“You are dismissed, Myra,” Queen Chora said in a voice that could have frozen water.
She fell to her knees, would have clutched the queen’s feet had she not kicked her hands away with disdain, her dancer’s grace evident even in that gesture. No amount of pleading could convince the queen of her innocence. “But I never touched him,” she begged.
“You expect me to believe the word of a common servant over that of a prince?” Queen Chora yelled. “You dare? Take your dismissal and go, and be thankful I do not send you to the headsman.”
Pellin stood in emptiness again, the memories too few to create the familiar sensation of consciousness he’d come to expect when delving. He waited until the trickle of Myra’s memories brought him the next strand. He reached out and felt blackness take him again.
“No,” Countess Relgin said. “I will by no means hire a servant dismissed by the queen.” The countess leaned forward until Myra could almost taste the wine on her breath. “No house in Cynestol will hire you, girl. Can you blame them? The queen has told us how you put your hands on the prince.”
“But I didn’t!” Myra cried.
The countess stiffened. “Are calling the queen a liar?” She looked Myra up and down. “You’re young enough. Perhaps you can find work as a night woman.”
The memory ceased, and he waited for the next strand, impatient, though he knew that outside the delve, no more than a single heartbeat or two had passed. When it came, he grasped it and despair took him.
She skulked in the streets of Cynestol, begging for food, unable to find work and unwilling to become a night woman. Everywhere she went people accused her of trying to seduce the prince until she fled from them all to hide and hunt the alleys at night. The desire to take Queen Chora and imprison her, force her to live this same humiliation burned through her.
When the memory stopped, he sighed, looking, waiting for another strand, but when it came he found himself reliving the first memory again. Turning, he searched the emptiness of the girl’s mind until he found her vault once more.
Surveying the black scroll, he saw it to be like the others, covered with the same writing he’d seen in all who’d been tainted by the evil, written in glyphs that bore no resemblance to any language he’d seen. Redemption was impossible.
He willed his fingers to break contact and he straightened, once more standing in the middle of the room he’d taken with Allta and Mark. Allta’s look probably matched his own, resigned and stoic, but Mark wore an expression filled with the wonder the gift of domere often inspired in the uninitiated.
He stood, pondering the girl he couldn’t see.
“Eldest?” Allta asked. “What’s wrong?”
“A mystery, my friend. There is so much we don’t know. A millennium is hardly enough time to make a scratch.” He sighed. “We heard no bells signaling Chora’s death. I think she was on the way to kill the queen.” Even as he said it, his conclusion felt wrong. But why?
“Eldest,” Mark said, “she was stealing a lot of food.”
Pellin took a deep breath. “Meaning she wasn’t alone or she intended to wait before making her attempt on the queen. There’s not much to work with. The process of making her a dwimor has emptied her mind, making it impossible to retain any memories except what Cesla intended.”
He looked at Allta, who responded with one curt nod. All that remained was for him to take his apprentice out of the room on some pretext so his guard could dispatch the girl as quickly and cleanly as mercy allowed. “Mark,” Pellin called, “why don’t we go downstairs. Perhaps we can persuade the innkeeper to find us something sweet.”
Mark didn’t move or answer, his eyes fixed on the girl, though Pellin couldn’t tell if she met his gaze.
“You’re going to kill her, aren’t you?” Mark asked.
A stab of regret pained him before he shunted it aside and nodded. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing left of her except a desire for vengeance.” He rolled his shoulders in an attempt to shed the responsibility Mark’s regard placed upon him. “There’s nothing left of her except hatred and a name that’s not real.”
“What is it?”
He thought at first of refusing to answer, but perhaps this would be Mark’s way of grieving. Pellin reminded himself his young apprentice was acquainted with bloodshed. Along with several other members of the urchins, he had helped to defeat Laewan during the slaughter of Bas-solas. “Myra,” he said. “He gave her the name Myra.”
Mark nodded. “I don’t read as much as Fess, but I know that means sorrow. Why do you have to kill her?”
Pellin shook his head, tried not to let his frustration show. “Mark, there’s nothing left of her life. Everything has been emptied out of her mind except the barest need to survive and a hatred of Queen Chora.”
Mark shrugged as if Pellin’s argument was irrelevant. “Then give her a different life. Give her a different name to live to.”
Defeated, Pellin sat on the bed. He didn’t want to have this conversation. Wounds on his soul he’d tried to forget tore open anew. “Let me try to explain.” He met Mark’s gaze, his apprentice’s sky-blue eyes so earnest they were almost desperate. “How long does it take a carpenter to make a chair?”
Mark shook his head. “It depends on the chair.”
Pellin nodded his approval. “Good, that was well-reasoned.” He pointed to Myra. “Let’s suppose it’s a fairly simple chair.”
“A few days,” Mark said.
“How long would it take you to destroy it?” Pellin asked. “How much time would you need to reduce all that work to nothing more than kindling for the fire?”
Mark turned away from him to contemplate the woman only he could see. “But you have all those memories in your head. Couldn’t you just give her some of
