Chapter Five: The Chantry Remains
Marjolaine woke in her guest quarters at Denerim palace to feathery snow that fluttered onto grey, cold streets. It was already quite light. The realization that she'd slept so late came as a shock. The nights had been full of intrigue, but a well-trained bard should laugh at forty-eight hours without sleep. She lurched out of bed, still more asleep than awake, and yelped when warm, bare feet missed the wolf-skin rug to land on raw stone. Plain stone - dark, ugly wooden beams- the barking of dogs through her window. Oh, yes, she knew she was in Ferelden. Two frigid steps across the room brightened her mind to full consciousness.
Throwing herself in an abandoned leap, Marjolaine crashed back upon the bed. The feather-stuffed mattress sighed resentment. The heavy frame banged off the stone wall. Laughing softly, Marjolaine burrowed back under the warm furs, curled into snug, secret darkness.
So it should always be, she thought, squirming about in luxurious self-indulgence. Scents tickled her nose: the wild outdoor scent of leather tanned to silken suppleness. The lanolin smell of the wool blanket made her think of fields touched with sea mist. Amaranthine ocean was an elusive suggestion at the corners of her senses.
Languorously, she thought of other scents, absent from this bed. Leliana's scent of Andraste's Grace, soft-curved limbs sheened with clean sweat. Her fingers tingled with the memory of that strong supple body moving under her touch while soft hands sought, explored, caressed. Leliana's breath touched her cheek, her ear, made her tremble with tiny messages of yearning.
"Enough." She breathed the word softly, flinging back the covers, rising quickly. Ignoring the cold stone, she hurried to the small metal stove at the room's outside wall. Stoking kindling drew her mind from dangerous memories. Opening the ceramic jar next to the stove, she poked at the coals she'd packed inside before going to bed. A few bits of dried leaf, powdered in a mortar, smoked immediately when poured into the jar. She blew the powder into a dainty flame, quickly feeding it small twigs. Once they were burning, she dumped it all onto the waiting kindling. In moments the stove fire was warming the room. Fortunately, the ceramic chimney drew properly. When the wind was wrong, it backed badly, turning the room into a veritable smokehouse.
Celene's palace was light, airy, all swooping arches and open spaces.
While she waited for the water basin on the stove to warm, Marjolaine wrapped herself in a woollen blanket and stared out the window. Her room faced west, with a clear view of the looming monolith of Fort Drakon. A tiny sneer moved Marjolaine's mouth. Only the ill-bred daughter of a commoner would resort to such an unsubtle threat. The prison tower brooded in monumental indifference to the lives that teemed below. Dark clouds prowled sluggishly east.
Retreating to the stove, Marjolaine dropped her silken nightgown to the floor and washed carefully. That done, she reached for a wooden jar cunningly carved to resemble an opening rose. An almost-invisible line marked where the top was fitted. Opening the container, she dipped a finger in its ointment. A smell of roses filled the snug stone chamber. She rubbed the perfume on a comb. Using a delicate golden mirror, she experimented with minor variations in her hairstyle as she stroked it, organizing and scenting. She was replacing the comb when someone knocked on the door.
"I'm not dressed. Wait."
Marjolaine went to the wooden clothes cabinet. She slipped into silken small-clothes, then selected a gown of deep sapphire blue and matching slippers. As she buttoned and adjusted, her anger grew: whoever it was being very rude by not stating an identity. Exactly what she would expect from the backwoods Dowager Queen.
"Come in." She made no effort to hide the bite of irritation.
The door was flung open.
Grand Cleric Iona stood shrouded in shadow, her black robe and hood compounding the darkness of the dim corridor, rendering her almost invisible. The strong, angular face had retreated into the enfolding fastness of her cowl. Her features were marble-smooth and white; her blue-fire stare burned across the room. It pinioned Marjolaine: held her as the jewel eyes of a snake hold a bird. The message from the older woman demanded submission, one will to another.
"No-one - not even a favourite of our most-noble nation's charming Empress - keeps a Grand Cleric of the Chantry waiting in a drafty corridor. You assume. You offend."
Anger released Marjolaine: a warming flood that quickly became a liberating torrent. She caught the look of the other woman squarely; held it with confidence. But she quelled her own sharp retort. The Chantry and the Empress were allies, and there was nothing to be gained by irritating its representative.
