there had been some way to redeem her…' She reached out to squeeze Julith's hand. 'Selune holds her. Remember her as she was, and mourn her later.' There was a hollow in Feena's stomach, a dark misgiving. She clenched her jaw and continued, 'Something is very wrong here. Keph and I talked. I knew he was a Sharran' Julith gasped, but Feena shook her head' He said he was trying to escape from Shar's cult. I know he was telling the truth. I can't believe he'd have such a change of heart or that he was even capable of escaping the way you say he did.'
'But I saw him vanish,' protested Julith. 'And if you'd heard what he said to me… He was vile. He mocked us all for thinking we'd kept Shar's cult out of Yhaunn and he called me a fool for trusting him.'
'He called you a fool,' said Feena, 'but he didn't mention me?' Her eyes narrowed. She stepped back from the other priestess and touched her medallion. 'Bright Lady of the Night, reveal the secrets that darkness hides!'
Selune's soft power surged within her, then reached out toward Julith. Feena's eyes widened. All around the younger woman, the tattered remnants of magic flickered like shadows.
'What?' asked Julith. 'What is it?'
'You're under a spell or something a lot like one.'
Feena stepped forward again and put her hands on Julith's head. Taking a deep breath, she reached out with her faith. For a moment, it seemed as if she could feel the chapel around her, its ancient sanctity a warm and comforting strength. She drew on that strength, weaving it together with her own.
'In Selune's name,' she prayed, 'let this magic be ended!'
Dismissing the spell of moonlight that Dhauna had conjured in the infirmary had been nothing, just Selune's power turned against itself. The magic that swirled around Julith was darker, more alien. Feena gasped as the shadows gave way before the bright lance of her prayeronly to seize it, holding tight and leaping back toward her. Her breath hissed between her teeth and her gut twisted, but she bore down with the whole force of her spirit.
'Be gone!'
Moonlight shattered darkness. Julith blinked and gasped. Feena's chest heaved as she lifted her hands away.
'How do you feel?' she asked.
'Moonmaiden's grace ' The fear that had clouded
Julith's eyes was gone and they shone in the light of the chapel. 'There was a womana Calishitea Sharran priestess. She stepped out of shadows and cast spells on me, then disappeared with Keph. She changed my memories!'
The hollow that had been in Feena's belly filled with ice as she remembered Keph's tales of the Sharran cult.
'Variance,' she said. 'Her name is Variance.'
'There's something else,' said Julith. 'Keph asked her how she found him. She told him that Selune's clergy aren't all so faithful as the moon goddess might think. If she was telling the truth…'
Someone had told the Sharrans that Keph had been captured, and Variance had taken the young man back. Feena blew out her breath and prayed that Selune would guard him from the danger he'd been plunged into. But they had their own danger, didn't they?
'By Our Silver Lady,' Feena whispered, 'there's a traitor in Moonshadow Hall.'
She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. The traitor had to have been among the party that had set out in pursuit of her. Unfortunately, that was almost all of the priests and priestesses of Moonshadow Hall. All of the chaos going on in the temple and a traitor, too, she groaned silently. The threat of a Sharran attack, a traitor to the faith
'Is this what you were trying to warn us about, Selune?' she murmured under her breath. 'Is this the darkness in the dreams?'
'Feena,' Julith asked, 'if my memory of Keph's escape was false, what about the threat of an attack?'
Feena narrowed her eyes behind her fingers. 'I think we still need to take it seriously,' she said. 'From what Keph told me about Variance, it doesn't sound like she does anything by accident. Even if she's only trying to panic us'
Panic. The hair on the back of Feena's neck rose. If her discovery of the Sharran in the Stiltways hadn't been so thoroughly crushedor if she had never found him at all and the well had been poisonedMoonshadow Hall would have been on alert against the Sharran cult much earlier. There would be no racing around, bracing the temple against an unsuspected attack. They would have been on alert for days. Variance, she realized, had tried to panic them before.
But the attempt had failed because Feena's discovery had been kept secret from Selune's clergy. Or at least most of them.
She lowered her hands and looked at Julith.
'In the false memory Variance created for you,' she said, 'Keph mocked our confidence that there were no Sharrans in Yhaunn. How did Variance know that? I only ever told four people that I suspected there were Sharrans at all. You…' Julith's eyes went wide and she shook her head. Feena sighed in relief. 'Thank Our Silver Lady, I didn't think so.'
'But you told Dhauna.' Julith swallowed. 'And she…'
'Even if she had somehow betrayed Selune in her madness, she was dead before you and Keph were even captured. It couldn't have. been her.' Feena drew a tight breath and said, 'But I also told Mifano and Velsinore.'
Color burned in Julith's cheeks. 'The two people in charge of Moonshadow Halland one of them is a traitor.'
'Exactly. But they're not in charge of Moonshadow Hall.' Feena lifted her chin and said, 'I am.' She picked up the book of the New Moon Pact and handed it to Julith. 'Keep that safe. Whatever happens, it needs to be protected.'
She rose to her feet, and Julith rose as well.
'Feena, whatever you're planning, I want to be with you.'
Feena gave her a fast hug and said, 'Thank you, Julith. Selune bless you.' She turned to the great silver-bound doors of the chapel. 'Selune bless us both.'
Drawing a deep breath, she strode forward and flung the doors wide.
CHAPTER 15
The corridor outside the winter chapel was wide and straight, and lit by old magic, crystals that burned silver with Selune's light. As she marched down the corridorrobe billowing around her, Julith at her sideFeena could imagine what a member of the New Moon Pact must have felt like: An avenger of Selune's faith, a defender racing to shield the innocent and unsuspecting…
Then a pair of acolytes stepped out from a side corridor, took one look at her, and fled in terror.
Julith shouted and started to leap after them, but Feena caught her arm and said, 'Let them go.'
'They'll go straight to a senior priestess. Everyone will know you've returned.'
'They'll know soon enough anyway.' She released the dark-haired priestess and kept going. That was the other side of the New Moon
Pact, she thought. Avengers and defendersbut feared by their own sisters.
She could understand that all too well.
Sounds of fresh confusion were starting to echo through Moonshadow Hall as they reached the end of the broad corridor. Feena wrenched open another pair of broad doors. Hot, muggy night air flooded into the corridor. The doors opened onto the cloisters. Directly in front of them, the full moon gate was a tall round arch, the central courtyard dark and empty beyond it. Feena stepped forward.
Julith gasped and said, 'Feena, the gateswe can't enter the courtyard during a new moon!'
Feena paused on the threshold of the full moon gate-then stepped through. Nothing happened.
'Breaking a few traditions is the least of our worries, Julith.'
She held out her hand. Julith swallowed, stepped through the gate, and took it. Hand in hand they walked to
