Kaitlyn spent the next day in silence while Sister Maribel vocalized her various plans and theories. All of them had one thing in common: leaving Kaitlyn with the nomad tribe, returning to the Throne, and handling things without her. It seemed that Maribel had already decided Kaitlyn would be a martyr for justice and fairness for the next person the Church decided to destroy. At first, she was distressed by this, but as the hours wore on and the wagon rolled on, she began to acquiesce. After all, as Maribel had so brutally pointed out, she did commit crimes.

  But to speak honestly, Kaitlyn would much rather have her head smashed beneath a Church executioner’s hammer than return to her tribe. When she had been younger, Kaitlyn had seen an exiled nomad return. She saw how he had been treated, and he had returned of his own volition. Kaitlyn would be returning as a criminal, extradited by an outside community.

  The wagon was no longer on the brick roads of the March. The roads, maintained by combinations of Church leadership and local nobles made the emotionally uncomfortable trip physically comfortable at least. But they were far behind, indicating that arrival at the Stone Circle was imminent.

  Around midday, the carriage rattled to a stop and Kaitlyn’s stomach flipped. Maribel parted a curtain on the window and peered outside. “We’re here,” she said softly. “Wait for me.”

  Kaitlyn did not respond.

  Maribel climbed from the carriage and stepped out onto the dusty prairie of the Central March. She looked around, taking quick stock of the surroundings. All the time in the wagon had fiddled with her sense of position on the continent. They were perched atop a gentle slope that allowed her to look southward to just barely see the urban sprawl of Crossroads to the left, and the towering, mountainous mass of Kraag to the right.

  Behind her was a temporary tent city for Kaitlyn’s tribe. Only one figure amongst the group had acknowledged their arrival. A tan-skinned man holding a tall walking stick had broken away from the settlement to speak with the carriage driver.

  “She’s the one you wanna talk to,” Maribel heard the driver say as he gestured in her direction. The tan man looked over to Maribel, aloof and dismissive. He inhaled, flexing his chest as he did, as though frustrated by the need to talk to more outsiders.

  “Hello,” he said, finally.

  “Good morning,” Maribel replied, holding her hand out in greeting. “I am Sister Maribel from The Throne.”

  “You may call me the Chief,” the man replied, shaking her hand, but he seemed to only give her the bare minimum of time.

  “Have you been informed of why we are here?” Maribel asked.

  “Of course. Give her over and you may be on your way.”

  Taken aback by the abrasiveness, Maribel frowned. “I am here to confirm her transfer. So I would like to see where she will be kept.”

  “Your choice,” the Chief said simply.

  Maribel stood by for a moment, unsure if their conversation was over or not. When no more was said, and the chief’s eyes failed to ever meet hers again, she finally turned back to the carriage to get Kaitlyn.

  “They’re ready for you,” Maribel said softly after pushing her head into the carriage.

  Kaitlyn scoffed and stood to step outside. “Before we go,” Kaitlyn said, stopping on the way out. “I just want to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Your honesty.”

  Maribel looked at Kaitlyn and could not find gratitude. There was sorrow. Fear. Betrayal. All of it capped by Kaitlyn’s emotional repression. “I will get you justice, Kaitlyn,” Maribel assured.

  The shamaness did not respond, and just walked around the priestess toward the chief. For a moment, the chief grinned.

  “Welcome back, Mrs. Carpenter,” he snarled.

  “Thank you chief,” Kaitlyn responded stiffly.

  “Sister,” the chief called as he turned away from the carriage. “If you wish to confirm the prisoner’s receipt, follow me, please.”

  Maribel shrugged to the driver and followed Kaitlyn and the Chief into the camp. They moved between the lean-tos and tents, stepping around complex workstations and tool benches, as well as play areas as nomads stopped what they were doing to watch Kaitlyn be led past.

  Maribel and Kaitlyn stood out starkly against the drab linens and layers of the nomads. Grey and brown were the only colors on the tribe’s palette. Leather tarps ensured the color scheme continued to their dwellings as well. The bright colors of Throne fashion made it clear who was from the outside.

  The nomads were shockingly diverse to Maribel. Though they were all tanned from exposure, there were all manner of hair color and style, face structure, body build, and more. She had always believed these tribes to be the same broad shouldered, dark haired, short strongmen. There surely were those types of men and women, but there were wispy blonds, portly red heads, and mousey brunettes as well.

  “If it is not obvious,” the Chief announced suddenly. “There is no place for you here tonight, Sister. You will be asked to leave once your curiosity is satisfied.”

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  “Understood, Chief,” Maribel responded, barely catching Kaitlyn rolling her eyes. The woman was trembling.

  Kaitlyn was bubbling with a blend of rage and fear. It was everything for her to contain it. The ground seared her feet and it raced to meet her anger, but she gnawed her tongue to quell it. She intentionally drove her eyes to the ground so that she would not lock eyes with someone familiar. When the Chief stopped, though, she knew it was unavoidable.

  He led the two women to a massive, circular stone slab. At the center of the settlement rest the massive granite tablet. A skinny old woman stood tall at its center.

  “This is the bedrock of our settlement, Sister,” the Chief offered, unprovoked. “This stone demanded to be dug up to rest eyes on its master, Kraag. It was obliged. And now it is the heart of our people.”

  Maribel looked over her shoulder where Kraag’s shell could be seen against the horizon. “Why is it so far away from Kraag then?”

  “Respect.”