"I would never offend the Chantry, Grand Cleric. I'm too well-bred." As if to prove it, Marjolaine invited her inside with the elaborate courtesies of Orlesian nobility. She rang a tiny silver bell to summon a palace servant, who brought a selection of delicacies. Honey-glazed hazel-nuts, sweet cookies with berry jam, square bars of a dried confection made of seeds, apple pulp and honey. There were also several herb teas. Each was contained in its own ceramic jar. The containers and accompanying cups gleamed in a bright semi-circle around the small charcoal brazier and its pot of hot, brewing water. The tray was an oval of satin-glowing copper, with tubular jade grips. The steel teaspoons had bone handles, carved into the figures of mabari. Marjolaine moved to light candles. Iona paced soundlessly, a dark flicker like the shimmer of black water. The unsteady illumination contributed to the sense of otherworldliness that surrounded her. Her loose-fitting robe, swirling about her, took away any physical clues of a human form.
"Indeed," she murmured thoughtfully, "Leliana's descriptions all mentioned your beauty and grace."
Fear cold and thin as a dagger of ice touched Marjolaine. She felt a trickle of sweat under her arm. The older woman took a quick step towards her, her smile positively wolfish. The heavy cape swept open, wing-like. The Grand Cleric's cracking demand was the rattle of hard feathers.
"You are known to have worked for the Empress in delivering details of King Maric's voyage. It was thought an accident delivered him to the sea's vengeance rather than hers. But the good Seeker Leliana tells me of multi-directional treachery: of documents proving a connection with the Antivan Crows and a prison called Velabanchel. This is treachery you blamed her for - but even torture could not make her confess where King Maric was hidden. Could it be because she was innocent of the double-cross and had no idea where he was being held?"
Marjolaine took a step forward, taut and balanced as a feline predator confronting a threat.
"If I was rude to keep you waiting, it was unintentional. Trying to frighten me is intentionally rude. You think to shout at me and make me nervous? You expect me to weep and confess? Confess what? If I had sold King Maric to the Crows then why have they not beggared Ferelden with a ransom? Your so-called proof is nothing more than a phantom document and the tale of a proven traitor: a woman who was once a bard, then a Chantry sister, then a mercenary working for a renegade Elven Warden. If she has now abandoned her latest employer and sought your protection it proves only that she is willing to sell herself to any who'll shelter her. You expect me to somehow betray myself? I'm not such a fool as that. Nor are you. Speak plainly. What is it you want?"
For several long breaths, the women held each other in unyielding grips of sheer will. Jaw muscles tightened. Small, excited blood vessels writhed in tight, scrawling messages of tension. And then the Grand Cleric threw back her hood and smiled broadly. A generous mouth in an angular, strong face that carried age with ease. She had sleek, silver-white hair cut in the shape of a steel helm. She gripped a startled Marjolaine by the shoulders and shook her gently.
"I see it. I see it now. Why the Empress chose you. It pulses at your temples, draws your hands to fists. The ambition, the irresistible sense of self. The lines at the corners of the eyes, the mouth. The dark, watching pupils: unchanging, uninfluenced."
After a long dueling silence, Marjolaine said: "I asked you before, Grand Cleric: what is it you want?"
"I ask you to do nothing - save that which you are committed to. Except that you will now report everything you see and hear to me, first."
Marjolaine opened startled eyes. "You hide your true face from the Empress? I thought…you and she worked for the same goals." It troubled Marjolaine more than she cared to admit that this woman could have fooled the years of bardic training that had taught her to read the subtlest nuances of expression, of voice. "I pride myself on reading people. You've deceived me. It's a frightening realization."
Seated over the delicious, spiced breakfast, another side of Iona crept into their quiet talk. "My father was a Tevinter slave." She said it with a touch of wonder, as well she might. "When I was eight, our master moved to a mansion in Cumberland - to escape a feud with another magister. The day after my father died - of hardship and overwork - I ran away and presented myself to the Chantry. My tenth year, I reckon. The Chantry took me in. It is my world; my soul. As the Chantry gave me life, so I gladly give my life for the Chantry. Hear this: from birth I was taught to hide within myself. Expressions? Reactions? You see what the Grand Cleric wants you to see. As a child, I was beaten for crying when hurt, or hungry, or afraid. Even for showing pleasure. To me, your bardic signals are merely techniques."
