The priestess moved through the ward without a veil, her breath unrestricted, her hands uncovered as she moved from bed to bed. Others had fled or warded themselves with herbs and prayers that didn't work. She came instead, moving through the miasma as if it were no more than evening air. At the third bed, the child reached out a trembling hand. His parents had not visited in two days. She took the hand in both of hers, and the fever burning through him seemed almost gentle by contrast. 'It's unfair,' the boy whispered. 'Yes,' she said, because Talona's faithful do not offer false comfort. 'It is. But unfairness is the earth's justice. We are only borrowed by it for a time.' 'I don't want to be borrowed anymore.' She sat beside him through the night and held his hand as the trembling stopped, as the fever broke upward one last time, as the borrowing ended. In the morning, she rose stiffly and moved to the next bed, where someone else was beginning to understand what the Mother offered. She had learned long ago that Talona's mercy and Talona's cruelty wore the same face...