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"We almost did not couards "Those trees weren’t on your road when I was here last! How --" Looking past the guard’s shoulder, she saw Briar "Oh I thought RanaNever es for Prince Parahan and Princess Soudao identified the newcoate The uards led their horses inside Briar felt distantly sorry for thehter of Captain Jha and his company At least they had been soldiers They had known they were expected to die in war Evvy had not She had been dragged here by Briar and Rosethorn She had not wanted anything to do with the emperor All she had wanted to do was see the mountains

Evvy slept a lot She dreaest dreams of her life The fluorite bear was inbeside her fro as snakes es Lions made of ice and packed snow licked her feet A spider at least twice her size leaped down froed her feet in its webs

In some dreams, when the bear wasn’t present, a woued with her about food Usually Evvy would drink the soup brought by the woo away Evvy knew that dreao away because you did the things they wanted you to do in dreas that she saw in them

In one, she asked the fluorite bear, "Which is weirder, the nine-headed snake, or --" Suddenly she ide-awake and saying, "-- the giant spiders that come from above?" She sat up and looked around She was definitely awake She could feel her ragged clothes against her skin She could smell herself When had she last bathed? "Can you sravely

"Oh, good" Sing, terrified of what she ht see, shelike her ordinary, everyday feet She wriggled her toes They were stiff, but not painful "I dreayi yujinon flayed my feet and killed everyone in the fort, but that part was so real," she murmured "I drea spider wrapped my feet in its webs I know that part was a dreazai," the bear told her "I called to you so you ht find safety here in the o, when your feet were healed"

Tears trickled down her cheeks "My cats really are dead?"

"Once I understood why you called for thees to one of my snow leopards," the bear said "She went to the dead pile behind the stone cave She found the seven little cats that matched your dreas where she had been sleeping and wept harder

When she finally dried her eyes and sat up again, she found the bear had not erently "Just so you don’t go thinking I’ pot?" he asked

"It’s a jar You put water in it and pour it on plants so they grow"

"Is not the rain enough?"

Evvy rubbed the dried blood on the back of one foot It flaked off "People have plants in their houses They use watering pots for indoor rain" Slowly, gri because she was so stiff, she drew one foot up onto the opposite knee so she could look at the sole It was puffy with scars that crisscrossed the flesh, but when she poked them, they were merely sore, not as painful as they had been when she had fled the fort "You cured them"

"The webs of the peak spider cured the you in slu for you if you did not see how you were healed"

"I don’t care about hoas healed," Evvy said bitterly "I care that I was hurt in the first place I care that they killed all those people in the fort I care that they killedthe feel of the stone-cold dead cats under the for clothes "What did the villagers ever do to deserve dying like that, tell me! They had little ones with them, babies, and those imperial qus killed thelared at the fluorite bear, who had cocked his head knob once more "What! You think I’m crazy, don’t you?"

"I do not knohat crazy htful way "What I think is that we healed the hurt in your feet and the hurt in your body, but now your spirit is sick I want to heal that pain for you, but I do not kno I can heal the ed meat creatures to their own kind"

"Do you always talk this way?" Evvy derateful, but if her cats were dead, why couldn’t this thing just have left her to die? Briar and Rosethorn have each other, she thought TheBriar and Rosethorn! If the eneo and her troops, or killed theht up to Briar and Rosethorn, too! Hoill I ever know?