Marjolaine nodded thoughtfully. She would have to remember that a woman who could deceive her could also read her like a book. If she must ever lie to Iona, she would have to come to it gradually, starting with a truth. For now, she described her months in Ferelden with complete honesty and accuracy. Iona gave a low, resonant chuckle.
"You have been a busy girl. It really was clever to aid Channon Cousland against Rendon Howe, and to play on his memories of parents who were made so welcome in the Winter Palace. Does he truly have proof of Grand Cleric Leanna's turning a blind eye to the massacre?"
"Unfortunately so. He'll not rest until she pays for it. Is that going to be a problem?"
Iona waved a negligent hand. "Grand Cleric Leanna for a Cousland vassal King - or King-consort - who will support an international Chantry? A fair bargain. I will need to find a suitable replacement. What I must have is the slaver, Loghain: an example to all who would consort with the foulness of Tevinter - attempt to free renegade mages. The situation in Kirkwall is explosive: should a mage rebellion begin the Chantry may not have the strength to confront the wickedness of the Qun or the perversion of Tevinter. But there is a greater threat still."
Marjolaine held her breath, waited patiently.
"The Elf known as Rillian. The crack-brained old fool Genetivi has been telling anyone who'll listen of her findings at the so-called Temple of the Ashes. Of the spirit of Shartan - of heresies such as the one contained in "The Search For The True Prophet". An advocate for Elven rights who claims to speak for the Maker? Who claims to have performed miracles and who somehow did not die in the slaying of an Archdemon? Oh yes, I have learned many Warden truths from the good Knight Divine: I bless the Maker for the bond of brothers. Worst of all are the rumours she searches for a cure for Taint: the very punishment the Maker has bestowed upon Mankind. If her search finds nothing, the enemies of the Chantry will say it is because we preach only tales and legends. A single mistake unleashes unknown powers. A success challenges the very heart of the Chantry's teachings about mages. The Chantry could never again be what it was or is."
A slight movement of Iona's hand might have been a bid for personal contact. She failed to complete it.
"In the name of love, if it must be so, I will hate. In the name of life, if it must be so, I will kill. I will not allow her to destroy my Chantry."
Marjolaine hid a smile, cocooned within her snug robe like a bird within warm feathers. One thing she was sure Iona did not know was that Leliana was not the only witness to the stolen documents. Marjolaine's time in Ferelden had convinced her that the flame-haired Hero of Ferelden was the same skinny girl whose mother had worked for her. Marjolaine had reclaimed the incriminating documents because the Elven teenager had given them to her, not knowing what she held. At the time, Marjolaine had spared her only because it had never occurred to her that an Elven child could read - or be believed. Now she knew better.
A religious reason to remove the threat was good as any other. As for the struggle between the Chantry as tool for the Empress versus the Empress as tool for the Chantry, Marjolaine would make herself indispensable to both. One would protect against the other.
And Iona would protect her from Loghain. Thoughtfully, Marjolaine studied the woman. The was a quality to the marble-hard skin that suggested a snow cornice: a thing of deadly quiet, but with the force of mountains in it. Marjolaine suspected the old fool Leanna and Rendon Howe had been kindred spirits: both valued wealth, and both mixed up pain and pleasure in their heads - even if Leanna had only been able to indulge herself with her Chantry Children. No love of pain lived in Iona - only a consummate ruthlessness. Nonetheless, she would not rest until she had made an Act of Faith of Loghain and Rillian - a bonfire, with all the trimmings. Marjolaine's secrets would burn with them.
Even if Teyrn Loghain learned the truth and somehow survived the noose drawing around his neck, she doubted he would seek revenge for the removal of Ferelden's King. Had he not betrayed Maric's son? The removal of Maric and Cailan had ensured a commoner of Loghain's blood now sat on Ferelden's throne.
And even if Loghain did - for some unknown reason - object, her knowledge of Maric's true whereabouts would be excellent currency to buy favour.
The logic of it was quite satisfying.
She smiled. "You shall have your goals. What of the Empress'?"
Iona smiled dryly. "Oh, I have no objection to this barbaric land being improved by Orlesian culture. I shall let the Knight Divine be the advocate. He is mindless, of course: but it will take the Bannorn longer than a few days to realize that. Certain attractions will cloud their thinking."
