Diffraction

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Price of a Gift

"Finally, I ignored the subject's supposed testimony upon arrest and imprisonment. The fanciful tales relayed by the jailers depict one whose grasp of reality is tenuous at best. This description does not match the subject's demonstrated competence, as you well know."

Vaerandir approached the bars of the cell in the Bastion. Black mold covered the glistening walls, and the claws of some creature made skittering noises in the distant shadows. Daylight shone through a grate out of reach at the top of the high wall. A chamberpot occupied a dark corner that stank of urine. Lyllithe had found it already used by some previous occupant.

The guards had laughed when she asked for a replacement. Only request a prisoner gets is for a last meal, they said. And the Captain's not even keen on honorin' those.

"Lyllithe," Vaerandir said, "I need answers." He pulled up a wooden chair and sat on it in reverse, arms crossed over the back. "I rushed back to warn you all of Tera's true identity. But I was met with news that the Sunguards stormed the halls of the Ministry and blew up the Conclave in mid-session. We need to talk about what happened."

She sat huddled on the hard stone slab that served as her bed—the cleanest surface in the dark chamber. A ragged burlap long-shirt made of two sacks of grain stitched together covered her torso and thighs. She struggled to find a position she deemed decent. "What's there to say? I'm to be executed."

"So Peledor would have it," Vaerandir said. "But the Lord Mayor does not answer to him, only to the public. Your exploits—along with your friends' reputations—matter more to Lord Tenegar than you realize. The people adore you."

He chuckled and added, "Honestly, blowing up the Conclave probably won you more support than any harm it did to your interests."

She smiled. After a day in the cell, it feels good to have a reason to. "The populace is that frustrated?"

"Tenegar is between a Kem'neth and a Fractured," Vaerandir said. "The Rebellion fights to oust him for failing his people, and the nobles hold him responsible for the lack of able men and women on our side to restore order. When Glacierift crumbled five years ago, he mustered all available support to establish order and restore peace to our neighbors. He has not forgotten—as some have—how their cavalry broke the siege of Maul outside the Gates when he was a young Captain on the walls.

"But that action came with a cost. No one has heard from the main force we sent into the North. And though none admit it, we fear them lost in the disaster which destroyed that nation's capital, Stalhandske."

I've never heard all of this told so plainly. "What happened?"

"A dormant volcano around which the city stood erupted without warning," Vaerandir said. "The plume of ash blotted out the sun for weeks."

"I remember that... a month of darkness and ashen rain just before my first Testing. For a while after I failed the Test, I thought it was a sign that the Light had hidden His face from us."

"Since then," Vaerandir said, "desperate refugees streamed south into our lands. And some turned their ear to Kaalistera's call for rebellion."

"The assassin—has she been found?"

"There's no indication of her presence," Vaerandir replied, his brow furrowed with concern. "No one at the Conclave remembers seeing her. By all accounts, you and the others stormed into the middle of the meeting, warning of some unspecified threat. Then you seemed taken with a hallucination of sorts, creating a blaze of light in one hand and a cloud of darkness in the other. You apparently attacked a wall—and succeeded."