“Come,” he said at last.

They walked forward to the bier set halfway along the nave, flanked by benches. Rage and Sorrow sat at the foot of the bier, below Terror, and Alain knelt at Lavastine’s right hand. The statue had been “dressed” in a long white linen shift overlaid with a wool tunic dyed to the blue that had always been Lavastine’s preferred color. The cloth looked well brushed, though a little dusty. An embroidered border of leaping black hounds encircled half the hem, the kind of painstaking work that revealed the hand of an experienced needleworker. He wondered if the embroidery was work begun recently and as yet unfinished or if some woman’s heartfelt task had been interrupted. Lavastine’s feet were vulnerably bare, and his sharp features were as familiar as ever, with his beard neat and trim and eyes shut. No doubt folk new to the holding believed this a masterful piece of stone carving. Who would believe this was the man himself?

Bowing his head, Alain rested his brow against that cool cheek.

“I pray you,” he whispered, “forgive me for the lie. I gave it up in order to enter the land of the meadow flowers, but now I am come home to this Earth and I must confess it to you. I said Tallia was pregnant only to spare you heartbreak, knowing you were slipping away. I do not regret sparing you pain on your deathbed. I regret only that I failed in the one task you set me. Still, it was not to be. God made it so. They knew I was not your rightful heir. If Tallia had gotten pregnant, then the threads would have tangled even more. No good rule can be based on a lie. And, God help me, Father, had Tallia not betrayed me, I would never have met Adica. I’m sorry I could not be the son you desired, but that does not change the love I cherish for you.”

When he ceased speaking, a quiet so profound settled into the church that he thought he could hear the earth’s slow respiration, the breath of stone. Pale daylight gleamed on the altar and the golden vessel and the Book of Verses, left lying open as if the deacon had been interrupted in the midst of her prayers. Behind him lay the side chapel dedicated to St. Lavrentius, who had died before the time of the Emperor Taillefer while bringing the Circle of Unity to the Varrish tribes.

It is here, he thought, that it began. He had met the Lady of Battles on the Dragonback Ridge, but he wondered now whether that was coincidence or fate or free will? Was it in her nature to ride that path when a storm blew in off the sea? Had it only been accident that they had converged there? Or had she ridden that way on purpose, knowing she would meet him and in such an hour when he would have no choice but to save those he loved by pledging himself to her cause?