They'd made it to the Dome of the Sun, though, and if they could be healed, they would be. There was no better place for it in Ithelas. She watched the acolytes carry the boards into the temple, then turned back to the farmer. "Thank you," she said again.

"Welcome. Most welcome. Bright Lady's blessing." He patted her shoulder, climbing back onto the wagon. Ordinarily the gesture might have annoyed her, but right then Bitharn was grateful for the farmer's clumsy reassurance. He meant well, and she would never have gotten her charges back to Cailan without him.

After Kelland healed him, Malentir had shadow-walked back to Cailan or Ang'arta or wherever it was he went, effectively leaving Bitharn alone in the forest. The Thorn hadn't taken Aurandane with him, but the sword was no help; if anything, it added to her apprehension. Kelland had nearly killed himself with the strain of purging black-fire corruption from so many souls. Asharre, Evenna, and the children were delirious or comatose. Bitharn had been terrified to turn her back on them for a moment, much less abandon them for hours while she looked for help, but she hadn't had any choice.

Near dawn, she'd finally stumbled across the trail of poachers dragging a deer through the forest. They'd been clumsya"and would have been hanged for it if Lord Gildorath's huntsmen had found the tracks instead of Bitharna"but in her exhaustion, it was only because of that clumsiness that she'd been able to follow the trampled trail back to their village. There she'd hammered on doors and begged for help until the sleepy, frightened villagers followed her back to the wounded. This turnip cart had been a godsend.

Bitharn waved farewell to the retreating cart with all the politeness she could muster, then hurried after the retreating Illuminers.

There was little she could do to help, but they let her into the healing rooms. She gave an abbreviated account of their experiences in Shadefell to the lead Illuminer, a woman who dispatched acolytes and fellow Blessed alike with the same efficient, steely calm. After answering the woman's questions and handing the Sword of the Dawn off to a Sun Knight, Bitharn retired to a chair in the corner of the healing hall and surrendered to her fatigue.

No sooner had she closed her eyes than a beige-robed acolyte was shaking her awake. "The High Solaros wishes to see you," the boy said. "Sir Kelland and the sigrir Asharre have already been called to his study."

Sunlight warmed her face through a nearby window. It was late morning, almost midday. She'd slept through the night and the next day's dawn prayers. One of the Blessed must have woven a small prayer over her while she slept; her teeth didn't feel loose anymore, and her bruises had faded to yellow-green rosettes.

Somehow, she managed to feel wretched despite the healing. Her limbs were stiff and sore after a night spent sleeping in the chair, and her mouth tasted like it had been packed with dirty wound lint. She was surprised she couldn't hear her back creaking when she stood. "How long do I have?"

"He expects you momentarily. The others are waiting."

"Let me wash." A quick scrub of her teeth, followed by a rinse of cold whitebriar tea, had her feeling almost human; a splash of water on her face helped too. She longed for a bath, and for a good long stretch, but those would have to wait. The acolyte waited politely, and then she followed him to the High Solaros' study.

Kelland and Asharre sat in the library outside. Neither spoke. The knight gazed pensively at his sun medallion, winding its golden chain around his brown knuckles. The scarred sigrir stared at a bookshelf, seeming hardly more aware of her surroundings than she'd been in the pit below Shadefell. Her shoulders were slumped, her face slack. The healing of her physical wounds didn't seem to have touched her despair; if anything, she looked worse.

Bitharn hesitated, wanting to say something, but the acolyte was watching, and although he did not interrupt she could sense his impatience. She raised a hand in greeting instead, and just caught Kelland inclining his head in return before she was ushered through the door into the High Solaros's study.

Over the years, she had probably visited the High Solaros' inner sanctum ten or fifteen timesa"not often, spread over the course of a decade and more, but enough to think of the place as eternal. There was always a hint of sweetness to the air: cedar and sandalwood from the costly carvings, roses from the gardens in summer and mint when the weather turned cool, fragrant candles in winter when the gardens were sleeping. But though the seasons might turn, and the scents change to match them, the study itself never did. It was a timeless sanctuary, warm and filled with light. Wide, clear windows invited in the sun, adding their own colored-glass sparkles of ruby and gold to its natural brilliance. The High Solaros' collection of books and maps lent the room a whiff of leather and parchment, but far from being musty or unpleasant, to Bitharn it smelled purely of knowledge.

Unlike his study, however, the High Solaros was subject to age. She was quietly shocked to see how much older he looked. Thierras d'Amalthier had never been young in Bitharn's memory, and every year saw more snow in his hair and more lines on his face, but she had seldom seen him as weary as he was today. In his private chambers, he wore simple yellow robes with only muted gold embroidery about the hem to signify that he was not an ordinary Illuminer, yet even that small reminder of his office seemed to weigh heavy on the man. "Light's blessing upon you. Please, sit."