Marjolaine laughed. The memories of her conversation with Gerard Caron were indeed pleasant. She certainly understood why the plain, rough-hewn younger brother had chosen to join the Wardens and avoid comparisons. She pictured golden skin and deep lyrium-blue eyes. The hair - sleek and helmet-like - a living, iridescent black. The Knight Divine had the look of both a sheltered nobility of breeding and of an untried strength. There was something in his eyes, though - and in the set of his jaw - that made her think he was not - quite - as in thrall to the iron-spined women who ruled the Chantry as Iona believed. There was something in the mouth that was sultry, exotic, sensuous and - almost sullen.
It was a face that could launch a thousand ships. And it was very probable that it would.
Iona rose to take her leave. Too swift to be denied, she stepped forward, embraced Marjolaine. The dark wings of her cloak closed out the world. A faint tinge of woodsmoke clung to the black cloth; a ruby clasp was pinned to her breast. As the cloak enfolded her, Marjolaine smelled the drifting smoke of an immolation; in the deep sparkle of the gem, she saw the flicker of flames.
Iona released her, held her at arm's length. The marble face turned upward. "Bless this woman, that she may deliver the sinner to grace. The enemy to vengeance."
Marjolaine kissed the Grand Cleric's hand. Letting it go, she kept her head lowered, watching the hem of the robe as Iona retreated from the room. Then she closed and bolted the door. She remembered Empress Celene's words, delivered the night Marjolaine had left for Ferelden - to help Warden Commander Riordan slip across the border. It had been a simple thing to ensure he was betrayed into the hands of Rendon Howe…and the Caron brothers, already predisposed to distrust the Butcher of River Dane, had been easily convinced of Loghain's guilt.
I send you to Ferelden as one sends poison to an enemy. Go with my heart, my love. Think of me, and what awaits your success. Then think of me, and what awaits your failure.
Marjolaine moved to stand by the window again. She threw her head back and laughed. There was hardly any sound, giving her amusement a sinister cast. After a moment, she positioned her hands in front of her as fists, the right ahead of the left. She appeared to study an imaginary long, slim article that extended some distance in front of her. Laughing again, she leaned back, jerked both hands upwards. "Hooked," she said, exulting. "Well and truly hooked."
She leaned out the window and squinted into the swirling distance - staring toward the brooding threat of Fort Drakon - daring fate to take her. Long dark tresses hung free in a swirling stream.
"Celene. Hear me. We're winning."
Tired of that, growing cold again, she hauled herself inside. She toweled her hair with a soft drying cloth. "We're winning," she repeated, then, "Marjolaine's winning. And there'll be plenty of poison left over for you."
Holding up the golden mirror, she combed her long, glistening hair until it smelled rose-garden sweet and glowed black as ocean night.
Motes of roseate light danced around the Chantry ceiling, around wooden support beams that formed a series of spiked, concentric circles like a crown of thorns. Revered Mother Hannah sat upon a hardbacked chair - easier on arthritis-riddled joints than the softer leather seat reserved for guests. The woman come for confession had chosen a hard chair too, and wore only a plain, dark tunic, indoor shoes, and coarse-grained trousers. These hung loosely around her thin, hard-muscled frame.
Ellen Rylock did not look well. Hannah recognized similar pain to that which she endured in the abused bones and muscles, and one could have hidden tomes within the bags under burning dark eyes. Her dark hair - liberally streaked with grey - was rumpled as though she had spent the night running frantic hands through it. Mother Hannah smiled at her. She liked Ellen, and Redcliffe owed her and Harith nearly as much as they owed Alistair and Rillian for their deliverance. As much as they owed the mages of the Circle.
She smiled at Ellen, attempting to draw the quiet woman out of herself and bring some lightness to events. She did it with the easy humour of one who knows respect and is comfortable extending it to others.
"So: you're Knight Commander of the Circle, now. Privileged to wear the embroidered golden sun on your cloak. We've already taught you to read and write - but now you can even learn a foreign language. Or own books - if you get any spare time to read them. I suspect you'd be happier in the field, facing a pride demon without a sword of mercy. Am I correct?"
Ellen blushed slightly and made no attempt to deny it.
Hannah busied herself lighting charcoal under a pan of water and measuring a small amount of herbs brought all the way from Seheron by the redoubtable Bodahn into two porcelain cups. She gave Ellen the time waiting for the water to boil to marshal her thoughts. They exchanged anticipatory smiles at the intense aroma.
Ellen picked up the delicate cup - there was a moment of hesitation - and then the stiff fingers of the right hand holding the cup seemed to grow confused, and she dropped it. Steaming tea splashed the polished floor. The porcelain sprayed away in tiny, chiming splinters.
