Her head spun with thoughts scattering in every direction. She began to imagine all sorts of things he could have meant. Maybe he meant the truth of what he had done at the Temple of the Winds. Maybe the truth of why the moon had stayed red even though he had told her that he had gotten inside.

Maybe the truth of why he had returned from the world of the dead only to end his life.

It seemed to her, though, that there was more to the message than any of that. There was meaning hidden with the words. There was a reason he had not made the message clear.

Baraccus had told her in the past that foreknowledge could taint prophecy and cause dire, unintended consequences. Knowing a prophecy could alter how one behaved, so it was sometimes necessary to withhold information in order for free will to be able to let life play itself out.

Even without understanding the meaning of the note, she knew that Baraccus was telling her as much as he could without tainting it with what more he knew.

Magda knew that Baraccus had given her a message that involved life and death. She grasped just how important the message had been to him. From that, she knew that it was perhaps even more important to her.

Magda gazed out again over a landscape growing more dark by the moment.

She had to know what Baraccus had been trying to tell her with his last words. She couldn’t let his effort, his sacrifice, be in vain. She had to find out what he had really wanted her to know.

Her life suddenly had a purpose.

Your destiny is to find truth.

She had to find out what he had meant by that.

Baraccus had reached out from the world of the dead and given her a reason to live.

He believed in her.

She kissed his words again as she slumped to the ground and wept at all that was lost to her, at all that she had just gained. She wept with grief for her loss, and with the relief of being alive.

Chapter 8

Near her rooms, in a quiet corridor softly lit by reflector lamps hung at regular intervals on the dark wood panels to each side, men-at-arms blocked her way. A lot of men. They weren’t regular soldiers, nor were they the elite Home Guard. At first, from a distance, Magda had found herself worrying that they might be troops from the prosecutor’s office.