Saia looked at Aili.

“What?” she whispered sharply.

“I have three reasons to say this,” Daira said. “First, she has been incredibly helpful both during and before Lausune’s crisis. The inhabitants talked about her desire to be of help and the dedication to deliver any letter, sometimes even when people weren't able to pay for the service.”

She glanced at the hourglass.

“Second, her tutors told me about her dedication to studying history and her ability with magic. She's hard-working and has shown seriousness in learning the rules of our society. And third, most importantly, she's our chance to test something that has never happened before in the history of the villages.”

She pointed at the bas-reliefs on the wall in front of her.

“Most of the gods came from our village. We know of only three cases in our whole history where a deity was born in one of the villages below, but they were never assigned to the village they were born in. It doesn't make sense. Who can know the place and the people better than someone who lived there? And she has seen how the previous god has taken care of Lausune: she knows what his mistakes were and what can be improved. I truly think that, for these reasons, she could be the best choice for the new Koidan.”

“Did you know that?” Saia asked Aili, but she shushed her.

Daira's eyes had stopped on a spot in the middle of the crowd where somebody had raised a hand.

“Yes?”

“Wouldn't she be tempted to advantage the people and families that she's friend with and treat others less favorably?”

Daira nodded while the organizer next to her turned the hourglass.

“Every god has different attitudes toward the people of their village, usually formed during the first years of their work there. If Aili is chosen for this role, it will be easier for us to evaluate the relationships with the inhabitants and their opinions of her, instead of having to guess it based on observation only. And this will help us to spot any possible injustice before it happens.”

Even if the hourglass was still half full, she stopped talking and observed the crowd.

“I have a question,” the abbot said. “She's a newcomer. They have proven that they don't know all of our rules. Wouldn't it be risky to choose a god that hasn't had the time to properly integrate into our community?”

The hourglass was turned again.

“As I said, she has a propensity for learning, and the librarian told me that she spends a lot of her free time in the library, reading books about everything, rules and laws of our village included. I think that she could fill the gap in the two months that separate us from the trials. If she's chosen today, I'll personally make sure that she'll be up to the task. She'll learn everything with my help, obviously when I'm not bound by my duties of prior.”

Saia glanced at Aili. She was serious, but there was a glint in her eyes that reminded her of how proud she had looked when Zeles had chosen her to be the administrator.

“There's no trace of surprise on your face,” she said, trying to mock the tone Aili had used many times while telling her those same words. “You knew.”

Aili glanced at her, but didn't begin to answer until it was clear that Daira had finished speaking and nobody else had any questions for her.

“She's told me about it.” She was looking at the next person to speak, clearly trying to avoid Saia's gaze. “It's the polite thing to do when you have to nominate someone as a candidate to become a god. Even if technically you could nominate someone even if they didn't want to participate in the trials.”

“So you accepted. You want to become a god.”

“No, actually...” She lowered her voice even more, this time looking Saia straight in the eyes. “I'm just curious about the trials. The book that describes them only talks about a written test, but it hints at something more. I’ve asked the candidates who didn’t pass the trials, but they don’t remember anything. The only way to know how they work is to be one of the candidates, or be one of the manipulators who organize them. And I'm not capable enough with magic to do that.”

“You won’t remember either, unless you win and became a goddess.”

“I’ve been studying how to change the intensity of the viss on an object to take notes. If I’m careful, I should be able to retain at least the gist of it.”

“What if you become a goddess and they ask you to find Zeles? Or the person who helped him escape?”

“I won't become a goddess. I'll lose.”

“What if you win, though? You'd be on their side, forever. When we came here, you said that you didn't trust them, and now you want to become a goddess.”

“You're talking about them as if they're evil. I know that your experience with the gods has been terrible, but in my village and the others I've seen they make life easier than what could have been. Having this system in place is a good thing, even if you don't agree with everything they do. I don't either, by the way. I just want to know.”

The monks around them started to glare in their direction. Saia crossed her arms and stared at the floor while another candidate was being described as hardworking and altruistic, just like the ones presented in the two weeks before. It became monotonous after a while; Aili would have been voted for sure, if the fact that the right hand of the abbot had vouched for her wasn't already enough.

“You said that Daira is only here to report about what’s going on in Lausune,” she said, trying to keep her voice low and controlled. “So she'll return there, at some point. Did she lie about teaching you?”

“No, we’ve talked about that too. But there's no use in thinking about this now, I've not been voted yet.”

“Oh, I just wanted to know.”

Aili sighed.

“I'm going back with her until the trials.”

Saia breathed in and clenched her fists tighter.

“So what you said before about evaluating the efforts of the monks and helping me protest if they won't stop Vizena was all a lie?”

“No, because I won't become a goddess. I'll come back in two months and we'll think about what to do.”

“My family is going to suffer in these two months. And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Wait for you? Worry for them? Feel guilty for this...” she gestured in the abbot's direction, “Disaster?”

“I don't know, but I'm sure the others will be more than happy to...”

