It was reasonable enough, therefore, that he was entitled to a little consideration from the world, a little payment ahead of time. Virtue, after all, conferred a kind of entitlement. It was infuriating that Cyrene didn’t see it that way. After all, she was notably less virtuous than he, having led a far more shadowy life before deciding to seek revenge on the Dark by signing on with Dion. Surely she could see that she should be seeking not vengeance but redemption. She needed to step into the embrace of the Light and learn to be happy there.

Instead of which she was maddeningly unpredictable. She had come to him once, and Harathes had thought that was the end of it, but the moment he had tried to demonstrate that they were together, that she was safe and could allow herself to be shielded from the worst of the world, then she had pulled away from him again. And that louse-ridden ranger was not the first that she had hooked on to, either. Harathes knew, with his heart’s simple certainty, that such licentious behavior was aimed at increasing his ardor. Of course she was not really interested in those others, not since she had been his.

Still, she was too wild. It was an attractive wildness, and it had drawn him to her, but at the same time the woman needed to let herself be guided a little.

And here they were in the heart of the Light.

Harathes glanced about them. The Potentate’s antechamber was simply appointed, which had surprised him. He had expected fountains of wine and scripture written in letters of gold and all that, but perhaps they had been taken out for cleaning or something.

There were some guards at the door they had come in with, fellow warriors in the cause of the Light in gleaming armor. There was also a string of junior priests sitting on a stone bench waiting for Dion to come out so that they could bother the Potentate with some piece of tedious bureaucracy, but they all looked far too menial for Harathes’s purposes. The woman who obviously controlled access to the Potentate was a more interesting prospect. She sat at a table beside his door, poring over a sheaf of papers that one of the little clerks had passed her. She looked to be close to sixty, her gray hair cut short like all these clerical types, with a lean and compact build. Her face had a distinct authority. Harathes wandered over.

“So tell me, you’re His Potence’s secretary?” he asked respectfully.

She cocked an eye at him, and he had the awkward feeling that his question had been somewhat unnecessary.

“I am a servant of the destined one, the priestess Dion,” he pointed out, in case the woman was unaware of his importance.

She nodded patiently, papers held in her thin-fingered hands, pointedly waiting.