Chapter 26

“I can’t believe Jolene was foolish enough to use the dream powder. Surely you don’t believe she had an actual vision?” Brelisha folded her arms over her narrow chest, daring Siena to gainsay her. “Why are you going to let Netra go? She’s so young. Bronwyn would be better qualified to make a judgment on whatever she finds there—if there’s anything to find.” Her tone clearly indicated what she thought of that possibility.

“Netra is—”

“She’s undisciplined, is what she is,” Brelisha snapped. “You’ve let her run wild for too long.”

“She has to feel her wings to know how far they will stretch,” Siena said with a sigh. It was an old argument between them.

“That’s what Qualin said about Netra’s mother—and you know what happened to her.”

The mistakes of the past hung between them then and Siena looked away as the old pain bit anew. She and Shakre had been the best of friends and what happened to her still hurt. As she had so many times before, Siena wondered if she had been wise to keep her old friend’s secret all these years. More than once she had decided to go to Netra and tell her the truth, but she’d never been able to quite do it. The last thing Shakre asked of her was her oath never to tell her daughter what happened to her mother, and no matter how she tried she couldn’t seem to break it.

“Has Netra gotten any closer to entering the mists yet?” Siena asked, hoping to change the subject.

“No. At least, not that I know of. I wouldn’t be surprised if she could do it but she was hiding it from me.”

“Give her time. She’ll get there when she’s ready.”

“It would help if she would apply herself more and not spend so much time running around in the hills like some kind of wild animal. I’ve tried and tried to break her of it, but it doesn’t do any good. You’re the only one she’ll listen to at all. No amount of discipline seems to get through to her. And now you go and reward her by letting her go to Treeside. You’ve wrecked what little progress I’ve made with one stroke.”

“I’m sorry, Brelisha. For that I truly am.”

“So you’ll change your mind about letting her go?”

“No.” Brelisha’s face tightened at Siena’s words. “I don’t know how to explain it, I really don’t. But I just have this feeling that Netra needs to go.”

“If you ask me I’d say the feeling is guilt. You still feel guilty about what happened to her mother. That’s why you’ve been so easy on her all these years.”

Perhaps Brelisha was right, Siena thought. If she had chosen differently, if she had gone to the Haven Mother with what she knew, maybe she could have averted what happened.

Siena sighed again and sat down at her desk. Brelisha tired her so. Why did it have to be this way between them? Why must they argue so all the time?

But she knew the answer to that, knew it all too well. The anger, the arguments, all grew out of one decision nearly fifteen years ago. One decision among many made by Ivorie, Haven Mother before Siena. The last one she made in that role. The day came when Ivorie announced her retirement, knowing that her death was coming soon. And all the Tenders at Rane Haven knew who she would choose to succeed her. After all, Brelisha had always been her favorite, the Tender most like her in temperament. Ivorie had never hidden her love for her.

But then she lay here on her bed in this very room, the Tenders all gathered around, and handed the Haven’s one battered copy of the Book of Xochitl to Siena. Siena would never forget Brelisha’s look when Ivorie did that, the way her face seemed to close in on itself like a fist, clenching on the hurt that sprang up there like a dark flower. After that she didn’t speak to a soul until after Ivorie’s death and when she finally did, it was to argue one of the first decisions Siena made as Haven Mother.

 Looking at her now, Siena could see that hurt still festering there and she wanted to just give it to her right then. Simply abdicate, say, It was a mistake. It should have been you. I don’t want to be Haven Mother. Because the truth was that she didn’t. She’d never wanted the responsibility. She would have been perfectly happy to remain a follower.

But even as she thought this Siena knew she couldn’t do it. Ivorie was a woman who had always seemed to know just what she was doing, as if the Mother were always there, whispering in her ear. Even after fifteen years Siena couldn’t shake the feeling that if Ivorie chose her as Haven Mother, she must have had her reasons. She must have been right. Neither Siena’s nor Brelisha’s feelings changed that at all. She gathered herself before meeting Brelisha’s gaze once again.

“You’ve heard it too, haven’t you?”

Brelisha was girded for battle and that surprised her. But she recovered quickly, as she always did. “Heard what?”

“The dissonance in LifeSong.”