  Maribel pressed no further as the Chief turned to Kaitlyn. “Mrs. Carpenter, the heart will welcome you back.”

  Kaitlyn was silent as she looked up at the old woman, whose face puckered.

  “Unlock her please, Sister,” the Chief asked. “She is no longer your prisoner.”

  Maribel did as she was asked, pulling the golden shackles off of Kaitlyn’s wrists. Kaitlyn refused to look Maribel in the eye though the priestess desperately wanted to know if everything was fine. Once freed, Kaitlyn approached the slab alone and stepped up onto it.

  The old woman jammed a long, skinny finger at a point in the center of the slab and Kaitlyn walked toward it, then knelt on the stone.

  “What is she doing?”

  “The heart has welcomed her back. Not the tribe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She abandoned us,” the Chief explained. “She threw aside her name and her community. Turned to a life of crime. Spilled blood for her lover. The stone may receive her but we shall not.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Do not feign ignorance, Sister.”

  On the tablet, Kaitlyn was silently counting her breaths. Five seconds in, five seconds out. The tablet was getting as angry as her, but it cooled with her breathing. Her grandmother loomed, no longer the kind, nurturing woman she had grown up with, but instead a seething victim of Kaitlyn’s betrayal.

  Wordlessly, Kaitlyn’s grandmother gestured, and the granite of the tablet began to shift. Crunching and clacking as small pebbles broke off and shifted around, new shackles were created to bind Kaitlyn’s wrists together, and then connect them to the tablet. Kaitlyn could feel the stone’s emotions probing her once more, and then suddenly recoiling, as if it had become aware of her crimes.

  Reflexively, she tried to move her hands, but there was no give. She tried to appeal to the emotions of the stone again, just to see if it would be possible. She met a defiant wall within its heart. Its intention was clear: I care enough to not kill you, but not enough to save you.

  “So you just leave her up there to die?” Maribel asked, shocked.

  “We leave her at the mercy of the bedrock. If it wishes to save her, it shall,” the Chief said.

  Maribel suddenly felt cold. Something in her had kept Kaitlyn’s cries about being killed by her tribe in the realm of fantasy. At the very least, Maribel thought she would be offered a trial or chance to speak. But, as far as Maribel could tell, they barely even acknowledged her, much less gave her a chance. The priestess was panicking, unsure of how to continue.

  Kaitlyn knelt in the center of the stone, her head hanging, as her grandmother stepped down. The old woman walked toward Maribel, blocking the priestess’s view of the prisoner.

  “We appreciate your respect for our culture, Sister,” the woman said. “But understand, we take no pride allowing the spilling of blood.”

  “Then why execute her?”

  The woman grimaced. “I cannot put this strongly enough. We will not kill Kaitlyn Carpenter. If she dies, then it is the will of the stones.”

  “What does that mean?” Maribel asked, her voice raising in frustration and fear for her newest friend.

  “She will find no respite from us. No food. No drink. No clothing. No bathing. She will wait for the judgment of the bedrock to come.”

  “So you just stand by and watch this woman die in the middle of your village?”

  “As your kind say,” the woman began, looking sad, “Will be Well.”

  “Sister Maribel,” the Chief interjected. “Are you satisfied that your prisoner has been transferred?”

  Maribel could not answer. This was not what she had wanted. All of her harsh words for Kaitlyn, and the assurances that justice would be served, seemed to suddenly be in poor taste. And Kaitlyn had to have known this was the fate awaiting her. And so she took Maribel’s stinging criticisms knowing she would spend her last days waiting to die in a brutal way in front of the people she once called family.

  In the back of her mind, Maribel had anticipated an emotional reunion. Maybe a chance for Kaitlyn’s character witnesses to urge that Matthew had corrupted her and turned her down a dark road, and after some community outreach or a slap on the wrist she would be reintegrated and welcomed home.

  The Chief stepped closer to Maribel. “Sister. Answer my question.”

  “No, I am not satisfied. What you are doing is an affront to the judgments of Gessel,” Maribel bellowed.

  The Chief showed no reaction to her outburst. “On the contrary, Sister, we have the documentation from the Justicar of The Throne, significantly above you in station, that all rights of final judgment regarding Mrs. Carpenter were given to me and my tribe. What we are doing is wholly in line with the judgments of your Sleeping God.”

  “Do not refer to the Dream as a Sleeping God,” Maribel sputtered, her temper quickly growing out of control. The priestess attempted to look at Kaitlyn, but the prisoner kept her head down.

  “An eye for an eye, Sister. You call our rites an affront to your god? So be it. Ours walked this plane long before yours established your city to the north. And ours continues to walk this plane to this day. Where is Gessel?

  “You may return to The Throne with these words: we will accept the prisoner. And we will do with her what you all should have. It is clear that you see yourself as ‘above’ punishing this criminal. Then you may leave it to us ‘savages.’ Your visit to our tribe is over, Sister.”

  Maribel felt the ground begin to undulate beneath her. Shamed and outnumbered, and far too low in rank to do anything about the situation, Maribel took one last look at Kaitlyn, then turned to walk back to the carriage. Hot tears welled in her eyes.

  Maribel had never felt as though she had failed before.

  On the tablet, Kaitlyn hung her head, loosened her muscles, and waited to die. Fury, fueled by betrayal and hatred for all of those who had wronged her was bubbling up far below Kaitlyn. She took a deep breath and hoped with her whole heart that her mind could repress the rage.