way into the space.
Something in the room shifted—not sound, not movement, but attention.
Nalin did not answer at once. His gaze lowered to the stone floor between us, as though the name itself required a place to rest before it could be spoken.
"Commander Brage," he said at last. "He was not always… this."
He spoke only of what could not be disputed. That Brage had been a disciplined officer. That his men had followed him without hesitation. That during an excursion—unremarkable by record, ill-fated in outcome—he came into possession of a sword, its origin uncertain, its presence undeniable.
"What followed," Nalin said, "was not immediate madness."
There had been a return to Nashkel. A wife waiting. A single night after which nothing fit as it had before.
Nalin did not call it murder. He said Brage had struck her down. Said those who found him afterward claimed he did not understand what he had done. That the town's elders—officers, magistrates, men worn thin by consequence—had argued deep into the night before choosing exile over execution. A decision that removed the man while leaving the question behind.
Xan spoke without looking up. "Exile is what you choose when the truth asks too much."
No one contradicted him.
"He wanders now," Nalin finished. "Armed. Unmoored. Whatever the sword took from him, it did not leave cleanly behind."
The temple settled back into stillness, as though even the walls had been drawn into confidence.
Silence held a moment longer, then loosened as Nalin drew a slow breath.
"There is something else," he said. Not as an afterthought.
He crossed to a small table near the wall, where a basin of water caught the lamplight in dull fragments. He did not look at us as he spoke.
"While tending the wounded," he continued, "I hear things. Rumors. The kind people speak when they believe no one of consequence is listening."
Imoen's attention sharpened. "Those usually matter more than the ones people announce."
Nalin inclined his head and went on.
He spoke of the carnival's edge—and as he did, memory surfaced unbidden. The statue Imoen and I had passed days earlier. The way it had felt out of place. Unclaimed.
"There is a symbol," Nalin said, "worked into her armor. A storm-mark. Worn smooth, but unmistakable. The sign of Tempus."
Rasaad folded his hands loosely at his waist. "A warrior of faith, reduced to stillness," he said. "That is interruption, not balance."
"If the accounts are true," Nalin said, turning back to us, "she was a cleric—one bound to storm and battle, rendered stone by arcane means rather than divine judgment."
He considered this. "Stone shaped by magic does not always remain stone. And a servant of Tempus, restored, would not lack for direction in times such as these."
Outside, faint music drifted in on the wind. I realized how little space lay between the temple and the carnival. Close enough that its noise pressed against the walls. Close enough that this path had already begun bending in that direction.
Imoen tilted her head, listening. "So that's where the road bends."
Nalin watched us a moment. "If the gods have left her there," he said quietly, "it may be because someone is meant to notice."
By the time the tents came into sight, the carnival already felt tired. Music bled unevenly into the road, looping in short, familiar phrases, while faded banners sagged beneath their own weight.
It felt less like a celebration than a habit.
Just beyond the nearest tents, a small knot of onlookers lingered near the edge of the canvas, never quite settling. Half-shadowed there stood the statue.
I recognized her at once.
She was caught in the act of reaching—arms lifted, palms open, as if bracing herself against something unseen. Fear marked her expression, but so did resolve, set into the stone with unsettling precision. This was not ornament. This was arrest.
People stared. Whispered. Then moved on. No one lingered long enough to decide what they were seeing.
Imoen slowed beside me. "That's her," she said quietly.
Rasaad stepped closer, careful, as though motion itself might disturb what had been left unfinished. "She was taken while reaching outward," he said. "Faith interrupted."
Xan regarded the statue for a long moment. "It's always the moment of asking that costs the most," he said. "Answers tend to arrive too late."
Worked into the woman's armor, worn smooth but unmistakable, was the storm-mark of Tempus. Even dulled by stone, it carried a martial certainty that did not belong among juggling props and painted tents.
Nalin stepped forward, drawing the attention of the onlookers without raising his voice. "Stand back," he said.
He placed a hand against the statue's arm and closed his eyes. The words he spoke did not belong to the carnival—or to us. The air thickened, not with light, but with pressure, like the moment before a storm breaks.
The stone resisted.
For a breath, nothing happened.
Then cracks traced themselves across the surface. Gray drained into color in slow, uneven waves. The figure sagged as weight returned too suddenly, stone surrendering to flesh.
She gasped.
Breath replaced stillness. Motion replaced stone. The woman staggered, caught between collapse and balance as Imoen and Nalin steadied her. Pale hair, bound tight before petrification, had loosened into uneven strands around her face, catching the light as sweat cut clean lines through the dust left by stone. Her armor bore fresh scuffs where gray had only just fallen away.
"I—" Her voice broke. "Tempus preserve me—"
Xan watched quietly. "Ah," he said. "So the prayer wasn't finished after all."
The nearby music faltered.
Where stone had stood, a living woman breathed again.
For several breaths, she said nothing.
She straightened slowly, reacquainting herself with gravity. One hand rose to her chest, fingers brushing the place where armor and holy symbol should have rested. Her posture settled—upright, squared—discipline reasserting itself over lingering stiffness.
"Tempus," she said. Not a plea. An acknowledgment. Then, more sharply, "How long?"
Nalin told her.
She took the span in without visible reaction. Only the tightening of her jaw marked the cost. Her gaze dropped briefly to the fragments of stone at her feet, then lifted again.
"So," she said. "The trial did not end me."
Imoen frowned. "Trial?"
Branwen turned to her, expression steady. "Faith untested is decoration," she said. "Faith tested proves its worth."
She flexed her fingers once, as if recalling motion denied too long. "I was turned for refusing a command that should never have been given. To strike unarmed merchants. To dress theft as necessity." Her mouth tightened. "Tempus does not bless such cowardice."
Rasaad inclined his head. "Then you believe your god approved."
"I know he did," Branwen said.
Her eyes moved over the carnival without interest, then returned to us. "The mage who silenced me thought stillness was punishment," she added. "He mistook restraint for weakness."
Xan exhaled softly. "A common error."
Branwen acknowledged him with a glance. "I was raised among those who believed strength belonged to men alone," she said. "They were wrong as well."
She turned back to Nalin. "You did not restore me for remembrance."
"No," Nalin said. "There is unrest in Nashkel. A commander once sworn to order. Now unmoored."
Something hardens in her expression—not anger, but judgment.
"A warrior who turns his blade on the helpless," Branwen says, "that is villainy, not war."
She squares her shoulders fully now, the last of the stone's stiffness leaving her stance.
"If Tempus has returned me to motion," she continues, "it is because there is work yet undone."
Her gaze settles on me, direct and expectant.
"Point me toward it."