Brelisha’s arms fell to her sides and she stood there for a moment, blinking at Siena. Then she sat down abruptly in the chair that faced Siena’s desk. The candlelight cast her eyes in deep shadows as she studied her hands. Siena thought she saw them shaking slightly.

“Then it really is there.” Brelisha took a deep breath and her next words were very soft, almost inaudible. “It’s so faint I wasn’t sure I heard it.” In a whisper she added, “I thought maybe the dissonance was in me.”

Siena knew, right then, that Brelisha’s hurt went clear to her center. And why not? All these years, wondering if Ivorie passed her over because there was something wrong with her inside. Always that fear deep down, eating at her every day. No one she could share it with. Nothing she could do about it. Siena felt a surge of compassion for the other woman and wished she had shared her fears with Brelisha days ago, when she first heard the dissonance. But she’d thought that maybe she was imagining it, and she hadn’t wanted to face Brelisha’s acid tongue, hadn’t wanted to fight to convince her of something that might have no substance at all.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” Brelisha said.

“I think so.” And then the big question. “What do you think is causing it?”

Brelisha’s gaze went to a tattered tapestry on the wall. It was a very old depiction of the Banishment. The colors were badly faded, but one could still see the towering figure of Xochitl, clothed in white light, pointing a commanding finger at the dark shape of Melekath, as he slunk towards a gaping hole in the ground. “I keep telling myself it can’t be that,” Brelisha said. “I’ve never believed the Book of Sorrows is anything more than the babblings of a madwoman. I’ve never let the girls read it.” The Book of Sorrows contained the apocalyptic revelations of the Tender, Yuon She. In the dark days following the fall of the Empire, Yuon She used the dream powder ceremony to seek a vision of the Mother, and what she saw drove her over the edge into madness and despair, for the vision showed her that Melekath’s prison was not unbreakable, as the Book of Xochitl claimed. The Banishment was not permanent. Someday Melekath would free himself and he would return to take his revenge on those who sided with Xochitl against him. Shortly after her vision, Yuon killed herself. The pages that came to be known as the Book of Sorrows were found clutched in her dead hand. “But now I don’t know what to believe.”

“I don’t either,” Siena admitted. “But something in my heart tells me…” She broke off, unwilling to say the terrible words.

They sat there in silence for long minutes, neither woman able to look at the other. Finally, Brelisha said, “If Jolene really did have a vision, then Treeside could hold some answers.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” Siena said. “I have read the Book, I have prayed, and I just don’t know what to do. I don’t have anything else to try.”

“And if that’s really what it is?” Brelisha said, gesturing at the tapestry.

“Then the Mother help us, because nothing else will.”

          

When Brelisha was gone, Siena looked at the tapestry on the wall once again. She’d never liked the thing. It made her uneasy. If it was up to her she’d have thrown it on the trash heap years ago. But it had hung in this Haven, in this very room, since the time of the Empire. It would be here after she was gone. Some traditions were stronger than mere people.

She opened a drawer in her desk and removed a wooden box. Inside was a rib bone from a spikehorn, highly polished so that it shone in the lamplight. Her sonkrill. The ribs protect the heart, Ivorie had told when she returned with it after her Songquest. She had never completely understood what the Haven Mother meant by that, as she did not understand so many other things that enigmatic woman said or did.

She picked it up gently. There was a time when she carried it with her constantly. She remembered sitting in her room late at night, just holding it. There were nights when she was sure that it was aware of her, that it knew her touch and responded to it. Her faith was a living thing inside her back then, a vital core she could not imagine losing.

When did she stop carrying her sonkrill? When did she lose her faith?

She sighed, put the talisman back into its box, and the box back into the drawer.

          

Netra shut the door behind her and took a deep breath, relieved to be back inside the Haven. Her arm throbbed slightly and her heart was pounding. What happened out there? What was that strange yellow flow? She wanted to see if it had left a mark on her, but this room was unlit, as was most of the Haven. Money was scarce, too scarce to spend burning candles in a room no one was using. The sound of her name being called interrupted her thoughts and she started down the hall towards the common room, rubbing at the sore spot as she went.

Gerath gave Netra her most disapproving look when she entered the room, one that she seemed to have copied from Brelisha. Netra had often wondered if she practiced that look in front of the mirror.

“That took you long enough.”

