Packing the knowledge of eighteen years into a child's brain felt, even on good days, like trying to catch a waterfall in a leaky pot--and that was without touching the vast oceans of knowledge that passed freely from mind to mind among the Dals. Cyradis had quickly learned not to try to hold it all herself. The memories would be there when she needed them, safeguarded by her very extended family.

There were some memories that she clung to with fierce determination, however. A few were events from her first childhood, the faces of Miria's parents, but most of all she insisted on remembering 'Zakath, no matter how many times her foster-mother had to rescue her from nightmares of that last day.

Andel, I pray thee, I must know, Cyradis pleaded.

Though there were things that fluttered beyond her grasp, she knew that 'Zakath belonged to her, in ways both like and unlike the way she belonged to the Dals, and that she had left him in pain. She might be the one who'd died, but she had a family now, many minds to quiet her fears and a foster-twin who loved her--Ninal was as ordinary as a seeress's daughter could be and thought Cyradis was very strange indeed, but nevertheless played with her at every opportunity, plucked flowers to crown her hair, and hugged her when she wept.

There would be no soothing presences in 'Zakath's mind, no family to give simple unquestioning comfort. Cyradis hoped he might not be entirely alone, but feared he was.

It was the week after the seventh anniversary of her second birth, which made it three and a half years since Cyradis had realized Andel knew more about 'Zakath than she had yet shared. It had been a simple conclusion, since Andel only ever said that he was alive, that he didn't hate Miria, and--when pressed--that he was taking good care of her cat.

The healer's mind was muted now as ever, which might have been from distance but which Cyradis knew was much more by deliberate choice. When thou art old enough, she replied, and slipped away again.

Andel! Cyradis shut her eyes and gave pursuit. I have lived six and twenty years, and I remember my own death. I am thy Holy Seeress, and thou hast hidden thyself from me these seven years. I am old enough.

It had never worked before, but this time she felt Andel hesitate. The vision is not yet upon thee, Andel said.

Not since her death had that other light touched Cyradis, nor did she understand the Book of the Heavens except through the eyes of the older Seers. It was hard enough coping with the combined presence of every Dalasian mind; no one had been particularly surprised that their Seeress was taking some time to grow up. Vision or no, I have need of this memory.

Toth, surely she is yet too young, Andel changed tactics. The silent, gentle guide had thus far spent his time playing Hunt the Thimble and making flower chains with Cyradis and Ninal rather than actually guiding Cyradis in the traditional sense, but he could almost always hear anything to do with his chosen Seeress, his mind resonating strongly with her own.

She will never seem old enough to thee, Andel. Toth's voice, always louder to Cyradis than any other. I would defend her from all the world, but not from truth.

Triumph and fear sparked sharply together in Cyradis, and faded under the wave of resignation and guilt from Andel. Very well, the healer agreed, and allowed Cyradis close for the first time since the execution, reluctance dragging heavily at her mind.

The memory Cyradis wanted was clear as the day it had happened, and she found herself once again seeing a palace corridor through Andel's eyes.

She carried a wicker basket, closed and bound with stout twine, and on top of that a small plate of smoked fish. The occupant of the basket mewled in discontent, for which Andel could find very little sympathy. It had taken most of an hour, with several false starts, to get the young cat safely inside and away from the suite that would soon be cleared of all the late residents' belongings. The lure of fish had proved too weak; Andel had been forced to resort to quick bundling with a blanket, and the cat clearly resented the indignity.

The men outside the Imperial rooms were not the same as the men who had come to execute Miria, but Andel knew them all; the Imperial Elite Guard had the highest training-injury rate of any unit in Mal Zeth. "Healer Andel," the older one greeted her, with a curious look at the basket. "His Majesty does not wish to be disturbed."