"Forgive me! Brought all the way from Seheron and a clumsy old woman wastes it making a mess."
"No, no." Hannah put a hand on the sinewy shoulder and bade her remain seated. "It's no matter. And you are hardly old."
"In the Order, we have a saying: Templar years are like mabari years."
Hannah both winced and smiled at the bleak soldier's humour. She could see the parallel: both did indeed live short, brutal lives, were magically altered, and trained for unshakeable loyalty. In the case of mabari, it was more than training - it was breeding. But wasn't that also true for the high proportion of Templars who - like Ellen - were the children of mages? In the blood. Nasty phrase.
It was customary to encourage the male Chantry children of mages to take the Templar path. Sometimes the life suited them - sometimes they found acceptance, friendship, loyalty, trust. Other times they overindulged on lyrium, became lazy, corrupt, self-hating, cruel. But no woman chose this path unless she really believed in it - was prepared, as Andraste had, to burn her life away in service to the Maker.
Hannah looked into the plain, honest face and felt her own decades of compromise and uncertain manouvere as a lead weight in her heart. The years spent running Redcliffe Chantry during Meghren's rule - turning a blind eye to the townsfolk who supported Rowan Guerrin - but never bold enough to confront injustice directly. She'd treated many who'd endured questioning by Meghren's guards. Sometimes she imagined she heard their moans in the winds that swirled off Lake Calenhad; sometimes caught herself with her head cocked, momentarily immobilized by the suggestion of their screams in the shrieks of gulls. Walking the lakeshore during a storm had been a treasured pastime before the rebellion.
And Meghren had once forced her to deliver up a Sister. She'd always suspected he'd faked the charge to show his power. The woman broke, of course - confessed to anything and everything. On the execution stage, though, she'd spat on the swordsman and declared herself innocent. She'd died cleansed.
It was the way that Sister carried herself in her last moments…she and Ellen had the same carriage, the same unconscious pride and repressed defiance in the clear, level eyes.
Ellen was not facing torture. Still, she would not escape punishment for her defiance of Grand Cleric Leanna's orders. The very least - usually given to Templars of more junior rank - was the standard forty strokes. For any Templar who'd taken lyrium for twenty-one years, dismissal - and all that it meant - would be far more physically painful. Hannah knew that for Ellen the last and greatest punishment - the condemnation of perpetual anathema - would be the worst.
Still, she also knew that this was not what had brought her here this morning. She listened as Ellen confessed old sins and new - her own doubts, questions and fears. Some of it she related calmly, though with bitter regret - such as the murder of Aneirin. Other things - the story of her years in Kirkwall, with Knight Commander Meredith - were confused. There was a soft gloss of puzzlement to her words as she questioned whether she had been right to follow her, or wrong - and whether her mistakes lay in not being loyal enough to Meredith, or in not standing up to her.
Then there was her defiance of the Grand Cleric's orders - Ellen had no doubts about that. She related the months campaigning - and the questions thrown up by close contact with mages in ways that did not involve a bloodied sword of mercy.
When she related a certain night by the Drakon River, her face turned scarlet and she could not look at her confessor. Her hands, peering out of the deep sleeves of her Chantry tunic, squirmed like two mice trying to retreat into grain sacks.
She moved on as quickly as she could, still not daring to look up, and came to what Hannah could see was the true reason she had come. The most important question of all.
"Wynne asked me: where was outside justice for Thomas Amell? And he should have had it. But - I can't defend them without compromising the rights of the ones a Templar should defend. A soldier who tries to defend everything at once defends nothing. But - I have been thinking - does that have to mean that no-one should defend them? Traditionally, that role has been that of the First Enchanter. But what if the First Enchanter is corrupt - or…not given a fair hearing?"
Hannah smiled at Ellen until the latter, sensing pride and delight rather that the condemnation she had expected, dared to look up. She looked nonplussed, not realizing exactly what she had said to make Hannah smile at her that way. Gently, the old cleric said:
"What you told me about Aneirin: the Maker can make good come out of evil. You cannot change the past: you can choose differently next time. Let evil serve as a beacon to warn you away from its own shoals. Your remorse is your penance. Regarding a certain night during the darkspawn campaign - I will say only: of all the sins of war, a celebration of life must surely be the least. Even Andraste knew an earthly husband and earthly pleasures - the only sin would have been to refuse to lay them on the pyre of faith. You have done so - choosing, as Our Lady did, to surrender the mortal flesh to a higher calling. You do not need to berate yourself for the one night in which the mortal flesh received its due."
