“Look!” he urged her. “Look at it. You know what it is. It’s every love and every promise that were never broken. It’s fidelity and passion that endure. It’s what you thought you were getting when the Despiser whispered in your ear.”

Searching for words that She might heed, he insisted, “Trying to destroy the Earth isn’t his worst crime. No. The worst was lying to you. Lying to you. No mortal atrocity can ever be that bad because mortals die. Your suffering never ends.”

His asseveration—or the implications of his ring—appeared to shock the bane. Rising higher, She reared back from the ledge. The anguish written on Her many miens became more pronounced. Women who could have been Lena or Joan whimpered and keened. Their voice sank to frayed whispers.

“Little man. Human. Fool. You know nothing of woe.”

“That’s true,” Covenant admitted, although his experience of loss was as old as the Arch. “Our lives are too short. Nothing that dies can understand eternal pain. But we’re willing to try. And we intend to put a stop to it.

“Let us go. We’ll set you free.”

Some promises were too terrible to be kept. This was one. Nonetheless he prayed that he was telling the truth. Beyond question, the destruction of the Arch of Time would release She Who Must Not Be Named. But he doubted that the ruin of creation would relieve Her plight. She needed something more than mere devastation. Her torment would continue until the Despiser’s evil had been answered. Until She learned to love again, and forgive.

“Free?” She cried bitterly. “You will set me free? I cannot hear you, little man. You are too small to appease my pain.”

Scrambling for arguments, Covenant replied, “Then give me a chance.” If his wedding ring did not sway her, he had other ideas. “Maybe I’ll find something you can hear.”

While hunger and flames seemed to hesitate, he turned his back.

“Esmer.”

Esmer flinched. “Timewarden?”

Mute with incomprehension, the Giants stared. Awe or dread shone in Liand’s eyes. Ignoring Esmer, the Haruchai studied Covenant impassively. Perhaps they thought that he knew what he was doing—

Like Linden and everyone else, they deserved more from him.

Facing Esmer, Covenant said, “She’s forgotten who she is.” Deliberately he took risks that terrified him. “Why don’t you tell her? Why don’t you tell her her true name?”

Cail’s son was descended from Elohim: he shared many of the Earth’s secrets.

“No!” Esmer’s chagrin shook the ledge. Storms whipped alarm like foam from his eyes. “I cannot. I will not! Do you not grasp that her forgetting is necessary? It is imperative!