Andel hadn't seen Emperor 'Zakath since he had ordered Miria's death, but palace gossip had informed her both that the Murgo spies had been caught that same night, and that after attending their interrogations the Emperor had shut himself away. Apparently he'd told three servants that the next person who tried coaxing him to eat would be executed on the spot. Speculation as to the cause varied with the gossiper. "I know," she said, "but I believe he will want to speak with me."

"If you're wrong, he'll probably have you killed," the guard warned.

She nodded, well aware. This was probably much too soon to bring Miria's last words to 'Zakath, but the promise she'd made to Miria sat heavily in her heart. The Holy Seeress would be extremely unhappy if she grew up and learned Andel had let the Emperor starve himself.

The guard shrugged. "It's your head to risk, I suppose," he said, and slipped inside the first set of doors to announce her presence to Emperor 'Zakath. Andel shifted the basket in her arms, as the cat's restless movements constantly threatened to unbalance it.

It was a nervous but short wait before he returned, and held the door open for her with a polite nod. "Careful," he advised, under his breath. "It takes too long to find a replacement healer."

The door closed behind her with a hollow thud. The Emperor was not in the outermost chamber, so Andel moved with some trepidation toward the second door.

'Zakath was sitting on the embroidered couch in his private study, and the rigid pride that had held him up when she had seen him last was gone now, leaving a crushed and weary boy. A badly creased velvet robe lay abandoned on the thick carpet, and now the Emperor wore only plain linen, equally wrinkled. "Andel," he said, without bothering to look at her, and there was no trace of emotion in his voice. "I hope you are not planning to make this a habit."

She set the basket down with some relief, and offered the appropriate courtesy. "No, Sire. Please forgive my intrusion."

"If you've come to tell me that you were right, I suggest you leave now," 'Zakath said, turning fractionally toward Andel. Even without the echoes of Miria's frantic affection fluttering in the back of her mind, the bleak expression would have torn at Andel; the Emperor's dark eyes were cold, with an emptiness she had never seen in a living face.

The sharp edges of Imperial grief could claim more lives than a small plague. "If there has been more information, I have not heard it," Andel said carefully.

"Hasn't the gossip caught up, then?" 'Zakath grimaced, a thin, painful look. "I suppose you might as well know; you were the only one who spoke for her. The Murgos were quite certain that she was not actually aware of their plot as yet. Apparently there had been some disagreement with her father on the subject." He looked up at her, sudden and piercing. "So. You were right, and I have killed an innocent girl."

The proof of innocence Miria had believed impossible, arriving after all, but too late. This had been the longing in Miria's heart, but Andel suspected Cyradis would take no pleasure in its fulfillment. Andel bowed her head. "Permit me to grieve with you," she murmured, though it was the Emperor for whom she grieved most.

'Zakath's gaze was no longer fixed on her, but somewhere far distant, and whatever he saw there twisted at his face. "I told myself I couldn't save her," he said softly, "but of course I could have. I'm the Emperor. If I had really believed her, really trusted her, I would have found a way, wouldn't I?" It was clear he was no longer speaking to Andel. "She always seemed...too good to be true, someone who didn't care about my cursed crown. I suppose I was waiting for some kind of betrayal from the beginning." He closed his eyes. "Why are you here, Andel?"

Miria's name had not yet passed his lips, Andel noted, not surprised. "I came at Miria's request," she said, gentling her tone further still. "Will you hear her words?"

He didn't move, but his jaw tightened. "How brave of you. Speak, then."

"She asked me to tell you that she has always and will always love you."

The Emperor flinched, as though the words had been a slap. And perhaps they were, to him. Andel knew Miria had never meant to hurt, but there was nothing to do with her that would not hurt 'Zakath now. "And then," Andel went on quickly, "she asked you to look after her cat."

'Zakath opened his eyes and shot her an incredulous glance, and his gaze fell on the basket. "Oh, of course she did," he muttered, and something too bitter to be a smile wrenched at his mouth. "And here would be her cat."