Ellen still squirmed on her chair a little like a child wearing a punishment cap. But her face - heretofore plain and not particularly becoming - grew transparent - wreathed in a brightly shining smile like the sun through glass. Hannah could not keep from smiling back. It was only with reluctance that she turned her attention to the next point - knowing it would bring the forbidding Templar back and feeling an odd pang of loss.
"Regarding Jowan…" Here Hannah's hands shook as she recalled the terrible loss of life - the anguish of the villagers as they saw wives, daughters, husbands and sons attack them like damaged hand-puppets worked vigorously from the castle. What could she say…and yet… "There is - something strange - about what happened here. Rillian confided to me that she can use the Litany of Adralla: a rare form of musical power that can resist Blood Magic. How can she be a Blood Puppet now? And how was Jowan still able to work Blood Magic while the Arlessa was torturing him? If he was helpless enough to be tortured, could the Lady Isolde not simply have had him killed and ended the attacks? There is more here than meets the eye. And - I know that as a Templar you must do everything in your power to protect Rillian: but after slaying the Archdemon has she not earned your confidence too? You must at least confront her first. Ask for a full account of what happened and see for yourself whether her story rings true or whether there are signs of magical compulsion."
Ellen nodded thoughtfully. "That seems - reasonable." She huffed a little.
"Now: the last question - and the greatest. You are right: a Templar must always be a pessimist - that's the nature of guardsmen. You are right also in your belief that a guardsman should not simultaneously be judge and king. The mages must have an advocate - from among their own - and the Circle must be defended from injustice by a force outside the one that polices them. That, my dear, is the real reason I suggested the Temple of the Ashes as the new site. After I had come to know the mages personally, I began to see that the pessimism of guardsmen must have a countering force of hope. The Senior Enchanters endured torture at Uldred's hands and did not turn - they helped save Redcliffe from further evil at a time when they might have been forgiven for wishing to put their tired feet up. The Maker needs you for what you are. He needs the mages just as much for what they are. I began to think about the verse in the Chant that states: "In the absence of light, shadows thrive." Such a miracle as Rillian describes shall refuse to be hidden - people will come from all over Thedas to see it. In so doing, it is inevitable the mages shall have a real community - with injustices such as the one that happened to young Amell prevented by the scrutiny of friends and family."
Ellen blanched. Hannah understood, and smiled quietly to herself. "That…would be a security nightmare worse than anything here."
Mildly, the old cleric asked: "You'd refuse the challenge?"
"No," the younger woman said stoically, "A Knight Commander must have zero tolerance for magical misuse - that must not mean choosing to do the job in the easiest manner possible at the expense of the helpless few."
She looked so glum that Hannah could not help her laughter. Then she suddenly brightened. "But it shall not be me. I can now face dismissal and excommunication in the sure knowledge I am avoiding a worse fate. Thank you."
Chuckling, the older woman forced herself to her feet, rising on stiff, painful joints. Ellen offered an arm - though the Templar looked scarcely more stable after her own recent injuries.
"Don't be too sure of that, my dear. The news of the Orlesian delegation convinces me I must attend the Landsmeet: as advocate for the Circle, young Harith, and you."
I am seventy years old. What could the Orlesians possibly do, now, that would not be simple freedom - the freeing of a bird from a flimsy, ugly cage?
Even so, Hannah asked herself whether she had been completely honest with Ellen about her motives for organizing such a mission to the Temple of the Ashes. Was it not also that she wished, for the first time in her life, to touch a true miracle? To know the real Andraste?
The catechism said: "The true Andraste will be challenged, her servants oppressed, her holy places crushed to dust and hidden by time. Yet she will rise, and one among her many will illuminate the truth, again and again and again, so long as mankind exists."
Time is not the issue. Nor pain. Nor even life.
The stakes soared immeasurably higher than life against life. At risk were the souls of people unknown and uncountable, but people who deserved a faith that taught hope, not control.
She pictured Rillian's face for one brief moment: Rillian as she had looked when returning from the Temple, bearing the Ashes in one hand and sword in the other. She saw again that commitment, amber-fire eyes burning into a future she both wanted and feared, as she might have wanted and feared to birth new life.