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“What does it mean? Do you have a soul?”
“All creatures created by God have souls.”
“Can you fly, as it is said daimones can?”
All at once, grief choked her as she remembered what she had lost. Barely, she was able to rasp out the words, although she didn’t know why she should confess something so dangerous, so terrible, and so private to a woman she scarcely knew. Her rival. Possibly her ally.
“Once I could, but not on Earth. Only in the heavens.”
“Have you walked in the heavens? Have you seen the Chamber of Light?”
“No. Only souls unchained by death can walk there. But I have climbed through the armature of the spheres, I have climbed the ladder of the heavens. I have seen … such things that I weep to recall them. So much light.”
“As in the prophet’s vision. Yet you are here.”
She nodded, unable to speak.
“You were forced to return?”
She shook her head.
“Did you come back of your own volition, for him?”
“For him,” she said hoarsely. “For the child.”
“Ah.” She turned Liath’s hand over and placed the tip of a finger in the middle of Liath’s palm, as if reading something from that touch. “That was a great sacrifice. I think even Mother Scholastica does not understand this.”
“Why are you here, Lady Waltharia?”
“Do you think I mean to curry favor for my family by befriending you?”
“I admit … I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I have already told you. Wendar suffers, and Sanglant will be a strong regnant. To support him, I will support you. But you must help me. No more scenes like the one played today in Mother Scholastica’s study. Do not hand them the weapon they can use to pierce you with.”
“Yes, I understand that. I thought she would be my ally. She is a scholar! She ought to want to know the truth!”
“She is a daughter of the royal line and the most powerful abbess in the land. Scholarship is not her first consideration.”
“No, perhaps not.”
“Have you taken thought to what you will do when Sanglant goes to the church to be crowned and anointed?”
“Not yet. A little.”
Waltharia nodded. “If there is aught else you wish to ask me, if you desire my counsel, send the Eagle with a message. My stewards know that she is allowed into my presence at any hour of day or night.”
“The Eagle?”
Waltharia released her hand and stood. “The one who witnessed my father’s murder.”
She left as precipitously as she had come. In her wake, a woman entered bearing a lantern whose commonplace flame illuminated her familiar face and wry smile.
“Hathui! Were you outside all this time?”
“I brought the margrave here.”
“Ah. It would make sense that you must speak with the margrave about her father, and what you saw.”