For Miria, it had been an equation too simple to require thought: she loved them both, and they needed each other. Andel pried apart the knots and lifted the lid away. The young black-and-gray tabby stalked out in deep offense, sat down beside 'Zakath's leg, and began to wash herself vigorously.

The Emperor's face softened a tiny fraction, watching the cat. "Do you know, I never--does she have a name?" he asked eventually.

"I don't know if Miria named her, your Majesty." This was a lie. Andel had been close enough to catch quite a lot about the cat in the general rush of memory. Miria had in fact called the tabby Little Empress, strictly in the privacy of her own mind--a joke full of innocent hopes as well as a reference to the usual feline attitude of complete entitlement. The joke was no longer remotely amusing.

From the look in the Emperor's eyes, she rather suspected that in his mind the animal would be called, only and always, Miria's cat. He reached a tentative hand to smooth the soft fur. "You've delivered your message," he told Andel. "Leave me."

Andel set the little plate of fish closer to the couch, and gathered the basket, which had a distinct odor about it. "I can have someone bring a box of sand," she offered. "And the cat will need food, your Majesty."

He offered her a mirthless smile. "Don't worry. The cat will be well cared for. It's the only thing I can do...that, and wipe every stinking Murgo I can reach off the face of the earth."

There was no change in tone or face with the chilling words. Andel stared at 'Zakath.

"Healer Andel," he added, "I am...grateful for your efforts. However, please realize that if you speak of this to anyone, I will consider you guilty of treason and have you killed."

Andel made a respectful, silent acknowledgment, heartsick, and fled the room, hoping it would be a long time indeed before Miria's younger self requested this memory from her.

Cyradis would have pulled back if she could, but the waves of seven years' memory struck her, less vivid but no less painful: the revenge 'Zakath had begun to take in Miria's name, and the fearful respect he had cultivated, allowing no one close. She wept, silent tears spilling down her face as her grief poured into the bonds of memory.

I am sorry, Andel whispered. I tried. I did not want to show thee so soon.

Not if I had outlived Belgarath would I be ready for this, Cyradis choked through the tears, but I had to know, Andel.

Her Zak had died with Miria, and neither of them would ever be innocent again.

This is the end of the beginning:

The Empress Cyradis of Mallorea stared at the clutter of jewels and gold and silver chains with a frown. Three months now since her marriage, and the city jewelers still insisted on sending her samples of their work. Quite lovely samples, some of them, the colored gems delicately shaped into near-perfect likenesses of flowers. A few had even managed to catch the lopsided charm of Adara's rose, the bloom she wore as often as the limited supply permitted.

She wished all of them would stop. No doubt the cold gems would be more convenient than plucking living flowers, but the weight of the metal and the sound of the chains were unbearable in the familiar hallways.

A quarter-century since the guards had carried her from her room in Mal Zeth, and yet it took so little to bring back the fear.

"Cyradis?" Eriond was dressed simply and carrying one of the half-grown kittens; he might have looked like a servant, except that he had forgotten not to glow. He offered her the young tabby. "Horse and I don't mind him being in the stable, but I think the grooms do."

The kitten made a soft, disgruntled yowl, and dug his claws lightly into Cyradis's shoulder. She managed a smile for the new God of Angarak. "Clearly they do not realize how he has honored them with his presence."

Eriond watched her for a moment, his eyes very deep. "You ought to tell Zakath, you know," he commented.

The kitten's fur was soft under her fingers, but her silk dress, smooth and flawless, itched where it touched her skin; she hadn't been able to avoid the dressmakers nearly as well as the jewelers. It would have been nice to pretend Eriond meant the perfectly ordinary news that she looked forward to sharing with her husband. "We have been very happy, these months," Cyradis said.

"I understand why you wanted to be married first."