"Thank you, Eminence." Bitharn leaned on the armrest to lower herself into the chair. Her legs were still wobbly.

The High Solaros sat opposite her, steepling his fingers over the map of Ithelas that covered his desk under glass. "I understand you were recently in Carden Vale."

That surprised her. She'd expected him to ask about the Thorn's escape first. Surely he had to know that she'd helped Malentir flee Heaven's Needle. "I was, Eminence."

"How did you come to be there?"

So it was about the Thornlord after all. Inwardly Bitharn quailed. But she told him everything, from Kelland's capture outside Tarne Crossing to her bargain with the Spider and betrayal of Versiel. There was no point in hiding it; he would have heard about Malentir's presence in Shadefell from the others, and it was better for him to know the whole truth. At least then he might understand why she'd betrayed the faith.

"Do you regret freeing him?" Thierras asked at the end of her tale.

"I regret that it was the best of the choices I had. But I don't think I made the wrong choice, if that's what you're asking. I'd do it again if I had to. I'd do it a thousand times over."

The High Solaros nodded, not in agreement, but as if he had expected no other answer. "Sir Kelland was not the first they took. The Thorns have been trying for some time to capture one of our Blessed. I suspected it when the first reports came back from Thelyand Ford; I was sure of it when I learned of Oralia's death. But I did not know why until now."

"They want Duradh Mal. And they need a Blessed to purify it."

"So it seems." The High Solaros' gaze settled back upon her.

Bitharn braced herself against his disappointment. "Will I be censured?"

"No. Your guilt is penance enough. We'll let the public story stand. The Thorn tricked you and escaped; as far as anyone outside this room needs to know, you were an unwilling captive. As it happens, your disobedience may be the only reason Evenna and Asharre came back to us alive. The goddess works in strange ways a here, it seems, by making a tool of love."

Bitharn stared at her fingertips. She felt the burn of a blush in her cheeks and wished desperately, hopelessly, that she could be anywhere else in the world.

"We've a we've talked about that," she mumbled at last, when the silence became too oppressive to bear. "We've found our answer." It wasn't the one she wanted, and she wasn't sure it was right, but what she wanted had already caused enough shame.

"Have you?" Thierras rang a small bronze bell on his desk. A moment later the door opened. The acolyte stood at the threshold, questioning.

"Bring in Sir Kelland, please," the High Solaros said.

Bitharn knotted her hands together and tried to quell the hammering in her heart. She hadn't expected this. Admitting her complicity in the Thornlord's escape had been infinitely easier. She'd been ready for that. She had wrestled through sleepless nights with what she would say, had prepared herself for the buckling weight of the admission. But this a this was a surprise, and she was in no condition to deal with surprises.

The acolyte returned with Kelland and a silver tray of pastries, some sweet, others savory. A teapot and a trio of porcelain cups sat in the center of the tray. He laid the platter on the desk, waited for the High Solaros' nod of dismissal, and left discreetly. Bitharn took a sugared roll, more to occupy her hands than because she was hungry. She hadn't eaten in two days, apart from a handful of mushrooms and sausages on the turnip cart, but anxiety strangled her appetite.

Thierras rubbed a thumb over the heavy gold ring of his office. "When we spoke earlier, you asked whether the Spider lied about Celestia's proscription of physical love."

"I asked whether that love was a sin," Kelland said. Bitharn's breath caught. She nearly dropped the sweet roll she'd been picking apart. He had asked that?

"Yes. And I saida""

"a"that oaths are simple, but questions of sin are not. Which was not an answer."

"It was the best one I could give at that time." The High Solaros sighed. He didn't seem offended by Kelland's lack of deference; his tone carried only a weight of regret, and perhaps of worry. "Now I see things more clearly."

Again he fell silent. Bitharn picked the raisins from her roll, showering her lap with flakes of pastry. It was a waste, but she couldn't have swallowed a bite if it was the last food she'd get all day.

Thierras tapped a jagged black line cut across the map: the Irontooths, a long line reaching north across Carden Vale. The town wasn't marked on the High Solaros' map, but Ang'duradh was. It had its proper name there; the map was very old. "You asked about Bysshelios too. His heresy."

"Yes," Kelland said. "He broke his oaths, but he kept his magic."

"For a time. He lost it in the end, when his sins became excessive a but you are correct: Bysshelios kept Celestia's Blessing after he took women to his bed."

"Then the oath of celibacy is a lie."

"No." The High Solaros seemed to be looking through them more than at them, Bitharn thought; he had the air of a man remembering old conversations and weighing past words as much as choosing what he wanted to tell them in the here and now. It made her afraid. What was it that he was treading so gingerly around?

