Beru felt sick. She used to score her body with alchemical ink—one mark for every murder her sister had committed to keep Beru alive. She bore no physical marks for the people whose Grace she had stolen over the past two moons, yet she knew her count far outnumbered Ephyra’s. Her horror never abated; each was as awful as the first had been.

“Come forward,” Pallas said, stepping aside to let the Witness and his captive onto the altar.

The Witness knelt at Beru’s feet. The captive resisted, standing tall, until a violent yank on the chains sent her stumbling to her knees with a sharp cry.

Beru knew what Pallas wanted her to do, the role he wanted her to play. And she knew, too, that she would play it. But she would make him wait, first. Make him wonder if maybe this time, she would refuse. Maybe this time, she would decide this game wasn’t worth playing any longer.

Maybe this time, she would strike.

Every order Pallas issued was a careful calculation. What would he ask her to do next? Would it be awful enough to make her hesitate? To make her refuse? Open defiance from Beru would mean punishment for Ephyra, whom Pallas had locked in the citadel. But Pallas didn’t know what Beru’s limit was.

Beru didn’t know, either.

She raised her hands, the god’s power surging into her palms and fingertips like cold fire. The captive stared up at her, mutinous. Beru made herself take in the woman’s face, her wide brown eyes and the stern set of her mouth, as she reached with the god’s power and grabbed hold of the pulsing warmth of the woman’s Grace. The captive let out an anguished cry as Beru spread her fingers and pulled against the woman’s Grace, unraveling it thread by thread from her body.

Beru closed her eyes against the horrific sound of torture. That sound would ring in Beru’s head, joining the other screams and shrieks that haunted her. In a moment, it was over—the woman collapsed, her Grace ripped out of her.

“The abomination has been cleansed,” Pallas intoned. “And now the righteous rewarded. What was corruption has been purified, transformed into a blessing for the faithful few.”

The Witness kneeling at Beru’s feet rose.

Beru extended her hands again, and the bright, shivering Grace she’d ripped out of the captive swirled around the Witness as Beru carefully knitted it to his esha. The Witness cried out, falling to his knees.

Before Beru knew what was happening, she was whirling around toward Pallas, Godfire leaping from one of the torches and into her hands. Pallas froze, his blue eyes wide. The god’s vicious satisfaction oozed through Beru as the crowd behind them gasped.