It was easier to keep her eyes on the kitten, who had begun to purr, but Cyradis forced herself to meet her God's gaze. "The chance to begin anew was valuable for us both." Zakath had spent so much of his life grieving Miria and regretting his choice, seeking revenge or death, and Cyradis had watched most of it through Andel's eyes, unable to aid him or speak to him--because he would not have believed her, but also because the completion of her task depended upon it. Necessity had driven her to be merciless, just as politics had driven her beloved.

Eriond nodded. "You haven't wanted to reopen the wound," he said. "I know. But if you wait much longer, the secret will come between you."

It had been quite a while since anyone had lectured Cyradis on the future, and she found it rather strange. Even so, Eriond was right. "I will tell him," she conceded, "if thou wilt do me the favor, my God, of ensuring no one else may hear."

He looked pained. "Just Eriond," he corrected, "especially to you, Cyradis. And of course I will. I have been."

A smile struggled to break softly across her face. In all her preparations, she hadn't considered that the new God of Angarak could be any kind of friend, until the day she had met young Errand in the snow of the Vale of Aldur. He probably knew how much that meeting had affected her final desperate Choice, but she never intended to admit it. "My thanks, Eriond."

"I want you both to be happy," he said, very seriously. "You've gone through so much, and most of it ended up being for my benefit."

"For the sake of the universe," she reminded him, "and by our own decisions."

He smiled at her, a gentle expression that never failed to lift her heart. "Even so. You and Zakath were the first of my people to accept me, and if I can't reward you, what good is it being a God?"

And then he was gone, in the sudden way he used more and more as the demands on his time increased.

A mirrored wall caught her gaze for a moment. There had been no time for mirrors while the Choice lay ahead of her, and the image always made her think first of her foster-twin, with light hazel eyes and honey-gold hair where some part of her still expected to see darker shades on her own reflection. There was a stronger Dalasian cast to everything now, but something familiar in the shape of her face made her feel at home in it in spite of the differences; she wondered if her husband had noticed.

It took no special gift to predict that Zakath would appear at their door in short order, with concern written in his eyes. "Cyradis, is anything wrong? Eriond just made a divine appearance to tell me I should talk to you."

She hadn't even had time to pack away the jewelry, although the kitten had seized an especially threatening ruby rose and retreated to the far corner of the room to kill it. Zakath scowled at the entangled mass. "Are they still sending those? I can make them stop if it's bothering you."

Cyradis dismissed the latest enticements of the jewelers with a tired gesture. "They are no matter. Eriond welcomes the donations, and soon or late these deliveries will end."

"But there is something wrong," Zakath guessed, stepping closer to fold her into a warm embrace.

She sighed, leaning against his shoulder in search of comfort for a long moment before pulling him toward a chair. "I hope in time thou wilt see this as something right, but it is not an easy matter to speak of, for thee as for me; it has been long-buried but never forgotten."

Zakath sat willingly enough and raised his eyebrows in expectant inquiry. "I'm not going to be angry with you, Cyradis, if that's what worries you," he reassured.

She shook her head, watching his expression. "We must speak of Miria."

Her husband went dead white in the space of a breath, his dark eyes flat and hard. But he met her gaze and exhaled once, shakily. "Anything you want to know," he offered, simple and full of pain.

Wincing at Zakath's obvious anguish, she said quietly, "It is I who have kept secrets from thee in this."

Surprise lightened his face somewhat. "I don't understand, Cyradis."

She closed her eyes, calling back the memories of her life as Miria. They were all present and complete, but her new mind had learned language by the touch of the Dals, past and future, and she had needed to distance herself from Miria's sharp emotion for a time. The archaic speech felt the more natural on her tongue, after twenty-five years of little else--not only from the collected memories, but because the difference between singular thou and communal you, though it had become outdated in much of the world, was a necessity for speaking where an entire people could overhear.

But now she spoke only to her husband.

"Miria's mother was a Dal." It was a poor way to start off, but there was really no good way; Cyradis forged on. "It mattered little before the night of the, the execution."