“I was—”

Gerath waved off the rest of her words, clearly not interested in another excuse. “Go help Owina. She’s in the garment room.” Her eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

Netra dropped her hand quickly. Whatever happened, she sure didn’t want to talk about it with Gerath. “Nothing. Bumped into something, I guess.” She tried a self-deprecating smile. “You know how clumsy I can be.”

Gerath just frowned at her and Netra realized that she must blame her for this unexpected trip to Treeside. I’m not the one who’s making you go, Netra wanted to say. I don’t even want you to go. I’d rather go alone. But she didn’t. She’d just get into more trouble and that was something she couldn’t afford right now. Not with a chance to finally do something so close. So she mumbled something conciliatory and left the room.

Her walk down the echoing hallways to the garment room wasn’t exactly hurried. Helping Owina in the garment room could only mean one thing: another ceremony. Which one was it this time? The Feast of Dead People She’d Never Heard Of? Good Mother, did they ever do anything else around here? There were so many holy days and rituals and ceremonies Netra couldn’t count them all. They just blended together in one big blur, each one duller than the one before it.

 The garment room stood at the end of a hallway in a back wing of the Haven. The doorway stood open, candlelight spilling from it. She stopped at the edge of the light and held her forearm up. In the dim light she could just see a faint purplish blotch on her left forearm. Was the flow that touched her tainted somehow? Was that even possible? She shivered, reliving the moment, and hurried into the room, not wanting to be alone.

The room was small, made smaller by the boards nailed over the broken-out windows. In the center of the room was a lone table, a pair of stubby candles burning fitfully on it. Lying on the table were a number of fanciful garments. Owina was sitting on a bench, a needle and thread in one hand, squinting at a white garment streaked with every color of the rainbow. The garment’s hem was tattered and one of the sleeves had begun to part ways with the rest of it. All the ceremonial outfits at Rane Haven were in similar shape. It had been a long time since there’d been money to replace any of them.

In stark contrast to the moth-eaten garments was Owina herself. Even on a rough-hewn bench in a barren room, Owina managed to look, if not elegant, at least prim and neat. Her hair was tied neatly back and secured with a pair of plain wooden combs. Her brown robe fit well; somehow she managed to make what looked like a loosely-tied sack on everyone else look like a tailored gown on her. Her back was straight, the movements of her slender fingers graceful as she turned the ceremonial garment this way and that. Netra had always thought she looked like she belonged in a big house somewhere, married to a rich trader or even a nobleman. More than once she and Cara had speculated on what could have possibly led a woman like Owina to join the lowly Tenders. Of course, they never asked her outright. Tenders left their past lives behind when they joined the order. It was considered very improper to ask another Tender about her past.

Netra didn’t have a past. At least not before the Haven. Where the other women had either been discovered through Testing as young girls or had come here on their own when they were older, Netra had been born here. All she knew about her parents was what she’d been told: they were traders passing through, her mother died in childbirth and her father left her here to be raised as a Tender.

“There you are. I was beginning to wonder what had become of you,” Owina said, without looking up.

“You’re not the only one.”

Owina raised her head, a consoling smile on her lips. “I know you don’t want to do this, Netra. I know you’d rather be outside looking at the stars or something. But I need your help or I’ll never finish tonight.”

“It just seems like such a waste of time,” Netra said, taking a seat on the bench and poking at the garments stacked on the table.

“Ceremony often does to the young,” Owina said gently. “It’s not until you get older that you see the importance of such things.”

“How can these empty motions ever be important?”

“That’s all you think they are? Empty motions?” The prim woman shook her head almost sorrowfully. “It’s all in how you look at them, I suppose. But what seems empty to you is comforting to some of us.”

“I don’t see how.”

Owina set the garment she’d been working on down and turned toward Netra. “Sometimes the storms of life grow too strong and threaten to sweep us away.” She touched her hair and looked down, the perfect picture of the demure lady. “When that happens, ceremony and ritual give us something solid, something comforting, to cling to.”

Netra started to reply, then thought of the yellow flow in the mists again and closed her mouth. “Oh,” she said softly. “I never thought of it that way.”

And, oddly enough, she found it to be true—in a way. During the next hour as she sat there in the silence broken only by a word of direction here and there by Owina, or the rustling of clothes as they finished with one costume and moved to another, Netra did find herself calmed. Slowly the encounter in the mists faded back, pushed away by the humdrum of the routine, and when at last they were finished and she pushed back from the table to leave, she found that it didn’t quite seem as frightening as it had before.