Saia didn't stay to hear the rest. She stood and crossed the room, walking fast through the lines of people. She passed through the empty corridors, her mind so focused on her discussion with Aili that she realized only after some minutes she was going in the wrong direction. She retraced her steps and finally found her room. Her room only, since Aili would have left. She hoped the monks wouldn’t assign her another roommate, because the idea of having a stranger in her room made her skin crawl with fury.

She slammed the door behind her and was greeted by the splashing of the snakes in the tank as they left the mound of earth for the cold security of the water. She fed them, tossing the dried meat in without bothering to make sure that each of the animals had a bite. She sat on the edge of the bed, arms crossed, watching them fight for food. She thought about the abbot's words, wondering for a moment whether Aili was right and the punishment that the priors had chosen for Vizena could be enough, at least at the beginning. But she knew how living at Suimer was like: even in the few weeks when she’d been blessed enough not to hear the goddess’s voice for entire days, she'd always feared that she could hit her with an unreasonable request or a threat at any moment. It was a feeling that would linger as long as Vizena was alive.

The punishment wasn't enough. The only thing that came close to being enough was having Vizena away from her family, away from any person at all. The monks deserved to waste their precious viss, if their predecessors were stupid enough to give it to a monster.

She breathed deeply, trying to calm her heart and mind. She needed something to do, anything, but the village was paralyzed by the debate and her schedule empty. She wouldn't have spent the time waiting for Aili. Not that day, not later.

She stood and put the bag on her shoulders. She was a bit hungry, but didn't want to stop in the dining hall, where everyone knew that she was the one who had protested against the abbot, unlike the other newcomer, so nice and diligent and perfect.

She left her room, headed outside. The two sentinels at the exit were surprised to see her, but didn't say anything as she walked past them.

She headed down the path that led to the lake. After two weeks and a total of six fishing sessions, the trail didn't feel as difficult as the first time. She could focus on the physical activity and the nature around her, and it was almost enough to ignore her thoughts.

When the lake came in sight, a movement under the trees around the west shore made her hesitate. She lowered on the grass to be less visible, but then she recognized the chair, the long hair and beard, and the scraping sound of knife against wood. She frowned, momentarily wondering why he wasn’t at the debate with everyone else. But she’d never seen him around the village anyway, so maybe he was just a recluse who loved the lake a lot.

She got up and started her descent. Now he saw him clearly, carving something with a knife on a big piece of wood. He was so focused he didn't notice her. She didn't want to startle him, so she made her steps heavier and let out a quiet “Hi”.

Adus jumped to his feet, wooden statuette in one hand and knife in the other, pointed at her. He was breathing fast, eyes wide and a grimace of terror on his face. Saia stepped back, ready to run. But he relaxed with a long sigh, putting the knife away in the brown sash he wore around the hips.

“Sorry,” he said, and let himself fall back on the chair. “Why are you here?”

It took some instants for Saia to shake off the fear.

“The debate was useless and I felt like fishing.”

He nodded and kept looking at her while she set down the bag on the grass and approached the big cloth that hid chairs and fishing rods. When she came back, he had already resumed carving.

She set up the rod some steps away from him, out of the shadow of the trees. But the moment she was seated, with the floater in the water and her back relaxed against the chair, she realized what a mistake it had all been. Waiting for the fish to bite wasn’t different than sitting in her room until Aili came back, it allowed her thoughts to roam free all the same. Thoughts of unlikely revenge, mixed with vivid memories of the abbot getting angry at her.

She realized she was hunched over, arms crossed and fists clenched. She wouldn't have lasted an hour, and an hour usually wasn't enough to catch a fish in that place. Not for her, at least.

She got up and started to pace in front of the fishing rod. She wished there were sea snakes there, so that she could crouch in the water and snatch them with her hands. She'd have already freed them there, if she hadn’t been sure that the clean water would hurt them.

She was looking around, wishing for a way to make that kind of fishing more enjoyable, when she saw a long stick under a tree. She took it, turned it in her hands to make sure it was intact, and approached Adus.

“Can I ask you a favor?”

He chipped away one more piece of wood before looking up at her.

“Sure.”

“Could you make the tip sharper?” she asked, pointing at one end of the stick.

He put it sideways on his legs and started cutting large chunks of wood with sweeping motions of the knife. It didn't take long for him to obtain a decent point. He prodded it with the tip of his index, nodded, then gave the stick back to Saia.

“Thank you,” she said, wishing the monks had a way to pay people. Doing each other favors left things too open-ended, giving the right to the other person to make questions. But Adus returned to his statue without a word. Saia tried to guess what it depicted, but there was still too much wood and not enough carving for her to understand.

She headed toward the lake, this time putting both feet inside the water. The cold seeped in through the leather of her boots. She raised the stick over her shoulder, the pointy end angled toward the water, and waited for a glimmer of movement. The position felt a bit awkward, it probably needed some adjusting on her part. But for the moment, her focus on the water and the fatigue in her arm were stronger than the thought of Vizena tormenting her family, and it was all that mattered.

