Because of her standing, she had often been able to go before the council and remind them of their duty to all those who lived in the Midlands. Sometimes, when she explained the situation to them, they did the right thing. Sometimes she shamed them into doing the right thing. Sometimes they looked forward to her recommendations.

But without standing she could no longer be that voice before the council. It was wrong that being married to a man of standing in turn gave her standing, but that’s the way the world worked.

She was proud that she had made friends of those rare and secretive beings that few had ever seen, or ever would see. She was grateful for all the friends she had made of far-flung peoples of the Midlands. She had made the effort to learn many of their languages, and because of that they had come to trust her when they would trust no other. She was proud of what she had been able to do to protect their peaceful, isolated lives.

She thought that maybe she had also been able to bring some understanding between different peoples, different tribes and communities, and in so doing helped in some small way to make them all feel a part of the larger Midlands.

But when her husband had ended his life, he had also inadvertently taken away her voice before the council.

Her life no longer had a noble purpose, except to herself.

And at that moment, her own life meant nothing to her but insufferable anguish with no end in sight. She felt as if she was caught up in a raging torrent of sorrow.

She just wanted the hopeless agony to end.

Inner whispers urged her to end the suffering.

Chapter 6

Looking down at the frightening drop over the edge of the wall, a drop of thousands of feet, Magda saw that the towering wall in this section of the Keep wasn’t perfectly vertical but actually flared out as it descended toward the foundation within the rock face of the mountain. She realized that when she jumped she would need to get herself some distance out away from the wall to ensure that she cleared the steeply angled stone skirt of the Keep or it would be a long, gruesome fall.

Her muscles tensed at the thought of a drawn-out, tumbling descent, repeatedly smacking the steeply angled wall and breaking bones all along the way down. She didn’t like the thought of that. She wanted a quick end.