“Isn’t this the very purpose for which you developed the concept of a Confessor? Isn’t this the reason you believed so strongly in it that you argued before the council to be allowed to create a Confessor? Wasn’t it you who said that the risks were so great that we had to try?”

He stared at her from under a lowered brow without answering.

“Please, Merritt, don’t condemn me to a brief life of watching all that is good end because we lack the courage to try. Please don’t do that to me. Please don’t condemn us and our friends and our people to the horrific fate that Emperor Sulachan has chosen for us all.”

His gaze finally fell away. “Magda, you don’t know what you’re asking me to do. I just can’t.”

Tears trailed down her face. “Then it is you who has chosen our destiny, and that destiny is endless suffering, all because you are afraid of harming me. But the safety you want for me is an illusion. In trying to protect me, you are only bringing me to even greater harm.”

Gritting her teeth, she seized his shirt in her fists. “Well I’d rather die trying for life than endure the destiny you want to condemn me to. If you won’t help me then at least give me the Sword of Truth so that I can kill the bastard. Give me the sword and let me die fighting for what I believe in.”

His big hands closed around her wrists as he looked into her eyes for a long moment.

“All right,” he said at last. “All right, I’ll try. I’d rather die, too, than see you have to be a helpless witness to the end of all we hold dear. I’ll try, Magda.”

She threw her arms around him in gratitude.

After too brief a time, he pushed away, looking into her eyes again. She had never seen him looking so grim.

“Don’t be so eager to thank me. Doing it this way is nothing like the process when we created the sword. What I have to do is something very different from what I would have done to create a Confessor. We can’t do it through that process. You can’t really help me this time. You have to leave it to me to do.”

The sobering look in his eyes gave her pause. “What do you mean? What do you have to do?”

“You have to put your trust in me. No questions. You will have to put your life in my hands and let me do as I must.”

Magda swallowed back her rising sense of alarm and nodded.

“We really have no choice. We’re running out of time. Do it.”

He touched her cheek. “I wish there were another way, Magda, but if we’re to do this now, there is no other way.”