"The oath," Thierras said, "is founded on the belief that, in this matter, it is best to have a clear rule rather than allowing our Blessed to flounder into a treacherous and complicated sea.

"Love, itself, is not a sin in the Bright Lady's eyes. But it can still tempt peoplea"even good people, even careful onesa"into others. Whatever the singers claim, love is not a cure for all the world's ills; too often, it is their cause. Most of Celestia's Blessed are young, and have enough difficulty meeting the demands of the faith without being distracted by the confusion and temptations of carnal love. For them, the oath is a safeguard."

"A safeguard against what?" Bitharn asked blankly. She wasn't sure she understood. "You just said love isn't a sin."

"In the abstract, that is true," the High Solaros said. "But we live, and serve, in an imperfect world. The two of you are luckya"luckier, or wiser, than you know. You love each other, and that love strengthens the faith you share.

"But what if it were otherwise? What if one of you followed the Shadow-Tongued, or the wild spirits of the White Seas, or denied the gods altogether? What if you didn't want to spend your life on the road, following someone else's holy quests, and tried to pull Kelland away from his duties instead? What if he failed to appreciate your devotion, souring it into hate? And those are only the things that might go wrong after you two loved each other. Often love is not reciprocated, or is forbidden. Blessed have fallen in love with people already married, or too high- or low-born, or who owe fealty to lords in other lands. Longing turns to bitterness, jealousy to spitea"and those are sins, or lead to them, and destroy a gift that is already too rare. It is easier, and safer, if we remove the temptation. The oath of chastity draws a clear line. It provides certainty where otherwise there would be none."

"What becomes of us if we cross that line?" Kelland asked quietly.

"You become Bysshelios," the High Solaros replied. "Or you stay as you are. In the eyes of the world, it must be one or the other. As to what your truth is, in your own hearts a that is for you to find. You've refused the easy answer; the hard one will have to be your own."

Bitharn brushed away the crumbs on her legs, grappling for sense amid the welter of her emotions. "What would you have us do?"

"Try not to tear the faith apart," the High Solaros answered dryly. He made it sound a joke, but it was still sharp enough to make Bitharn squirm. "The oath remains a safeguard for the other Blessed, and I will not have you weaken it. I trust you are unlikely to reawaken the Bysshelline Heresy, or we would not be having this audience a but if you openly forsake one oath, you forsake them all."

Openly. What did that mean? Was the High Solaros giving his blessing for them to do otherwise in secret? Or was he only saying that he didn't want to know?

"There's still Duradh Mal," Kelland said. It was an abrupt change of subject, but Bitharn wasn't surprised by that. He wasn't ready to confront the possibilities that the High Solaros had opened for them. Neither was she. Not yet. They'd deal with that later, together.

"Maolites on one side, Baozites on the other." Thierras traced the painted mountains on his map, stopping his finger on the black dot that marked the cursed fortress. "You still want to help them reclaim it?"

"Yes. That map shows why. The same mountains that made Ang'duradh impregnable can keep its soldiers penned up just as easily. It will be years, maybe decades, before the fortress hosts a fighting force again. In that time we can be prepared to confront them."

"At a considerable cost in blood."

"We accept that possibility when we choose to serve. The people of Carden Vale did not, and the price they paid was worse."

"You're certain of that?"

"Yes," Bitharn answered. What she'd seen with her own eyes and read in the gaoler's book proved that much. She'd only read a few pages of that grisly chronicle before pushing the book aside, sickened, but one would have been enough. Death in battle, even death at the hands of Baozites, was one thing. Madness and monstrosity was entirely another. Nothing the Baozites did could compare to the horrors that Maol's victims inflicted on their families and themselves.

Kelland nodded. He rested a hand atop hers and went on. "If we leave Duradh Mal as it is, sooner or later someone like Gethel will release its corruption again. We were lucky this time; we were able to catch the madness before it spread beyond the mountains. Even so it destroyed Carden Vale and threatens Cailan. We should expect worse if it happens again. Next time we may not realize the seals are broken until all Calantyr succumbs."

"Ah. So you want to do this because the Baozites are easier to watch?"

"Easier to watch, and less dangerous. Baozites are soldiers. Maol is a plague."

"I wish I shared your certainty," the High Solaros said. "There is something they want in Ang'duradh that goes beyond the fortress itself. I'm certain of that."

"Aurandane?" Bitharn asked. But as soon as the name passed her lips, she knew that was wrong. Malentir had left the sword with them, even though he could have taken it before or after Gethel's death.

"Perhaps," Thierras said, although clearly he thought it as unlikely as she did. "In the last few years, Baozite soldiers have made inquiries with scholars, libraries, and book dealers from Aluvair to Seawatch, buying or copying anything that purports to deal with Ang'duradh and its fall. They've been discreet about it, relatively speaking, but a rough-spoken soldier interested in that historical era is an unusual buyer of books."

