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“Seren did.”
“You spoke to Seren?”
Yes, he did. Everything is all right.
“No one else has returned yet,” Kenrik said. “They’re more than a week out. Remember? And Kelyn is asleep. Seren says he couldn’t tell me anyway. He was unconscious.”
I chewed my lip. “I was scared. I thought Kelyn was dead. The ruffians—they murdered so many people.”
You saved the village. You saved Kelyn, Seren said.
“I know their deaths don’t feel right,” Kenrik said, “even if they were bad men, but you should feel justified in taking their lives.”
“I thought that at the time. I passed judgment on them. But I don’t think that’s how the Creator would do it.”
“We can’t judge as he does, but sometimes we must act to save innocent lives.” He lifted my chin because my eyes had drifted to his chest.
I was embarrassed and felt weak.
Ashamed.
“You acted out of fear,” he said. “Out of a desire to protect.”
“No. I was angry. I wanted them to die for hurting Kelyn.”
I imagined my father hammering words into my head. You’ll bring ruin down on all of us. You’ll bring death to the dragon realm.
Your father is mistaken, Seren said.
But look what I’ve done.
“I’ve corrupted my light,” I said. “I’ve damaged my heart-center.” Kenrik wouldn’t understand. “There’s a stain. It’s marred. I was told I’d become corrupted if I entered the mortal realms. I was told this would happen.”
“That you’d kill people?” he asked.
“Not that exactly.”
You couldn’t have foreseen this, Seren said. Your intentions were noble.
“How is the mortal realm at fault for your corruption? And you’re not corrupted, Niawen. You’re pure and innocent.”
“I’m not innocent,” I said. “You can’t see what’s happened to my light.”
“Don’t believe some rubbish someone told you as a fairytale to frighten you away.”
“It’s not rubbish. There’s darkness here. There’s evil in men’s hearts.”
“Am I evil?” he asked.
“No,” I mumbled.
“Then what is it? Are we mortals too finite for you? You think because you’re an emrys, with the Creator’s grace bestowed upon you, that you have farther to fall? That you have to be a great martyr? This one act doesn’t define you.”
I gasped. “How could you know what I think?”
“We all fall the same distance. Can’t you see? You have the same flesh and blood I do.” He lifted my arm and traced the vein in my wrist with a confident finger. “You bleed as I do. You breathe as I do. You sin just as I do. The Creator made me just as he made you.”
He’s right, Seren said.
