You sent the mother who bore you to her death; would you kill your own father as well? And you call me evil?

Dorrin ignored that, took step after slow step, as if wading through thick mud. His power pressed on her; she could see no effect of hers on him; he stood there smiling.

Remember those nights in the cell? Remember how you begged for your puny suffering to end? What a coward you were … and are still. Now you are old, barren, weak. An empty husk, useless for anything but torment. I will take your body but keep you as a mind-slave, helpless but aware, and use your power as my own.

Memory flooded her mind: the pain, the smells, the tastes of it. Her father, worse than Carraig … nausea cramped her belly; the vile taste filled her mouth. Unshed tears burned her eyes. Again her knees sagged; her hand’s grip on her sword loosened, and the sword tip fell to the stone, ringing a warning. Her hand clenched tighter. Not again, not again … She tried to say Falk’s name, but her mouth was dry, dry as bone-dust and as bitter. Dry as a cursed well …

A well that now brimmed with clean water. From the depths of despair, from that recent memory, she reached for the source of her own power, the power Falk promised was hers, untainted. Falk’s knight, not her father’s daughter; Falk’s knight, who had freed a woman and her unborn child from a curse that bound them in unending torment, whose tears had renewed the waters.

“Falk,” she managed. At once that sweet, cold water filled her mouth, washing away the taste of evils she had endured, washing away fear and hatred. As she swallowed, the water seemed to renew her whole body; her strength surged back, as water had done in the well. She saw her father’s expression change even as she felt her power mastering him. Could he feel her new determination? Now she held him motionless, and knew he could not flee. Should she bind him for others to capture, or would it be better to kill him herself? She raised her sword, saw his concentration change to fear, and then to glee again … the look she had seen on the child’s face who had been about to force a transfer.

“Falk!” she cried, pleading, and for the first time in her life cast the death spell like a spear, not knowing if it would truly kill.

His face contorted for an instant, and then he fell and lay motionless. Dorrin ran to the fallen body—she felt nothing there—no taint of evil, dire mist as she’d seen after Carraig died, no hint of lingering malice. “I’m sorry,” Dorrin said, to the body that had once been an honest groom’s, as she sheathed her sword. “You were a good man once; you deserved better.”

She looked around—the courtyard was still in chaos. With a touch of magery she calmed the horses, put out the smoldering fire that had started the panic. She hoped no one would notice that part. Duke Marrakai still lay where he had fallen; now his sons crouched beside him, staring at her wide-eyed.