And so they will submit to the rule of the Order.”
“No, they won’t!”
“They will. I have foreseen it,” he said with cold satisfaction. “The woodlanders will see you, too, vanquished and humbled, and they will understand that the Order must not be thwarted or disobeyed any longer.”
“I thought I was coming here to die!” Chandra said angrily. “I agreed to be executed, not… violated, humiliated, and put on display!”
“Your message didn’t mention execution as a condition of our agreement,” Walbert said. “As far as your part of our bargain goes, you said you would surrender to my custody. And that was all you said.”
“I didn’t say that I’d allow you to feed me to the Purifying Fire!”
“The ceremony will take place tonight,” Walbert said. “I have a great deal to do before then, so this conversation is over.”
“I won’t let you do this me, Walbert!”
He ignored her again as he shouted, “Guards!”
“No!” As the door behind her opened, Chandra leaped forward and threw herself across the desk at the old mage.
Alarmed, Walbert tried to evade her, but the speed and force of her attack shoved him back into his chair as he started to rise from it. She punched him in the face as footsteps thundered into the room. Chandra got her fingers on his throat and began squeezing just as several pairs of hands seized her. She kicked, bit, punched, and screamed threats as the soldiers pulled her off the high priest and subdued her.
Walbert tried to speak. He choked, coughed, and tried again, successfully. “Bring her hands together,” he instructed the soldiers.
They did-with some difficulty, since Chandra continued struggling violently.
Walbert covered her wrists with his hands and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. Chandra felt something cool encircling her flesh, and she looked down to see a thick, shining white coil binding her wrists together, in addition to the shimmering sheath that already covered her flesh.
With her wrists bound together and four men holding her back, she tried to attack Walbert again. It was futile, but she was too enraged to give up.
Walbert turned to Gideon, who still hadn’t moved, and said angrily, “Were you just going to stand there and watch her kill me?”
Gideon shrugged. “You’ve got guards.”
Chandra was still kicking, struggling, and shouting when they dragged her from the room.
She was alone in a locked chamber, with her wrists still bound, when he came to her.
Chandra’s stomach clenched when the door to the chamber opened. Were they coming to get her for Walbert’s ceremony? There was one small window in this room, high up on the wall, so she knew that night had fallen some time ago.
When he entered the darkened room and closed the door behind him, she asked, “Is it time?”
“Not yet,” Gideon said. “Soon, though.”
“If you’ve come to tell me you didn’t know what he would do,” Chandra said coldly, “I’m not in-”
“That’s not why I came.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To tell you there may be a way out,” he said.
She blinked. “You’ll help me escape?”
“No,” he said. “That’s not possible.”
“Of course it’s possible,” she snapped. “All we have to do is-”
“It’s not possible without killing a lot of people,” he said. “So the answer is no, Chandra.”
She looked at the faintly glinting metal of the sural that was coiled at his belt. “Then kill me now.”
In the dim light, she could see him shake his head.
“Please, Gideon.” She heard the pleading in her voice and hated it, so she didn’t say more.
He shook his head again.
She looked away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just… can’t.”
Chandra shrugged, gazing at the floor. “Maybe someone else will.” And she would do her best to encourage them.
“There may be another way,” he said.
When he didn’t continue, she looked at him again. “Well?”
“I’d have come sooner, but I’ve been with the Keepers. And since I didn’t want to arouse their suspicion, it took time. I had to be… circumspect about my questions.”
“The Keepers?”
“Of the Purifying Fire,” Gideon said. “It’s never left unguarded.”
She sat down on the narrow cot, which was the only item of furniture in the room, and looked at him in silence.
He said, “There may be a way to enter the Fire but keep your power.”
“May be? You’re not certain?”
“No one is certain,” he said. “No one has tried it in this lifetime.”
“Why not?”
“They’re afraid of being cleansed of their power if they enter the flames.” He added, “That’s why no one in the Order has ever entered the Purifying Fire. Not Walbert, not the Keepers, not anyone.”
Gideon crossed the room and sat beside her on the cot. “The Fire is very ancient, much older than the Order. Before the Temple was built, there was another temple that existed on this spot. Smaller, humbler. This place has been a holy site as far back as Heliud. The priests and priestesses of the old faith here, long ago, worshipped the Purifying Fire, and people came from all over Regatha to give themselves to it.”
She frowned. “Give themselves? As sacrifices?”
“No. To prove they were worthy,” he said. “Some died. Others survived. And if you survived the Purifying Fire, then you could become a priest or priestess of the faith. Because you had proved your soul was clean.”
“Clean,” she repeated flatly.
“That’s how they survived the flames,” Gideon said. “Not with magic, not with special protection. They entered the flames with a… a clean soul. And they didn’t die.”
She shook her head. “But I’m not going to die in the flames.”
“Yes, you are.”
Their eyes met in the shadowy room, illuminated now only by the glow emanating from her shimmering white body sheathe and the bright white coils that bound her wrists.
And she knew he was right. What would happen to her in the Purifying Fire would be, for her, the same as dying.
No, it would be worse than dying. Much worse.
“I can’t bear it.” Her voice broke.
“I know.” He put his hand over both of hers, which were clenched together on her lap. “So we need to prevent it.”
“But how does someone clean their soul?”
“You face the things you’ve done,” he said, “and accept the weight of your responsibility for your deeds, without lies or excuses.”
“That’s it?” she said skeptically.
“That’s what the Keepers said.”
“And if I do that, then I won’t… my power won’t die in the Purifying Fire?”
He didn’t answer, and she knew it was because he couldn’t guarantee it. He had searched for a solution, for a way to save her. This was what he had been able to find. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all that he could offer.
You face the things you’ve done…
“But I’ve done so many things,” she said pensively.
“What did you do that gives you nightmares?”
She drew in a sharp breath and stared at him, her heart thudding with sudden fierceness.