Something quick and shiny moved close to her feet. Saia tensed, waited for it to come back, and lowered the spear as fast as she could. It sank in the soft mud on the bottom as the fish disappeared. Saia cursed under her breath, unstuck the spear and raised it again.

She repeated the movement three more times without success, then realized that she wasn't hearing the steady scraping of the knife on wood anymore. She turned: Adus was taking a wrap of cloth from the bag beside his chair. He opened it to reveal a piece of bread filled with what looked like cheese and cooked meat.

He glanced up, saw that she was watching, and raised the sandwich in the air with an interrogative look in his eyes.

Saia was about to refuse, but she felt hungry and she had no intention of going back to the village to eat with people she couldn't stand. So she nodded and came closer while Adus broke the bread in half.

“You'll scare all the fish to the other side of the lake, if you continue like that,” he said.

“Then I'll go there once I'm finished here,” she answered, taking the piece of bread he was handing her. “Thank you, by the way. If you ever need snake venom, let me know.”

He produced a small smile and started eating. Saia took her chair under the shade of the trees and sat some steps away from him.

“You looked pretty scared when you saw me,” she said, hoping to prompt an explanation.

“And you were angry at someone,” he answered, without raising his eyes from the food.

“You'll tell me why, I'll tell you why?”

He shrugged.

“Being this close to the woods can be dangerous.”

“But the sentinels would protect you if a boar came here.”

He kept chewing for a bit before answering.

“They can't. This spot is hidden.”

Saia looked up at the mountain, as if she could disprove his words just by catching the glint of the binoculars, but she didn't see anything.

“How do you know?”

“I was a sentinel, before.”

“Did you decide to change job, or did they force you to?”

“I had to.”

And he looked at her in silence. Saia understood that it was her turn.

“I tried to solve a huge problem, at the debate. I believed that the abbot or the priors would do something about it, but they decided to essentially wait. Even if they have a plan, I fear they won't solve things quickly enough and people will suffer because of it.”

“What problem?”

Saia was about to point out that he didn't give her many details either, but then realized that the whole village knew about her and what happened at the debate. If she didn't tell him the whole story, he would have heard a version where she was disrespectful and unreasonable. She wouldn’t have cared if she didn't desperately need someone on her side, especially now that Aili wasn't anymore.

So she told him everything: about Vizena and her village, the debate and the priors’ decision. She was getting worked up again, so she started pacing next to the chairs.

“I hate them,” she said. “I hate this place and its stupid rules.”

Letting it out made her feel better, even as she realized that saying those words to a monk wasn't the smartest thing to do. But Adus kept eating his last piece of bread, nodding every once in a while. He didn't seem particularly shocked or offended.

“Then why are you staying?” he asked.

“Because now that the priors won't do anything, I'll have to solve this problem by myself, and all the resources I could need are here.”

She stopped and turned to look at him.

“Don't tell it to the other monks, though. I don't think they would take well the fact that I hate them and I want to act behind their backs.”

He brushed the crumbs away from his tunic.

“I hate them too.”

Saia stared at him, hoping he would elaborate.

“Why?” she asked when he didn’t add more.

He shook his head.

“I won't tell them anything,” he said, instead. “But you have to promise that you won't talk about me with anyone. And I don't mean just the fact that you've seen me here. Don't mention me at all.”

It was the longest sentence she'd ever heard him utter.

“They don't know you're a fisher?”

“No. And I don't want them to find out.”

He set aside the cloth that had wrapped the food, then took his wooden statue and the knife and resumed carving.

Saia realized that she still had a piece of bread in her hand, forgotten during her rant about the debate. She ate it, then returned to the shore.

She kept fishing until sunset, when finally her spear passed through a big fish with silver scales. She took it as a sign that it was time to return to the village. She tied its tail to the side of her bag and approached Adus again.

“Do you want to come back with me?”

He shook his head.

“I'll stay here a bit.”

“You sure? Weren't you scared of boars?”

“I'm scared of people. But I also know how to defend myself, if it comes to it.”

Saia shrugged. Before leaving, she hid the spear near the cloth that covered the chairs and the rest of the fishing gear. She walked fast along the path, the fish dangling at every step. The woods on either side were already too dark for her liking, but she knew that the sentinels would have kept their watch until the last ray of sun had disappeared behind the sea.

The guards at the entrance were different from the ones she had seen when leaving. They looked visibly surprised by the fact that someone was outside so late on debate day, but they let her in as soon as they saw the fish. She immediately left it in the kitchens, where a cook started to cover it with salt. She looked around for Ebus, but he wasn't there, and she wasn't even sure she wanted to talk to him. She didn't want to find out whether he, Haina, Cailes and the others thought that the abbot was right.

She reluctantly returned to her room. She'd expected Aili to be in the library, so she was a bit startled when she saw her sitting on the bed with an open book in front of her.

“Saia!” she said, jumping to her feet. “I couldn’t find you, where have you been?”

Saia stared at the red sash around Aili's waist. She went to bed without a single word.