Dion by now wanted to be anywhere but in that room. Here was where priests came, once in their lives, to know that they were right. She did not want to stand before the Potentate and have to weather the storm of his own anguished doubts.

Abruptly the rush of his confession had ceased, his words lying between them like stones. “But please, you wanted to speak,” he said heavily, seeming exhausted by his outburst.

Of course she wanted to speak. She had been about to tell him just how she was going about her oh-so-very-holy mission.

And he was an old man, older than she had thought, and smaller than she had thought, in this big, barren office. He was doing his best. That was the true and honest impression she had. He could have been a venal monster and given her every assurance in the world, touching her forehead on the way in and groping her backside on the way out. But he was trying, as he said. All the power of the church at his command, and his time was spent fighting off his own crude humanity.

He was looking brightly at her now, smiling a brave smile, and she realized that he was waiting for her to go into detail about her quest. It weighed on her heart, the whole business with the spider creature, but she found she could not unburden herself now. She could not load the weight onto him, to tell him that his prophesied savior was already walking a treacherous path, and might plummet from grace at any moment.

“Thank you for your blessing,” she whispered. “It means a lot to me.” She felt very empty.

Cyrene was staring moodily out of the window, elbows on the sill. Harathes studied the curve of her back, the elegant lines of her legs. He was a man who could hold two thoughts in his head simultaneously, sometimes contradictory ones. He was currently admiring his view of her, and simultaneously thinking that, as a respectable woman in the heart of the Light, she should not just be slouching around. She should carry herself with more dignity. He himself was practically standing at attention.

That sounded wrong, to him, and actually, as his eyes were drawn inexorably down Cyrene’s body, with those leggings she would always wear, he became pointedly aware of the possibility that he might actually find himself standing to attention, here in the Potentate’s antechamber. Quickly he turned away. It was always the problem with Cyrene. She was such a well-made woman, and yet so immodest! She should have more respect for men’s passions. No wonder she was constantly attracting the wrong sort!

Harathes himself was a deeply devout man. He had been raised from an early age to know that he was of the Light, and that his actions were to defend the Light. Without his sword, countless things of the Dark would still be crawling and shambling in the world, that he had put an end to. Without his shield, there would be many of the Light who would have fallen victim to their depredations. He was a champion, the man who would stand between Dion and Darvezian when the time came for that epic confrontation.