Bornhald surely was in drink; he gaped and stammered before making his salute and going. Valda wondered what had happened. Dain had been a fine young officer. One who worried too much over niceties, such as proof of guilt when there was no way to obtain it, yet still fine for all that. Not as weak as his father. A shame to see him waste himself in brandy.

Muttering under his breath—officers drinking in the very Fortress of the Light was another sign that Niall was rotting at the core—Valda went in search of his rooms. He intended to sleep in the camp, but a hot bath would not be amiss.

A square-shouldered young Child approached in the plain stone corridor, the scarlet shepherd’s crook of the Hand of the Light behind the flaring golden sun on his chest. Without stopping or even looking at Valda, the Questioner murmured respectfully, “My Lord Captain might wish to visit the Dome of Truth.”

Valda frowned after the man—he did not like Questioners; they did good work in their way, yet he could never escape the feeling that they had donned the crook because that way they would never have to face an armed foe—started to raise his voice and dress the fellow down, then stopped. Questioners were sloppy in their discipline, but a simple Child would never speak idly to a Lord Captain. Perhaps the bath could wait.

The Dome of Truth was a wonder that finally did restore some of his essence. Pure white outside, inside gold leaf cast down the light of a thousand hanging lamps. Thick white columns ringed the chamber, plain and polished to glistening, but the dome itself stretched a hundred paces across unsupported and rose fifty at its peak, above the simple white marble dais, centered on the white marble floor, where the Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light stood to address the assembled Children in their most solemn moments, their most serious ceremonies. He would stand there, one day. Niall would not live forever.

Dozens of Children wandered about the vast chamber—it was a sight worth seeing, though none but the Children ever did, of course—yet that message had not come so he could admire the Dome. He was sure of it. Behind the great columns ran rows of smaller ones, just as simple and polished just as highly, and tall alcoves where scenes of the Children’s triumphs made frescoes of a thousand years. Valda strolled, looking into each recess. Finally he saw a tall, graying man studying one of the paintings, Serenia Latar being raised on the scaffold, the only Amyrlin the Children had ever managed to hang. She had been dead already, of course, live witches being somewhat hard to hang, but that was beside the point. Six hundred and ninety-three years ago, justice had been done according to the law.

“Are you troubled, my son?” The voice was soft, almost mild.