“Yes, sir.” Dorrin put her thoughts in order. “As Paks said, and your predecessor probably told you, I inherited the family magery, but was never trained in its use—I refused to cooperate with the training they attempted and eventually escaped …”

“What was that training?”

“In cruelty.” Dorrin felt the familiar tremor in her hands, and clenched them together. “It—it was their belief that our power was retained because of … of blood magery. When a child—when I—first showed any talent—such as making light, then we were taken into the—the inner keep. The old keep, with its dungeon. And there made to see what they believed maintained our powers.”

“Describe it.” The Knight-Commander’s voice was hard and cold as winter stone.

Despite herself, Dorrin’s voice trembled. “It was … it was an animal, that first time. A rabbit.” She could still see it, in her mind, the terrified, trembling little creature, heart beating so fast and hard, nose twitching. She had felt its fear and her own had doubled. Other rabbits, in wicker cages stacked along one side of the chamber, all terrified. She tried to swallow; her mouth was nearly as dry as it had been then. “They showed me first … my uncle made light, as I had, and then … then he hurt the rabbit and it screamed and his light grew stronger.”

“How did he hurt it?”

“I—I don’t know for sure. I closed my eyes—” She had seen the aftermath, though. “He must have pulled off a leg … and then another … that’s what it looked like after …”

“How old were you? Did you not know already what to expect?”

“No … I was very small. Still in shortlings—” She was not going to admit having wet herself, her uncle’s disgust, her mother’s slap that sent her reeling into the stacked cages. “I had never been in the old keep before, I know that. But then—” It had to be said; she had to say it. “Then they wanted me to do it, to prove to me it would make my light stronger.” The next rabbit had been spotted, dark spots on fawn. Her uncle had put a knife in her hand; her mother had gripped her shoulders, forcing her to the block of wood on which the rabbit now crouched, shivering, held there—her uncle said—by his magery. He had pointed to where she was to stab, in the rabbit’s hindquarters.

“Not to kill it, then?”

“Not to kill it,” Dorrin said. Bile had risen in her mouth. “I didn’t want to. I pushed back against my mother but I was too small. She picked me up—” She had kicked her mother; her uncle had done whatever he did to the rabbit to her legs; she could not kick again. Her uncle had told her “You must do it; you must try” with such menace in his voice that it scared her more than her dangling legs. “I dropped the knife,” she said. That had earned another slap. Her uncle had put the knife in her hand again, gripped it with his, so she could not open her hand or pull away, and guided it down, slowly, onto the hapless rabbit. The sound it made as the knife entered its flesh … as her uncle forced her hand to twist, to drag the knife sideways, to cause greater pain … would never leave her memory.