A sick horror flooded Zakath's eyes, and his hands clenched the soft arms of the chair. "And nothing any Dal remembers has ever been forgotten," he choked out. All the companions of the Child of Light had learned that much of the secrets of Kell. "So you--Cyradis, you remember how I--"

She dropped to her knees to press her hands over his cold ones. "It's all right now," she promised fiercely, holding his gaze with her own. "All is well."

Zakath shook his head, clear denial although the shock had stolen his voice.

"The two Prophecies needed someone to choose between them," Cyradis began with what he already knew. "Someone impartial, someone who could accept all the power of the Dal race at once from before birth, and someone with everything to lose if the Choice failed to happen."

Her husband frowned, not following the connection. "And that was you."

"They could not lay this Choice, the final Choice, on any child; it had to be someone who knew what was at stake, but the process had to start with an infant." She shut her eyes and tightened her grip on his hands. "Cyradis is my name now, but it was a title from the old tongue, given to a Seer who makes one of the Choices...I was Miria."

He jerked away, involuntary recoil rocking the chair backward. Cyradis folded her hands together, already missing his touch, and waited.

"That isn't...that isn't possible," he whispered. The events leading to the Choice at Korim had opened Zakath's mind immeasurably, but this was more personal and therefore harder to believe.

Cyradis took no offense. The concept had come as something of a shock to her as well, that night of despair. "Eriond or Andel will bear me witness, if there is need," she suggested.

But Zakath shook his head at once. "I don't doubt your word, Cyradis," he said, voice stronger than she had expected.

She sighed, not sure herself whether it was relief or sorrow. Things could never be quite the same now that Zakath knew the shadow of his past was neither gone nor forgotten. "I have always and will always love thee, my husband," Cyradis whispered, and risked a smile, though Zakath's face was still bloodless and forbidding with the weight of the knowledge she had handed him. "Thou hast cared admirably for my cat. And her descendants." The kitten in the corner growled fiercely at his prey.

Zakath heaved a breath as though it had been years since his last, and his eyes glittered with tears. He reached out a hand to frame her face, feather-light, as though seeing the familiar features echoed there. "Miria."

"All is well," she repeated softly, turning her cheek toward the trembling hand. "Thou and I have given much for the sake of the universe, and beyond hope reached this reward."

He moved sharply, setting her aside and springing from the chair with the tense movements of a trapped animal. "No!" he growled, turning back to face her, features twisted in pain. "I won't--you can't possibly want--" Zakath struggled for words, shying from Cyradis's touch. "I'll do my cursed task, you don't have to stay with me like some kind of--of bribe--I don't need a reward."

"Cease these foolish thoughts!" Cyradis snapped, striding forward to grip Zakath's wrists firmly, and forcing him to look at her. "Don't be an idiot," she added, very deliberately, Miria's speech pattern so long neglected. "Thou art my reward, Zakath, and I have waited these many years for thee because we could never be together else. Do not begin to dream that I would ever give thee up."

Zakath closed his mouth and stared at her, eyes shadowed and vulnerable. Cyradis took the opportunity to reinforce her assurance without words, leaning in to meet his lips with her own.

"But I killed you," he whispered against her, after a moment. "How can you forget that? I never could."

"Never forgotten," she replied, "nor excused, but forgiven." She did not plan to tell him just how many years that task had taken. Forgiving her father's death, her uncle's, and even her own, had actually been easier than accepting his actions afterward. Zakath already knew quite well the harm his search for revenge and power had caused, and did not need reminders; but the years had been very long. "Forgive thyself also, Zakath."

He didn't answer--she hadn't really expected him to--but his arms wrapped slowly around her once more. Cyradis closed her eyes in contentment. "I have simpler news for thee as well," she said, after a moment, and drew Zakath's unresisting hand to rest over her womb, where she could not yet feel her daughter's presence. "It is eight months now before our daughter's birth."

Zakath went perfectly still. "We're going to have a baby," he said, in far happier shock.