“There,” Owina said, patting her hand and smiling kindly, “it doesn’t seem as bad as all that now, does it?”

“Thank you,” Netra said, looking at the small woman, her face so smooth even though she had to be in her fifties. For a moment she was tempted to tell her what had happened. She needed to tell someone. But then Owina took up the needle she’d set down on the table, put it in its case and stood, gathering up the costumes—“Go on, I’ll take care of it from here.”—and the moment was gone.

Netra made her way back through the dark, echoing halls towards the room she shared with Cara. Her friend was sitting at the room’s only desk, copying from a tattered, leather-bound book onto an old slate. Cara looked up and smiled at her, but then she saw the look on Netra’s face and her smile slowly faded.

“What happened? Something happened out there, didn’t it?”

Netra sat on her bed heavily, feeling suddenly very tired. “I don’t know.” Her hand went to the purplish mark again.

“Did you do something to your arm?” Cara got up from the desk and came over to the bed. “Let me see.” She took hold of Netra’s arm. “What is this? It looks strange. Did you burn yourself or something?”

“Not exactly,” Netra admitted. She leaned back against the wall and told her friend what happened. Cara was the only one who knew she could go beyond, so she wasn’t surprised by that part of the story, but her expression grew awed when Netra told her how she went deeper, past the mists, to the point where she could see the akirmas of Brelisha and Siena.

“I didn’t know you could do that, Netra.”

Netra shrugged. “Neither did I. Not until tonight anyway.” She took a deep breath. “But that’s not all of it.” She touched the mark on her arm again. Was it her imagination, or did the skin feel kind of cold to the touch? “I saw something else in the mists. It was a flow of Song, but not a normal one. It was yellow, not golden like they’re supposed to be. It…touched me.”

Cara’s eyes went very round and she seemed to stop breathing. Abruptly she jumped up. “You have to tell Siena right away.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’? Netra, something attacked you beyond! That’s not even supposed to be able to happen.”

“I never said it attacked me.”

“Well, it did something to you. Look at your arm!”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore.” It really didn’t, Netra was sure of it. Any lingering ache had to be in her imagination. “If I go to Siena with this now, I’ll be up half the night, explaining. Surely it can wait until tomorrow.”

Cara just stared at her, her mouth working slowly. “Are you crazy? That thing could have…it could have poisoned you.”

“It didn’t poison me,” Netra scoffed, though the thought made her a little nervous now that she considered it.

“But you don’t know!” Cara’s face was anguished. “Oh, Netra, I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you. I just couldn’t.” Tears were gathering in the corners of her eyes.

“Come on, Cara, sit down,” Netra said, taking her arm and pulling her down to sit beside her on the bed. Now she was feeling a little embarrassed. If there was one thing she found difficult to manage with her friend, it was Cara’s propensity to burst into tears over every little thing. “You’re getting too worked up. I feel fine, I really do.”

“Then what can it hurt to tell Siena? Can’t you at least have Karyn look at it?” Karyn was the Haven’s best healer.

“It really can’t,” Netra admitted. “But I still want to wait until tomorrow.”

“But why?” Cara fairly wailed.

“I just…I want some time to think it over first.”

Cara hung her head and then she did cry, silently. A little awkwardly, Netra put her arms around her friend. Things like this always made her feel so out of place, as if she never quite learned how to deal with them. Cara was so gentle and delicate, so pretty, so…feminine. Next to her Netra felt almost crude, taller than all the other Tenders except Bronwyn, her hands and feet big and ugly, not small and pretty like Cara’s.

“It will be okay,” Netra said, and repeated it a few more times as if that would make it true.

In time Cara’s sobs subsided and she looked up at Netra, her face streaked with tears. “Are you sure you feel okay?” she asked.

“I’m sure,” Netra said, and tried a smile she hoped was reassuring. “Trust me, Cara. You know I always land on my feet.”

“Except for that time you fell out of that tree and broke your arm.”

“Except for that,” Netra admitted.

“You’ll tell Siena in the morning? You promise?”

