The concern in his eyes causes an answering pang in her heart. Susan reaches up with her free hand to cradle his cheek, her touch warm, trying to remind him she's here with him as she tells him what she has to, now.

"Aye, it were merry, I wot. It were in Mejis too, once, save for the rumors and traditions handed down from older times. Darker times."

(the ways of the old ones were the ways of death)

She draws a careful breath and lets it out, then finishes, as gently as she can,

"And save for nearly a year ago now, when the witch Rhea, Rhea of the Coos, led the people of Hambry to burn me on the Reap-Night bonfire."

(charyou tree)