To an extent, she also felt a sense of liberation from her standing, from the need to act in a manner befitting her place as others saw it. Now, she had no place, no standing. She was in a way free of the prison of standing. But none of that mattered now, for far more important reasons than the length of her hair.

Baraccus had given her a new life because of what they meant to each other. Without him she had no life. Her standing didn’t really matter in that equation.

Reaching the right spot, the spot forever burned into her memory, Magda stepped up into the opening in the massive, crenellated outer Keep wall. She inched out toward the edge. Beyond the toes of her boots peeking out from under her skirts, the dark stone of the wall dropped away for thousands of feet. Below the foundation of the Keep, the cliff dropped even farther to the ledges and boulders below. Feathery tufts of clouds drifted along the cliff walls beneath her. It was a frightening, dizzying place to stand.

Magda felt small and insignificant up on the top edge of the towering wall. The wind at times was strong enough to threaten to lift her from her perch. She imagined that it might even carry her away like a leaf in the wind.

The beautiful city of Aydindril lay spread out below, flowing across rolling hills that spilled from the foot of the mountain. Green fields surrounded the city, and out beyond them lay dense forests. From its place high on the mountain, the monolithic Wizard’s Keep stood watch over the mother city sparkling like a jewel set in that verdant carpet.

Magda could see men leading horses and wagons as they returned from their work in the fields. Smoke rose from chimneys all across the valley as women prepared the evening meal for their families. Slow-moving crowds, visiting markets, shops, or going about their work, made their way through the tangled net of streets.

While she could see the activity, she heard none of the hooves of the horses, the rumble of wagons, the cry of street vendors. From this distance the lofty world up at the Keep was silent but for the calls of birds wheeling overhead and the sound of the wind over ramparts and around the towers.

Magda had always thought of the Keep, more than anything, as mute. Though hundreds of people lived and worked in the enormous stone fortress, went about their lives, raised families, were born, lived, and died there, the Keep itself witnessed it all in brooding silence. The dark presence of the place stoically watched centuries and lives come and go.

These massive battlements where she stood had watched her husband’s life end. This was the very spot where he had stood in the last precious moments of his life.