The Ranyhyn had chosen the company’s path. Why had they elected to drift toward Sarangrave Flat? Surely they could have found another route through the barricades of hills? What purpose had been served by exposing the company—exposing Linden and the Staff of Law—to the Feroce, and to the lurker’s hunger?

While she searched for a way to pose her query that did not sound like an accusation, however, the Manethrall’s manner changed again. As if he expected a rebuff, and did not mean to accept it, he said, “I have replied as well as I am able. Now, Ringthane, I also require a reply. That the Feroce imposed a geas upon you is plain. Yet they wielded no force to equal that of the Staff. Any and all of your companions would have intervened to spare you, but you did not permit our aid. With fire and seeming fear, you spurned us as you ran to the lurker’s embrace.

“I crave some account of the coercion which ruled you.”

Involuntarily Linden winced. She owed her friends an explanation: she knew that. But her vulnerability had not begun with cutting herself. Nor had it arisen from her encounter with She Who Must Not Be Named, or from Roger’s treachery, and the croyel’s, under Melenkurion Skyweir. She had brought it with her from her former life. Ultimately its roots reached past Sara Clint and the savaged ruin of Covenant’s home to the futility of Linden’s love for her son, to her failure to prevent Covenant’s murder, and from there to the plight of being her unforgiven parents’ daughter. She did not want to describe the real sources of her despair.

Nevertheless she could not refuse to answer Mahrtiir. His need, and the ache in the eyes of the Giants, compelled her.

Swallowing against a sudden thickness in her throat, Linden said unsteadily, “The Feroce—Whatever they are. They have a kind of power that I’ve never felt before. A kind of glamour.” Even with her health-sense, she had never been able to pierce the theurgy with which Roger could conceal or disguise himself. “But it was all in my mind. It took over”—she swallowed again—“the whole inside of my head.

“It wasn’t possession. They didn’t force me to think their thoughts. They didn’t control what I was feeling. Instead they used who I already am against me. They used my own memories to make me believe—”

She wanted to stop there. Surely her companions could imagine the rest? But no: Mahrtiir’s stance demanded more. The expectant attention of the Giants resembled pleading.

When was she going to start trusting them?

With a private groan, she told them as much as she could bear about what the glamour had unleashed within her.