It had taken her more than a year to rebuild the wards after the old woman had died.

Not that the temple had been unprotected in that time; that would be far too dangerous.

Still, every time she was forced to light a lantern she had not built with her own hands, she could feel how her lack of familiarity hampered her control – left blind spots and cracks that could be exploited with some cunning. Even the simplest, a river rock smoothed by the tumble of water with a small depression in the top for a pool of lamp oil, suffered because she hadn’t collected it with her own hands.

Of course, most nights the wards weren’t really needed. Most nights just the light from the torches would keep things from blundering out of the forest.

She lit the pool of lamp oil in the river rock every night, regardless – and the lantern of willow bark stretched over a frame of lashed sticks. Sometimes others, never more than four or five at a time. That was the other problem with wards she hadn’t made herself, of course; it was difficult to maintain a mental model of more than a few of them at a time. Difficult to picture how they fit together, where they overlapped and reinforced, and where they needed shoring up with her own energy.

Or her sword.

The first time she had drawn her sword after the old woman had died was the first time she realised she would need to rebuild the wards. It was the first time she realised she wasn’t stuck here, she was staying here.

To protect.