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"Cross her name off."
Sona slapped the parchment down hard enough to rattle the pegs. "Right now. I don't care whose handwriting that is."
Ethlin didn't look up from the rope she was coiling. "It's mine."
"Then uncross it yourself."
"That's not how the rite works and you know it." Ethlin set the coil down, slow, deliberate. "Three names go up before the frost breaks. One name gets crossed off by the bell, not by me, not by you."
"The bell doesn't pick names. People pick names. You picked yours."
That landed. Ethlin's jaw moved, just barely. "Sit down, Sona."
"I don't take orders from a corpse."
"Sona." Wenna's voice, from the stairwell. Youngest of the three, sixteen winters and already gray at the temple from the cold up here. She had a cup in both hands and she froze in the doorway like she'd walked into a blade fight. "What's going on."
"Nothing," Ethlin said.
"She's on the list," Sona said. "Still. After everything I said last night."
Wenna's cup rattled. She set it down on the sill without drinking.
Ethlin finally looked at Sona straight on. Gray eyes, tower-cold, the kind of calm that made you want to shake her until something cracked. "I've been on that list since I was nineteen. You knew that when you walked up here."
"I know you were chosen when you were nineteen. I didn't know you—" Sona stopped.
"Say it."
"I didn't know you asked for it."
Silence. Wind through the shutter slats, thin and mean, the kind that got into your teeth. Wenna backed toward the stair like she wanted to be anywhere else, and Sona didn't blame her.
"Who told you that," Ethlin said. Flat. Not a question.
"Rhys."
Ethlin's mouth went tight at the name. "Of course he did."
"Is it true?"
Ethlin didn't answer with words. She pulled her sleeve up past the elbow, slow, no drama in it, which somehow made it worse. The scar ran from wrist to inner elbow, old, pale, the kind of clean line that only comes from a blade held steady by the person cutting.
"I did that myself," Ethlin said. "The night before the rite. So the bell-mother would have to pick me over Alis. Alis had a boy at the garrison gate who used to whistle up at her window. I didn't have anybody whistling at mine. Simple math."
Sona's hand found the table edge. Held it. "You mutilated yourself so you'd die instead of her."
"I made sure the bell chose the person who could carry it."
"That's not a choice, Ethlin, that's—" Sona's voice cracked and she hated that it did, hated it in front of Wenna, hated it in front of the scar sitting there in the cold light like it had every right to be proud. "That's just letting them win early."
"Or it's the only piece of it I get to control." Ethlin pulled her sleeve back down, buttoned the cuff with steady fingers. "You want to fight the ending. I get it. You're young enough that you still think there's a version where all three of us walk out of this tower come spring."
"There is a version."
"Show it to me."
"I'm working on it."
"Work faster," Ethlin said, not unkind, which was somehow the cruelest way she could've said it. "Because the rite doesn't wait for you to finish your homework, little blade. It comes whether the answer's ready or not."
Wenna made a small sound from the stairwell, half a laugh, half something that wasn't. "I don't want to die past winter," she said, quiet, like she was confessing something shameful. "I know that's not—I know I'm supposed to be braver about it."
"You're not supposed to be anything," Sona said, sharper than she meant, turning on her. "Nobody in this tower is supposed to be brave about dying. That's a story men tell so we go quiet."
"Careful," Ethlin murmured.
"Careful of what?"
"Of sounding like him."
Sona's face went hot. "I don't sound like Rhys Kaldane."
"You've had his ledger under your ribs for two weeks now, whether you'll admit it or not." Ethlin picked the coil back up, calm again, infuriatingly calm, like the scar conversation had cost her nothing at all. "He tells you a date. You start rearranging the whole world around it. That's not you fighting an ending, Sona. That's you fighting his ending. Different thing."
"He's not wrong about the dates."
"Maybe not. Doesn't mean he's right about what to do with them."
The door at the base of the stairwell slammed open below. Boots taking the steps two at a time, fast, careless of the noise. Sona's hand went to her hip before her brain caught up with who it probably was.
Rhys came through the tower door with his shoulder still turned like he expected to be swinging at somebody. His coat had a fresh tear at the sleeve. Blood on his knuckles that wasn't his.
"Sona." He said her name like it cost him breath he didn't have to spare. "The knife. The one that went into the guardhouse wall this morning, the one everyone's calling a raider's throw—"
"What about it."
He crossed the room in three strides, close enough now that she could smell the smoke still clinging to him, close enough to see the muscle jumping in his jaw. When he grabbed her wrist it wasn't gentle and it wasn't asking permission.
"That knife wasn't the enemy's." His grip tightened, like he needed her to feel the weight of it, not just hear it. "It was Vittal's man."
Sona went still.
"Say that again."
"Vittal's man. The one who died in the raid last week. The knife they pulled from the guardhouse wall this morning? It's got his mark on the hilt. I just came from the captain's office. They're saying it's a message."
"A message from a dead man."
"Or from whoever wants us to think the dead are walking." Rhys's voice dropped, rough, urgent. "Someone planted that blade, Sona. Someone inside the keep."
Ethlin set the rope down. Slow. Deliberate.
"How many people know this," she said.
"Four, counting you three. The captain's keeping it quiet until he figures out who—"
"Who's next," Wenna whispered.
Rhys's eyes cut to her, then back to Sona. His hand was still on her wrist, fingers tight enough she could feel her pulse against his palm.
"That's the thing," he said. "The knife was thrown at the guardhouse. But it wasn't thrown at the guards."
Sona's throat went dry. "Where."
"The bell-keeper's mark. Right through the center."
Ethlin stood up. The coil of rope hit the floor.
"Someone in this keep," she said, voice flat, dead calm, "just declared war on the rite."
Rhys let go of Sona's wrist. Stepped back. His hand went to the hilt at his belt, instinct, like the enemy was already in the room.
"Or on you," he said.
The wind rattled the shutters. Wenna's cup tipped off the sill and shattered on the stone floor, and nobody moved to pick up the pieces.
Sona looked at the parchment still sitting on the table. Three names. One of them Ethlin's, written in Ethlin's own hand.
"Tell the captain," she said, "that if someone wants to cross a name off early—"
The bell above them tolled once.
Not the hour. Not the call. Just once, low and wrong, like something had brushed against it in the dark.
All four of them looked up.
The bell tolled again.