Dorothea barely kept herself from gaping at Sil with shock. It wasn’t like him to be so disrespectful and bitter, especially towards her.

“We should finish discussing one issue before you pose another, don’t you think?” the man with glasses and the pointy nose said, laughing awkwardly in a futile attempt to defuse the situation.

Sil’s fist beat on the floor, but the impact was muffled to the point of making the gesture humorous and pathetic, like a child’s tantrum. “It’s all interrelated! Our stance is heavily influenced by her leadership. It’s time to make a change, don’t you think? We listen to her because we feel sorry for her, but—”

“Enough,” Dorothea hissed. She had to remind herself that the man had been good to her to stop herself from launching into a tirade. “Sil. Please. That’s enough about me and my family. The main question here, without getting distracted, is whether or not we face danger in lending aid through reestablishing the trade routes we cut at the outset of the war.”

The woman with black curls piped up. “We should put it to vote and move on to the next issue or else we’ll be here until next week.”

Dorothea looked at Sil, giving him the chance to object, but he said nothing and bowed his head. “Very well.”

The vote ended with one in favor of involvement and four in favor of maintaining neutrality. Even as the floor opened to new prompts afterwards, the council members shifted in uncomfortable silence, itching to leave.

“I’d like to follow up on one of your points,” Dorothea said in closing as she gestured to Sil. “We don’t have to make it a big thing yet, but I’d appreciate it if all of you could start thinking about what kind of person you would like to lead Equin and what we want the voting process to be like. Ideally, I’d like to open the choice to the public. Please consider these things. If no one else has anything…?”

“I nominate myself,” the woman with golden bracelets declared, cheerful.

Dorothea bit back a laugh. Enthusiasm was a welcome change to the mood. “Noted.”

The others murmured amongst themselves, but things had concluded sufficiently. The council dismissed with the same set of lines they had begun with, and its members filtered out in buzzing pairs.

As Dorothea rose to make her own exit, rubbing at the soreness in her thighs that had bloomed from kneeling demurely, Sil approached.

“I want to apologize,” he said, eyes trained to his feet in a show of meekness. “It was unfair of me to use Ophelia’s name against you.”

Dorothea patted his arm as they walked outside into light made stunning by their time in the dim. “You were just voicing your opinion. That’s what these meetings are supposed to be a space for.”

He smiled, fond memories flickering behind his eyes. “Your mother was a good person.” It had been no secret that, before and after Ophelia’s marriage to the now-deceased Seam Tuttle, Sil had been quite sweet on her. Dorothea still heard that affection in his voice.

“Yes. I suppose she was.” Ophelia had picked a side and fought in the war. Her short allegiance to Sacer had been rewarded with a closed casket to hide her broken, inverted corpse.

“I can’t think of those people continuing to kill each other without my heart screaming for some kind of justice,” Sil confessed. “And I have prayed to the Gods for history to be proven wrong and for that justice to appear.”

Dorothea bowed her head. “I wish for it too.” There was no way to speak properly of the countless lives lost and the unwritten stories that could have been saved if the Sacerians and Ghurians had been able to let go of their hatred centuries prior.

Sil smiled gently. “Good day, Lady Dorothea. Blessings be.”

“May blessings be shared,” she murmured as he ducked away and hurried off.

Shark was waiting for her, perched on the front steps and picking at their nails, cut short to avoid breaks and tears from long days of construction work and hunting as needed. “Did you have fun?” they asked with a grin.

Dorothea tugged gently on one of several thin braids that hung swinging over their shoulders at the base of a loose bun. “Let’s go home.” She pulled Shark up, and they slung an arm over her shoulders. Their footfalls made a melody particular to Sirpo, one of the crunch of snow’s top layer followed by the powery puff of sinking further before breaking out of it with a flurry towards the next step.

“What would you do if you didn’t have your day job, though?” Shark grinned. “Hey, you could come into construction with me. I’d love to watch you try to hammer in a nail without missing.”

“No thank you. I’ll just stay at home all day, maybe lay around until I become permanently adhered to my bed. You can come over and refill my water bowl from time to time.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll whisper sweet nothings in your ear and tuck you in every night.” Shark attempted seriousness but cackled through the last half of the sentence.

Dorothea was grateful as ever for their mirth. “I’ll keep leading them until they feel okay without me. They can’t count on me, though, and I need them to realize that. I mean… My life might already be half over.”

Shark squeezed her to their side. “Thea, don’t talk like that. We don’t know for sure.”

“Yeah. Sorry. My point is that…” She let out a soft, resigned sigh. “Never mind.” How was she supposed to live happily or aim towards any kind of fulfillment while knowing that the Atlin way of dying was all that awaited her?