“Of course I will, only…let me tell her in my own time, when it’s right for me, okay?” However she broke this, she knew it was going to cause problems. Brelisha would be furious that she hadn’t told her she could go beyond. She’d grill her for hours and then come up with a thousand more boring exercises for Netra to practice. Why did everything have to come with so much regimen and discipline? Why couldn’t she be allowed to just enjoy the Mother’s gift and leave it at that? A new worry occurred to her then: what if Siena changed her mind about letting her go with Gerath to Treeside? She couldn’t bear that.

Later, after Cara had gone to bed, Netra stood before their dresser, and took the tie from her braid. She ran her fingers through her hair and then began to brush it. It was so thick and coarse that if she didn’t brush it every night it turned into a hopeless nest of knots and tangles. When she was done, she removed her brown robe and hung it on a hook on the wall, feeling, as always, relief at being rid of it. It was so cumbersome, so bulky. Wearing it was like wearing a horse blanket. Trousers made so much more sense, were so much more practical for crawling around in the desert.

Fortunately for her she did own a pair of trousers and an old cotton shirt that laced up the front. She went into Tornith alone one time, without permission, and traded some crystals she’d found for the clothes. She kept the clothes hidden in a cloth sack tied to a tree behind the Haven and she changed into them secretly whenever she went for her longer walks. She wasn’t concerned about any of the other Tenders seeing her. They hardly ever walked more than a stone’s throw from the Haven.

 She pulled on her nightshift and sat down on the edge of her bed, looking again at the purplish blotch on her left forearm. Despite what she’d said to Cara, it did frighten her. Something far outside the realm of the ordinary had happened to her tonight. She shivered, wondering what would have happened if she hadn’t been able to get away from that sickly yellow flow. As always when she was upset, her hand went automatically to her sonkrill, hanging around her neck. Hers was not dead and empty like the others, she told herself. It was aware, just like the sonkrill of old; she was sure of it.

Netra touched a scar on her right forearm and thought of her Songquest, undertaken more than a year ago. She had been young for a Quest, and at first Brelisha refused to even consider it. But she took her case to Siena and the Haven Mother overruled Brelisha, saying that it was not up to them to decide who was old enough to receive the Mother’s blessing. After the prescribed cleansing and purifying rituals, Netra set out on her own.

Her Seeking—that period of time when a Questing Tender wanders the land, guided by the Mother, waiting for the Mother to reveal Herself—lasted for nearly twenty days, far longer than most. During that time she fasted, drinking only water, and praying ceaselessly. To this day she couldn’t say where, exactly, she went. Most of that time was a fog. Certain features, a rock, a cactus, a cliff, were very clear in her memory, but she could not say where she saw them.

At one point she stumbled into a cave. It was dark, but for some reason she could see quite well. Mist blanketed the floor and the weariness and hunger which were her constant companions were gone. She felt weightless, almost insubstantial, but extremely lucid and aware. Knowing that this was where she was meant to be, she sat down to wait for her spirit guide.

Sometime later her spirit guide appeared, in the form of a huge rock lion with glowing eyes. It stalked towards her, the mists swirling with its passing. She was frozen by the sight of it, utterly overwhelmed by its presence. She could still remember clearly every detail of its appearance, the green-gold hue of its almond-shaped eyes, the silver coat, every hair tipped with white, like a layer of frost.

When it turned and walked away she followed. They went deep into the cave, walking for what seemed like hours. Finally, the lion stopped and Netra looked around her. There were no bones on the floor, as she had been taught to expect. Then she looked closer. Lying on the bare stone floor was a single rock lion claw. She picked it up and held it in both hands, mesmerized by the pure, simple beauty of it. Dimly she was aware of the spirit guide circling her.

The spirit guide moved faster and faster, until it was a blur. Suddenly it stopped and roared. The sound echoed around the cavern.

As the echoes died out a whistling, howling noise started in the upper reaches of the cavern. A beam of fierce blue light stabbed down out of the darkness and struck the claw.

A different sound, like the roar of a waterfall, joined the first, and a beam of deep emerald light lanced down and struck the claw as well.

After that came a deep rumbling, like the movement of stones deep beneath the earth, and a blazing red light struck the claw.