"They can't have been that concerned with secrecy," Kelland said, "or they would have used the Thorns, and we would never have known who they were."

Thierras shook his head. "The Thorns were otherwise occupied. They were hunting our Blessed. You were not the first one they attacked. You were only the first to have been taken."

"Why?" Bitharn asked, at the same time Kelland said: "Who?"

"Isleyn Silverlock, though he escaped their trap. Oralia of the White Seas, who died rather than let herself be taken. Riulan of Knight's Lake, Tanarroc Hillwalker. There were others. They've been been trying since the Battle of Thelyand Ford." Thierras turned to Bitharn. "Your question is not as easily answered. I thought, initially, that they wanted to interrogate our Blessed, or perhaps sacrifice them. Some spells are more powerful when written in holy blood. But Kelland was neither questioned nor tortured, and now I wonder if all along their goal was the reclamation of Duradh Mal. If my understanding is correct, the attacks began around the time Malentir realized that Maol was behind the fortress' fall."

"What if it was?" Kelland asked. "If retaking Ang'duradh is truly what they want, they'll keep hunting our Blessed until they have one. Better if we cooperatea"and go in with our eyes open. Working beside them in Duradh Mal will let us learn the strength and shape of their magic before it's directed at us. The chance is too valuable to waste."

"You assume they'll let you come back alive to report anything," Thierras said.

"The Thorn could have killed us in Shadefell. Instead he saved our lives."

Thierras shrugged, filling his cup with tepid tea. "Because he needed you. You told me yourself; he was dying when you left that place. Only your prayers spared him from Maol's claim."

"He'll need us in Duradh Mal as well," Kelland said. "You taught me to use the tools I have. This is an opportunity. We can watch the Thorn, learn from him, find weaknesses we'd never see otherwise. I've already seen at least one. There's a hidden cell near the south docks. An albino girl named Brielle guards it."

"It isn't much."

"It's more than we knew before. Now that we know they have a foothold in Cailan, we can watch it, and see who else goes there, or seize the girl and question her. I expect she is an acolyte, at best; I doubt the Spider would have shown me anyone truly valuable. But it's a beginning. In Duradh Mal we're likely to learn much more."

The High Solaros glanced wryly at Bitharn. "Did he give you this speech as well?"

"Something like it," she admitted.

"Well, if you couldn't talk him out of it, I won't expect to do better." He turned to Kelland. "You were held in Ang'arta; you know the beast's nature. If you are still determined that this is the best course, so be it. Go to Duradh Mal. Help the Baozites reclaim their fortress. Learn what you can, and come back to report it."

"I'll see that he does," Bitharn said, and the two of them saw themselves out.

Instead of going to the training hall, as Bitharn had expected, Kelland took the spiral paths to the gardens. New green softened the rosebushes' gnarled stems. Nodding white snowdrops and purple-tipped spikes of crocus flourished on their rich black beds, stretching toward the afternoon sun.

Bitharn closed her eyes and turned her face to the sky. It felt so warm here, so clean. She understood why the flowers gloried in it. "I'm going with you to Duradh Mal."

"It won't be pretty," Kelland warned.

"Oh, I know. You never take me anywhere pretty."

"This is."

"It is," she admitted, opening her eyes. "But we'll have to leave it soon."

"We might, yes." He took her hand again, folding her fingers into his, and pressed their clasped hands over his heart. "But we're here now."

24.

"Shurr."

The word was harsh and mangled, but Asharre recognized her name. She had been dreading, and hoping for, this moment since she woke to find herself in the Dome of the Sun's healing halls. Apart from a short debriefing in Thierras' study the day after her arrival, she'd spent all her waking moments sitting by Evenna's bed. After attending to the worst of her wounds, the Celestians had moved Evenna to a solitary room where she could recuperate without being disturbed by the clamor of the main healing halls.

There Asharre had gone every morning, waiting for the Illuminer to awaken. Waiting to find out how badly she had failed. Sometimes Bitharn sat with her, but mostly she waited alone.

Yellow curtains and white-oak cabinets gave the sickroom a sunny air, although the morning was cool and misty. A black-and-white cat dozed on the windowsill. Paintings of orchids and saffron crocuses adorned the walls. It was all almost cheerful a as long as Asharre ignored the woman on the bed.

Swallowing her guilt, she made herself look at Evenna. "Yes?"

The Illuminer was staring at her fiercely. From the nose down, her face was gone, torn away by her own nails. Scars covered the lower halves of her cheeks, healed smooth and shiny around the stretched-thin holes. Every word took a tremendous effort to force past her ruined lips, and Asharre could barely recognize the sounds. "Not a your fault."