She shook her head. “Where are your memories?”
I gestured to the walls of the sanctum, lined with doors. “Locked away.”
Her mouth pursed. “Do you think that will save you from me? From him?”
“No,” I said. “He means to have my gift. It may be as close to him as a dagger thrust, or not, but even if he is denied, he still means to see me dead.”
She stepped toward me, and I felt pressure within my mind.
“Do you know why you have the gift?” I asked.
Mirren nodded. “Aer willed it.”
“Yes. Why do I have it?”
Her face darkened. “Most of those memories were denied to me, but I learned enough. You have it because you took it from a dying man.”
She looked at me as if she expected me to deny it. “True enough, but I never wanted it, Mirren. I never desired to be able to see into the minds of others. How many times has it brought you joy to look into the hearts of those around you?”
She didn’t answer, but her brows knotted.
“Has Bishop Gehata allowed you to touch him?” I asked.
“It’s forbidden.”
I didn’t laugh. The pressure on my mind reminded me that despite being in my construct, Mirren could destroy me. “I don’t recall reading that in the liturgy anywhere as an acolyte.”
“You’re a priest?” Her eyes widened enough to lighten their dark green.
I nodded. “Most of the Vigil are—though I was a week from taking my vows when my king conscripted me into the war.”
Instead of mollifying her anger, my answer intensified it. She stepped toward me. “Betrayers of the faith! The bishop told me what you’ve done, corrupting your gift for power.”
The pressure on my mind increased until it became a stabbing pain, and the doors within my sanctum rippled as if they were nothing more than cloth in the wind. “Stop.”
Her fury escalated. “So you can continue to manipulate and lie and kill? Your secrets betray you, Lord Dura. If I cannot bring your deeds to light before I break your mind, you will have to justify yourself to Aer.”
“Aer? Is that whom you serve?” She didn’t answer. A part of my mind cracked and my thoughts blurred. What did I believe?
I held up a hand in surrender. The pressure didn’t ease, but it didn’t increase either. “It’s yours.”
“What’s mine?” she asked, pointing at the doors. “You’ve locked them all away.”
“The gift,” I said. “It came to you freely. It’s yours.” I either believed what I believed or I didn’t. With a mental wrench of effort, I opened all the doors of my sanctum. Light flashed as a lifetime of memories came into existence in the room in the form of books and scrolls, some dusty, others with the ink still wet.
But the pressure on my mind remained. “This won’t save you,” Mirren said.
“Probably not,” I agreed. “But before Gehata kills me, you should know the truth of the man you’re condemning.” I gestured at the walls. “This is my life. All of it.”
Pain lanced through my head. “Do you take me for a fool, Lord Dura?” she snarled. “I can’t absorb your entire life without breaking my mind. I know that.”
I nodded in spite of the lights exploding in my head. “Time outside the delve passes far more slowly than it does here.” I pointed to a shelf. “My knowledge and memories of the Vigil are there. It only encompasses a few months, but there are connections to my past that you will need for context.”
She moved to the indicated case and touched a book, her expression plainly speaking doubt. A flash of light that made my head hurt lit the sanctum, and the book flared with light as Mirren absorbed the memories. I stood too far away to see which one it had been and the organization of my mind couldn’t begin to rival Custos’s, but she didn’t appear impressed.
Mirren moved to the next scroll and showed it to me, her expression grim. I recognized it as the set of memories from my capture by the Vigil and my visit to the prison cells beneath the king’s tor in Bunard.
“I was a reeve,” I told her. “You won’t like what you find in there.”
“Tricks,” she said shaking her head, but when the scroll flashed, she doubled over, retching.
The pressure vanished, and I walked over to her, bent and clutching her stomach by the case. “I’m sorry, Mirren.”
She straightened. “You grieve for me?”
I nodded. “The gift came to you—though it might be as accurate to say that it came for you.” I pulled another book from the shelf, the next set of memories of my life after the ones she’d just absorbed.
“No.” Her blond hair rippled with her refusal.
She could have denied me. I was the one being delved, but when I held the book out to her, she took it. A flare of memory-light later the book had closed again. I reached for another, but she held up her hand. “It’s too much.”
“Put them away,” I said. “Only keep in your mind what you need. Lock the rest behind doors. You can’t absorb my life, but this is only a few months. Even at that, most of my memories are insignificant and can be ignored.”
She took the book from my hands with the air of a woman accepting her death.
Inside the delve, half a day might have passed by the time Mirren emptied the shelf. She slumped on the floor, her back against the wall and her knees curled protectively against her body, shaking her head.
“Gehata will see me killed, Mirren. You have to find a way to summon Ealdor,” I said.
She gaped at me as if I’d asked her to shoulder the weight of the moon and parade around the cathedral with it. “He doesn’t even know me.”
I lifted my hands. “It’s difficult to determine what the Fayit know. He might. It doesn’t
