Toria called to the man who had stood silent, paces away, through the entire exchange. “Lieutenant, get your men moving south. You can’t hold your outpost any longer.”
The lieutenant eyed the men and women who stood staring at Lelwin, still curled on the ground. “You’re not coming with us?” He stepped closer. “What if they refuse to follow?”
Toria shrugged. “Then leave them or kill them. The decision is yours.” She nodded toward the picket line, where the horses snorted, nervous. “You have a number of spare mounts now. I’ll need one.”
“Are you going to kill her?” the lieutenant asked.
“Kill who?” Threads of emotions she couldn’t identify were woven into the question, but she had no desire to explain her guilt.
“Brekana,” he said. Then after a pause, “Lelwin.”
“One, hopefully not the other,” she said.
Fess lifted Lelwin into the saddle and forced her legs to straighten enough to place her feet in the stirrups, but his attempts to force her to hold the reins proved futile. She simply let them fall. In the end, he tied the reins to his saddle. “I’ll have to lead her, Lady Deel.”
She nodded. “Watch her. We’ll be in the saddle most of the day.”
“Where are we going?” Fess asked.
“Back to King Rymark, but first I want to see how the other outposts have fared.”
Eight hours later Toria gazed on the fourth outpost they’d checked that day. Smoke drifted upward from portions of the stockade, where fire and embers still burned, their glow hidden by the harsh light of the sun. The same could not be said of the tents. All that remained were bits of charred canvas and rope.
And bodies.
“Like the others,” Fess said. “Completely overwhelmed.”
As before, she sent Wag to search the surrounding area before she spoke to Fess. “Check for survivors.”
He dismounted, moving toward the gate where men and women lay dead and scattered, the extremity of their defense obvious even at a distance. Toria contemplated suspicions and actions she preferred to ignore. “I could have been a sculptor’s apprentice,” she said to Lelwin, but the girl hadn’t stirred on the ride to the outposts, and she didn’t move now. “I could have lived a simple life. I could have loved and married and had children and died a score of years ago.”
With a mental shrug, she pushed those thoughts aside. She would have to delay any attempt to heal Lelwin until later. For the moment the girl’s illness served the Vigil better. Toria ignored the voice in her head that accused her. There would be time later for her to wallow in her revulsions. Reaching out, she touched Lelwin’s bare arm, dropped into the girl’s mind just long enough to confirm that the vault—gray but not black—lay still and closed beneath the river of thoughts that rushed like a torrent through her, a river composed almost entirely of darkest hues.
Fess returned, but she didn’t need to see his expression to know none of the defenders of the outpost had survived. The fact that his arms were empty, told her as much. “I need you to make a veil.”
His face stiffened. “And then protect you?”
Toria closed herself to his unspoken condemnations. She had too many of her own. “Yes.”
He stood unmoving. “You told me that I should let the Vigil love me. Is this how you show that love to others?”
Stung, she wheeled on him. “Delve her! Look in her mind and tell me what you see, apprentice!”
He met her passion with the rock-like stoicism of any Vigil guard, but he peeled a glove and touched the curled figure on horseback. “She has a vault.”
“Brilliant,” Toria said. “You still know how to use your gift. What color was it?”
“Gray.”
“Excellent,” she drawled. “Now tell me, what does such color in a vault signify?” When he didn’t answer, she continued, lashing at him with her voice. “Come now, surely Bronwyn told you what it meant.”
He shook his head. “She did not.”
She let her eyes go wide in feigned surprise. “Do you mean you don’t know? Perhaps an apprentice to the Vigil should accompany his accusations with knowledge.”
“That stroke was well laid,” he said. “How well did you know Willet Dura when you tried to kill him?”
The fire of her anger disappeared as if Fess had dumped ice on it. “That’s unfair.”
Breath burst from him. “Unfair? What about any of this is fair?”
“None of it,” she said, then gestured at Lelwin. “What was done to her, least of all. You noticed her vault wasn’t black. Did you also note the lack of writing on it?”
“I did,” he said, his voice neutral once more.
“If you were to go back to Bunard with your gift, you would doubtless find any number of vaults such as Lelwin’s among the urchins,” she said. “It’s the mind’s last defense against memories that cannot be suffered any longer.”
Fess’s expression turned stricken. “Because she never made it to the healers.”
“Or refused to stay,” Toria answered. “Regardless, at some point she wrapped herself in darkness and ceased to be Lelwin, becoming Brekana. We need to know as much as we can about Cesla’s plans. Brekana fought him to a standstill until last night, Fess. Any knowledge we can give Rymark will help him. Lelwin doesn’t know anything of the battle.”
“But Brekana does,” Fess said. He left her then, returning a moment later with a blanket that had escaped the ravages of the fire mostly unscathed. Methodically, he began ripping it into long, wide strips. “If we open Lelwin’s vault, will we be able to close it again?”
“I believe so, but if I guaranteed it, I’d be lying,” she said. “The mind is at once stronger and more fragile than we know. Of a certainty, it is far more complex than we can imagine.”
He lifted Lelwin’s curled body from the back
