“Thank you for your aid,” I said to the bishop.
Serius pursed his lips. “That sounds as though you’re taking your leave, Lord Dura.” He held up a hand in forbidding. “What of the heir? Who holds the gift of kings for Aille?”
“If I am successful, Your Eminence, the throne will be filled.” I bowed. “I hope you will come to rule the Merum order. You seem to me to be a man who would do the job well.”
“If the council of bishops wills it,” he said.
I smiled. “Even if they do not, anyone will be an improvement over Gehata. Sometimes we have to settle for avoiding the worst choice instead of making the best.”
Bolt cocked his head. “With a little bit of work I could use that.”
We left the cathedral, and I resisted the urge to look behind me every few steps to check if we were being followed. If Serius had insisted on sending a company of soldiers to escort us, I would have been hard-pressed to come up with a plausible reason for refusing.
“What’s going on in that mind of yours, Willet?” Gael asked after we’d procured horses.
It felt good to be a whole company again, or mostly whole—though I had difficulty sorting through Volsk’s death. Mirren accompanied us in his place. There were things I needed to tell Mirren, or possibly Gael, in case I never got to Toria. She would want to know. I thought so anyway.
“The throne room,” I said. “You tried to touch me. Why?”
“Gehata told me to scramble your memories.” She swallowed. “He was going to insist on having his healer tend you.”
“You weren’t trying to delve me?”
She shook her head. “He said it was too dangerous, that if I stayed in your mind too long, it would leave me open to attack.”
“It doesn’t work quite that way,” I said. “I’m going to have to train you—as much as I can, anyway. Volsk misled Gehata and you regarding the use of our gift. It was brilliant. That’s how we managed to escape.”
She shook her head, and I had to remind myself that Gehata had found her by chance, his habit of intercepting the Archbishop’s correspondence leading him to her. She didn’t know anything of her ability, except for the half-truths that had been beaten out of Peret Volsk. “Gehata didn’t want to let you delve anyone within the Vigil,” I told her, “until he was ready to take the gift himself.”
“It would have exposed the lies he’d fed me,” she said, but without anger. Instead, her eyes held cold calculation. I would have placed a large wager that at least one of her talents tended toward logic, and her temperaments toward observation and thought. The newest member of the Vigil didn’t appear interested in wasting her time on meaningless vengeance.
“Gehata didn’t have a clue as to how skillfully he’d been played. He decided the best way to get you the skills he needed for your gift was to torture it out of Volsk and Custos. He started with Volsk, of course. He’d been the Vigil’s apprentice for years.” I stopped for a moment, forced myself to replay each scene where members of the cosp beat Volsk for the truth.
“Each time they appeared on the verge of giving up and torturing Custos instead, he pretended to crack—not so much as to make them suspicious, but enough to keep them occupied.” I smiled. “I think Fess and Mark would have appreciated his artistry. What he told you,” I said to Mirren, “was almost true, but he changed it. He had you muddle the memories of those you touched instead of destroying them.”
Her eyes widened. “You . . . I . . . can do that?”
“Yes,” I said. “For something so destructive, it’s ridiculously simple. What Volsk taught you created confusion within the minds of those you touched. You put your hand into the river of their thoughts and stirred them, mixing the threads the way a fisherman’s clumsy steps stir mud from the bottom of a stream, but their memories weren’t destroyed. Like the stream, the memories and emotions settled and cleared after a time.”
“He kept Gehata pinned,” she said, “occupied with the same task over and over again.”
I nodded. “Volsk counted on the hope that sooner or later you wouldn’t be able to keep everyone’s memories muddled, and that we would prevail before you realized the truth of your gift.”
Custos nodded, the sun glinting off the bald dome of his head. “I wondered why no one came to question me.”
Gael reined her horse closer to mine. “You didn’t tell Serius where we’re going or why,” she said.
“No,” I replied. “As much as I want to trust him, as much as I believe he’s a good man, we might find ourselves at cross-purposes very soon. As a matter of fact, I can probably guarantee it.”
Bolt grimaced, which from anyone else would be the equivalent of screaming in terror. “Aer have mercy,” he growled. “What are you planning now?”
Chapter 37
Two days after they’d cleansed the outpost infiltrated by Cesla’s men, breaking the vaults and minds of all who’d been to the forest, Toria and Fess arrived at their destination—a camp situated on a hillock offering a clear view to all points of the compass. She nodded her approval. “It’s defensible, at least in the customary sense.”
Fess pursed his lips in thought. “Would that alone account for their success?”
“No,” she said. “Any squad leader with a thimble’s worth of experience would situate his camp thus. Wag, do you smell the forest here?”
No, Mistress, only men and females. He chuffed. Their scent is very strong.
She smiled, turning to Fess. “The camp is clean, but Wag says some of the soldiers need a bath.”
They entered the camp, the guards at the gate snapping to when they spotted
