“But how could he ever do that? You just admitted you don’t even know what that means,” Stephen said.
“No, we don’t, not exactly,” Sister Pale allowed. “But we do know that if Hespero becomes the heir, no good can come of it.”
“And how do you know I would be any better?”
“That’s obvious. You aren’t Hespero.”
There was a logic there that Stephen had no way to contradict. Besides, it served his purposes.
“Does your tradition tell you who sent the woorm or why it’s following me?”
“About the khirme—what you call the waurm—little is said, and what we’ve gleaned can be contradictory. One legend says that it is your ally.”
Stephen vented a humorless laugh. “I don’t expect I’ll count on that,” he said.
“It is a debated tradition,” she admitted. “Besides the khirme, there is also mention of a foe called the Khraukare. He is a servant of the Vhelny, who does not wish you to have the prize.”
Stephen’s head was beginning to swim.
“Khraukare. That translates as ‘Blood Knight,’ doesn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“And the Vhelny?”
“Vhelny. It means, ah, a king, of sorts, a lord of demons.”
“And where are these people? Who are they?”
“We don’t know. We didn’t know who Kauron’s heir was, either, until you showed up.”
“Could Hespero be the Blood Knight, the servant of the Vhelny?”
“It’s possible. The Vhelny has other names: Wind-of-Lightning, Sky-Breaker, Destroyer. His only desire is to see the end of the world and everything in it.”
“Perhaps you mean the Briar King?”
“No. The Briar King is lord of root and leaf. Why would he destroy the earth?”
“There are prophecies that say he might.”
“There are prophecies that say he might destroy the race of Man,” she corrected. “That isn’t the same thing.”
“Oh. True. But why would Hespero want to destroy the world?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Sister Pale replied. “Perhaps he is insane. Or very, very disappointed in things.”
“And you, Sister Pale? What’s your interest in this? How do I know you aren’t an agent of Hespero, tricking me into leading you to the Alq? Or a disciple of the Destroyer, or whoever else wants this thing?”
“You don’t, I suppose. And there’s nothing I can say to convince you. I could tell you that I am descended of the line of priestesses Kauron met when he came here. I could tell you that I was trained in a coven but that it was not the Coven Saint Cer. And I could tell you I am here to help you because I have waited all my life for you to come. But you have no reason to believe these things.”
“Especially when you’ve already lied to me once. Or perhaps twice,” he replied.
“The once I understand: what I told you about Saint Cer. But that wasn’t for your benefit; it was for the benefit of others. But when did I lie to you a second time?”
“When you told me you attended a different coven. There are many covens, but all are of the Order of Saint Cer.”
“If that’s true, then it would mean I told the truth the first time and am only lying now. So it’s still only one lie, not so much, really, between friends.”
“Now you’re making fun of me.”
“Yes. What did I tell you earlier about assuming that you know everything?”
“Then there really is a coven dedicated to a saint other than Cer? And it isn’t a heretical sect?”
“I never claimed that it wasn’t heretical,” Pale replied. “Unsanctioned by z’Irbina, certainly. But neither are the Revesturi sanctioned by the Church, yet you are one.”
“I’m not!” Stephen snapped. “I’d never even heard of the Revesturi until a few ninedays ago, until I started on this bloody quest. And now I don’t understand anything at all!”
He jerked his hand away from her and groped away into the dark.
“Brother Darige—”
“Stay away,” he said. “I don’t trust you. Every time I think I have some inkling of what’s going on, this happens.”
“What happens?”
“This! Blood Knights, Destroyers, prizes, treasure troves, prophecies, and Alqs, and…”
“Oh,” she said. He could almost see the shape of her face in the moonlight now and the liquid shimmer of her eyes. “You mean knowledge. You mean learning. You think you’d be more content if the world continued to bear out what you believed to be true when you were fifteen.”
“Yes!” Stephen shouted. “Yes, I think I would!”
“Then there’s something I don’t understand. If learning is so painful to you, why do you pursue it? Why were you there in the scriftorium tonight?”
“Because…”
He felt like strangling someone, possibly himself.
“Don’t do that,” he said sullenly.
“Do what?”
“Make sense. Even better, don’t talk to me at all.”
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he found her much nearer, near enough that he could feel her breath on his face. He could make out the curve of her cheek, rounded so she looked young. Ivory in the moonlight. One eye was still dark, but the other shone like silver. He could see half her lip, too, either pouting or naturally made that way.
Her breath was sweet, faintly herbal.
“You started this,” she breathed. “You started talking. I was perfectly happy holding your hand in silence, helping you, taking you where you need to go. But you had to start asking all the questions. Can’t you just let things happen?”
“That’s all I have been doing,” Stephen said, his voice cracking. “It’s like one of those dreams where you’re trying to do something, but you keep getting distracted, pulled off the track, and your original purpose falls farther and farther away. And I’m losing people. I lost Winna and Aspar. I lost Ehawk.
“Now I’ve lost Ehan, and Henne, and Themes, and I keep trying to pretend it doesn’t matter, but it does.”
“Winna, Aspar, Ehawk. Are they all dead?”
“I don’t know,” he said miserably.
“Winna was your lover?”
That went in like an arrow.
“No.”
“Ah, I see. But you wanted her to be.”
“What’s this got to do with anything?”
“Nothing, maybe.” He felt her hand wrap around his again. They were both cold.
“Were they with you on this quest of yours?” she pressed. “Did the waurm kill them?”
“No,” Stephen said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I came to Crotheny to join the monastery d’Ef. On the way I was kidnapped by bandits. Aspar—he’s the king’s holter—he saved me from them.”
“And then?”
“Well, then I went on to d’Ef, but only after learning about terrible things in the forest and about the Briar King. And then at d’Ef—” He stopped. How could he explain in a few words the betrayal he’d felt at finding the corruption at d’Ef? At the first beating Brother Desmond and his cohort had given him?
Why should he?
She squeezed his hand encouragingly.
“Thing went wrong there,” he finally said. “I was asked to translate terrible things. Forbidden things. It was as if the world I thought I knew ceased to exist. Certainly the Church was different than I believed it to be. Then Aspar showed back up, nearly dead, and it was my turn to save him, and suddenly I was off on his quest, off to rescue Winna—and save the queen, of all things.”
“And you did that?”
“Yes. And then the praifec sent us out after the Briar King, but halfway through that business we figured out that the real evil was Hespero himself, and we ended up trying to foil their plans to awaken a faneway of the Damned Saints. After doing that we were thrown in with a princess off to reclaim her throne from an usurper—something I really had no idea how to do—and the next thing I know I’ve been snatched by slinders and I’m sitting with my old fratrex, whom I thought dead, and he tells me the world’s only hope is for me to come up here… I just wanted to study books!” He couldn’t continue then. Why was he going on like this, anyway?