Gehata’s men would enter my cell with their sword points out front, while one of them bound and covered my hands. Then Mirren would delve me for whatever information Gehata might find useful.
After Mirren delved me, one of the guards, or perhaps Gehata himself, would open me with a dagger and let me bleed to death, allowing time for my gift to find its way to a new owner.
After Mirren delved me.
There had to be something I could do, some way to fight.
When I had delved Barl, one of the lost souls who’d gone to the forest, black threads had leapt for me within his mind, pinning me, making me, the delver, powerless. If I could do the same to Mirren, I could trap her mind within mine. Before I released her, I could force her will to my own, turning her against Gehata.
I smiled, a lost gesture in the darkness of my cell, but the expression evaporated. The knowledge of how to take Mirren’s mind captive might have been written somewhere within the Vigil library, but Custos had disappeared. There were no rats in my cell, but desperation ate at me just as effectively. Without knowledge or intuition on how to fight Mirren’s gift, I had no recourse except to hide the knowledge Gehata wanted.
Retreating within my mind, I entered the sanctum of the Merum library in Bunard once more and prepared a door behind which I would place every memory from the last year. Before Mirren entered my mind, I would lock the memories away, denying their knowledge to Bishop Gehata. I knew the gesture to be a feeble one. It wouldn’t keep me alive, but I had nothing else I could do.
My imminent death clarified my desires. I stood and lifted my arms in benison, and I appealed directly to Aer. “‘The six charisms of Aer are these: for the body, beauty and craft; for the soul, sum and parts; for the spirit, helps and devotion. The nine talents of man are these: language, logic, space, rhythm, motion, nature, self, others, and all. The four temperaments of creation are these: impulse, passion, observation, and thought. Within them all and the gift of domere are found knowledge and wisdom. Know and learn.’”
I finished the liturgy of the rite of haeling and sat, resigned, if not exactly peaceful. In the end, the battle was Aer’s. If I could have carried the burden of saving our world from the poison of the Darkwater, then Aer, Iosa, and Gaoithe wouldn’t have needed to touch the world they’d made.
Did I believe that?
In the dark with doubt gnawing at my spirit, I couldn’t say. Any number of points within the proverbs of the liturgy proclaimed His control, and churchmen recited it every day to console or congratulate those souls who’d been denied or received a gift.
How far was I willing to go in those beliefs? Would I be able to surrender my will to survive?
I don’t know how long I pondered those questions, wavering between certainty and disbelief, but at some point in my deliberation I heard the irregular footsteps of men in the distance. A moment later, I saw the yellow bobbing of lantern light coming toward my cell. I genuflected and made the sign of the intersecting arcs on my forehead.
Did I believe?
Keys rattled in the lock and the door swung open. I would have laughed at how prescient I’d been in my imaginings had I not been about to die. A half-dozen guards with their weapons leveled at my chest squeezed into the confines of my cell, their sword points a hairsbreadth from my tunic or touching it. I tried not to breathe too deeply. One of the guards came forward with a thick leather bag and a length of stout cord.
I didn’t bother to argue or fight. Instead, I extended my hands in front of me and watched as the guard covered and bound them, removing the only weapon I had. Bishop Gehata and Mirren stood outside in the hallway, illuminated by a pair of lanterns on either side. I watched as Mirren stripped the gloves from her hands.
“You’ve returned sooner than I expected,” I said to Gehata.
“Sooner?” He smiled. “It’s the sixth hour of the night.”
I shrugged. “You know what’s written in the proverbs as well as I. ‘A thousand days is as a breath.’”
He laughed. “And ‘the coming of Aer catches fools unaware.’”
I met his gaze with my own, for once deadly serious. “So it does.”
His smile wilted a bit at the corners, turning to a sneer of disdain. “Find what you can, Mirren, and then break his mind.”
I had hoped she might refuse, that such cold-blooded murder would be the line she refused to cross, but she stepped forward, her hand cupped and raised to my face as if she meant to offer me a caress.
I closed my eyes before she made contact. Panic prowled through my mind like a wounded animal in a trap, desperate for escape. I felt the touch of her skin, and reflexively I retreated into the depths of my construct. Powerless.
I stood in the sanctum of the Merum library in Bunard, somewhat surprised at Custos’s absence. The trestle table stood in the middle of the room with a broad taper on it that gave light, but the shelves and nooks were devoid of books or parchments. In my panic, I must have put them away.
A woman, hardly more than a girl, stood before me, gazing around the room in surprise. Her eyes were a deep green, not quite olive, but more akin to the color of the sea beneath clouds. She’d pulled her ash-blond hair back in the style of the cosp, but she wore no sword.
No sword. In her mind, she didn’t see herself as a soldier of the cosp.
“Greetings, Mirren.”
Her eyes widened. “You can talk to me?”
I nodded. “If one is
