There was a soft smile on it. One he’d never seen before.

Yrene said something he couldn’t hear to the old woman wringing her hands behind them, then rolled down the thin blanket covering the man.

Chaol cringed at the lesions crusting his chest and stomach. Even the old woman did.

But Yrene didn’t so much as blink, her serene countenance never shifting as she lifted a hand before her. White light simmered along her fingers and palm.

The old man, though unconscious, sucked in a breath as she laid a hand on his chest. Right over the worst of those sores.

For long minutes, she only laid her hand there, brows scrunched, light flowing from her palm to the man’s chest.

And when she lifted her hand … the old woman wept. Kissed Yrene’s hands, one after the other. Yrene only smiled, kissing the woman’s sagging cheek, and bade her farewell, giving what had to be firm instructions for the man’s continued care.

It was only after Yrene shut the door behind her that the beautiful smile faded. That she studied the dusty cobblestones and her mouth tightened. As if she’d forgotten he was there.

His horse nickered, and her head snapped up.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She only unhitched her horse and mounted, chewing on her lower lip as they started into a slow walk. “He has a disease that will not go gently. We have been battling it for five months now. That it flared up so badly this time …” She shook her head—disappointed. With herself.

“It doesn’t have a cure?”

“It has been defeated in other patients, but sometimes the host … He is very old. And even when I think I’ve purged it from him, it comes back.” She blew out a breath. “At this point, I feel as if I’m just buying him time, not giving him a solution.”

He studied the tightness in her jaw. Someone who demanded excellence from herself—while perhaps not expecting the same from others. Or even hoping for it.

Chaol found himself saying, “Are there any other patients you need to see to?”

She frowned toward his legs. Toward the big toe he pushed against the top of his boot, the leather shifting with the movement. “We can return to the palace—”

“I like to be outside,” he blurted. “The streets are empty. Let me …” He couldn’t finish.

Yrene seemed to get it, though. “There’s a young mother across the city.” A long, long ride away. “She’s recovering from a hard labor two weeks ago. I’d like to visit her.”

Chaol tried not to look too relieved. “Then let’s go.”

So they went. The streets remained empty, the ceremony, Yrene told him, lasting until midmorning. Even though the empire’s gods had been cobbled together, most people participated in their holidays.

Religious tolerance, she’d said, was something the very first khagan had championed—and all who had come after him, too. Oppressing various beliefs only led to discord within his empire, so he’d absorbed them all. Some literally, twining multiple gods into one. But always allowing those who wished to practice the freedom to do so without fear.

Chaol, in turn, told Yrene about the other use he’d learned while reading up on the history of the khagan rule: in other kingdoms, where religious minorities were ill-treated, he found many willing spies.

She’d known that already—and had asked him if he’d ever used spies for his own … position.

He told her no. Though he didn’t reveal that he’d once had men who worked covertly, but they weren’t like the spies Aedion and Ren Allsbrook had employed. That he himself had worked within Rifthold this spring and summer. But talking about his former guards … He fell silent.

She’d remained quiet after that, as if sensing his silence was not from lack of conversation.

She brought him into a quarter of the city that was full of small gardens and parks, the houses modest yet well kept. Firmly middle-class. It reminded him a bit of Rifthold and yet … Cleaner. Brighter. Even with the streets so quiet this morning, it teemed with life.

Especially at the elegant little house they stopped before, where a merry-eyed young woman spotted them from the window a level above. She called out to Yrene in Halha, then vanished inside.

“Well, that answers that question,” Yrene murmured, just as the front door opened and that woman appeared, a plump babe in her arms.

The mother paused upon seeing Chaol, but he offered a polite bob of his head.

The woman smiled prettily at him, but it turned outright devious as she faced Yrene and waggled her eyebrows.

Yrene laughed, and the sound … Beautiful as the sound was, it was nothing like the smile on her face. The delight.

He’d never seen a face so lovely.

Not as Yrene dismounted and took the chubby baby—the portrait of newborn health—from the mother’s outstretched arms. “Oh, she’s beautiful,” she cooed, brushing a finger over a round cheek.

The mother beamed. “Fat as a dirt-grub.” She spoke in Chaol’s own tongue, either because Yrene used it with her, or from noticing his own features, so different from the various norms here in Antica. “Hungry as a pig, too.”

Yrene bobbed and swayed with the baby, cooing at the girl. “The feeding is going well?”

“She’d be on my breast day and night if I let her,” the mother groused, not at all embarrassed to be discussing such things with him present.

Yrene chuckled, her smile growing as she let a tiny hand wrap around her finger. “She looks healthy as can be,” she observed. Then looked over the mother. “And you?”

“I’ve been following the regimen you gave me—the baths helped.”

“No bleeding?”

A shake of the head. Then she seemed to notice him, because she said a bit more quietly, and Chaol suddenly found the buildings down the street very interesting, “How long until I can—you know? With my husband.”

Yrene snorted. “Give it another seven weeks.”

The woman let out a squawk of outrage. “But you healed me.”

“And you nearly bled out before I could.” Words that brooked no argument. “Give your body time to rest. Other healers would tell you eight more weeks at a minimum, but … try it at seven. If there is any discomfort—”

“I know, I know,” the woman said, waving a hand. “It’s just … been a while.”