Netra stared in awe as her hands were surrounded in a nimbus of light. From the corner of her eye she saw the spirit guide leap forward and slash at her. Pain streaked down her arm and she cried out, her eyes going to the line of blood welling on her forearm. Then, from the wound came a thin beam of white light—her Selfsong—mingling with the other three lights. Their combined light was so bright it was hard to look at, but at the same time she could not look away. The colors blended together, coalescing into a globe of brilliant golden light that surrounded her.

In time the lights faded away and Netra looked up to see that her spirit guide was gone and she was alone. She realized then that she was seated on the ground near the entrance to the cave. Did she simply imagine it? But there in her hands was the claw and when she held it up she saw a faint amber light glowing in its depths. She held herself very still, listening very closely with her heart, and it seemed she could hear the smallest whisper coming from it.

 Over and over as she made her way slowly back to the Haven she stared at that light, but before she was home it had faded away completely. There were many exclamations over the claw, for rock lions were very rare and one had not appeared to a Tender as a spirit guide in a very long time.

But in the Selfsongs of the other Tenders Netra heard disbelief and knew several of them did not believe it was a sonkrill at all, that she had simply stumbled across it and told the others she was led to it by a spirit guide, to save herself the shame of returning empty handed. She could not blame them for feeling that way, knowing that some of them had done that very thing.

She never told any of the others what she had seen, or about the rock lion clawing her, not even Cara. She explained the scratch away as an accident on the return trip, caused by her own weakness from lack of food. She knew they wouldn’t believe her if she told them the truth, but that wasn’t why she kept it secret. She kept it secret because she was convinced that the Mother had marked her, because she was special, because she was destined to do great things in Xochitl’s name. She had a feeling that if she shared it with others, the magic of it would slip away through her fingers.

Since then she often woke up in the middle of the night and held her sonkrill before her, looking for that glint of amber. It was never there, but that did not mean she had imagined it. It was simply waiting for the right time.

She traced the scar with her finger reverently. With this scar, the Mother had marked her as her own.

A chilling thought came to her then:

Had some other god marked her tonight as well?

          

Jolene was waiting when Siena went outside later that night to get a breath of fresh air before going to bed. She stood alone by the stone bench underneath the willow tree, her perpetually tousled black hair and dark robe making her a shadow in the moonlight. The bandages on her hands were very white.

“I need to talk to you, Haven Mother.”

“I know,” Siena said wearily, not surprised to see her. I should have stayed in my room, she thought. I’m not ready for this. Abruptly she asked, “How did you burn your hands?”

“I couldn’t find my way back. I couldn’t break free of the dream,” she said softly. “I grabbed hold of the hot stones.” Jolene raised her head. “Do you believe what the dream powder showed me was true?” Jolene asked hesitantly.

She had been at Rane Haven for ten years and still Siena didn’t think any of them really knew her. She was a solitary figure, driven by voices and visions none of the rest of them could hear or see. Siena suspected the others were harsh on her sometimes because she made them nervous. And there was something unsettling about her. It was as if she wasn’t quite all there, as if part of her were off somewhere else, beyond a curve in the world that the rest of them would never know.

Siena made herself move closer and laid her hand on Jolene’s arm. “I want to say that you haven’t told me enough to believe or disbelieve.” She hesitated for a moment and drew a deep breath. The slope she stood on was turning into a cliff. “But somewhere in my gut is a feeling that you did see truth and that what you saw is further proof of what I fear is happening.”

 Jolene lowered her head, and her hair hung down about her face like a shroud. Her voice when it emerged was distant, lost. “I saw the abyss. I…I—” and here she choked on the words, “saw down into it.”

She trailed off and Siena’s grip on Jolene’s arm tightened in alarm. Jolene saw down into the abyss? The abyss was the netherworld. It was what Xochitl and the Eight reached into to create the prison. The Book of Xochitl said the abyss was the complete antithesis of the normal world, utterly hostile to it. She wanted to squeeze so hard that Jolene would scream, run away, anything but continue. More than anything, she didn’t want to hear what the woman would say next.

“Haven Mother, I…the abyss is leaking into our world.”

 Now Siena needed her grip on the woman’s arm to keep herself upright. The night spun around her. Bad enough the thought that the prison was breaking, that Melekath was returning to the world, but this? Could this be the reason for the dissonance she’d been hearing in LifeSong recently?

“You must be mistaken.” The words were feeble. They did nothing to deny the fear that gripped Siena.

Jolene hung her head and said nothing. There was nothing left to say.

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