Cyradis nodded quiet, joyful confirmation, and added, "She is a beautiful girl, with eyes very like thine."

Her husband breathed a soft laugh. "A little girl," he repeated, wonderingly. "I suppose you know what we're going to name her?"

Well met, Anthia, Cyradis greeted her daughter in silence, and smiled.

This came after:

That night, when he was quite certain that Cyradis...Miria...that his wife was asleep, Zakath let himself silently out the heavy wooden door into the enclosed Imperial garden. It had no other entrance, and the blank walls allowed some measure of privacy.

There was no need to call on his God, because Eriond waited for him underneath the ornamental cherry tree, casting shadows in the moonless night. The faint guilt on his luminous face made him look almost like the young man Zakath had traveled alongside, instead of the ageless God he'd become. "I did know," he answered the question Zakath had not yet asked. "Cyradis was afraid you'd be stupid about it if she told you before you were married, and I was afraid she was right."

Zakath supposed being stupid here had the unique meaning of not marrying the woman he had murdered, who ought by all logic to hate him. Cyradis had spent an entire lifetime devoted to saving the world, and she'd told him herself, long before the instant of Choice, that the world would need the Emperor of Mallorea to fulfill his task of supporting the new God. He was still more than half convinced that she stayed with him as some kind of sacrifice to preserve his sanity, but, to his shame, he was too desperately grateful for it to protest again.

"It isn't like that, Zakath," Eriond said, gently. "I'd have told you--I wouldn't let her do that, not for me and not for the world. She's earned better."

He felt his lip twist bitterly. "She's certainly earned better than me."

Eriond's smile was sudden and bright. "But you're the only reward she ever wanted. You wouldn't take that away from her, would you?"

Anything Cyradis wanted was hers, for as long as Zakath lived. Of that, at least, he had no doubt at all. Even if he still couldn't believe that she could possibly want to be near him, much less...everything else.

A baby. A little girl with his eyes, and, Zakath hoped, his wife's lovely face. Cyradis never had told him the child's name, but he knew that would be beautiful too.

Another innocent all too likely to be drawn into the murky politics that surrounded the Imperial throne. He couldn't imagine why Cyradis would want him as her husband and the father of her children, if it wasn't a matter of duty.

The garden door swung silently on well-oiled hinges, with only a soft click as it closed. Zakath looked back, startled, as Cyradis padded into the garden on bare feet, her white linen nightgown catching Eriond's glow. The worry in her eyes twisted at his heart all over again. Then her chin went up in fierce decision, and for a breathless moment in the pale light Zakath could see Miria in her face. "Dost thou doubt my word?" she demanded.

"Of course not!" It came out sharper than he meant it, her words a slap on a wound already raw. He should never have doubted Miria, a long lifetime ago.

She glared. "What cause hast thou then to doubt my love?"

"The right answer here is, 'Of course I know you love me,'" Eriond advised under his breath.

Really, the new God of Angarak had spent far too much time around Alorn humor, Zakath thought darkly. He took a long, painful breath, and said, "I know you love me." He couldn't do Miria the injustice of questioning that, ever again.

His wife smiled, and tucked herself warmly into his arm, where she fit like the missing part of his soul. "And well I know thy love for me," she said. "There will be time enough for all else."

"There will be if I have anything to say about it," Eriond noted, and offered Cyradis a conspiratorial grin. "And I do."

His wife had studied the future with the same detailed attention she had always given the past, and Eriond was obviously not above plotting with her. Zakath had spent decades making certain that no one dared tell him what to do, as far as possible. It really should have bothered him more that his life was being so carefully planned now.

Instead, thoughts of the future warmed him with a peculiar peace. He'd never really understood the word faith, but it was just possible, Zakath thought, that he had found it.

This is at the heart, and has no end.

Notes: Many thanks again to my beta-readers, tree and sleepfighter, for making this a much better story.