It was destroyed. It could not hurt me. But my body was still reacting as if it could. I calmed my breathing and my heart. I tried to resume meditating, but found myself flinching away from the memory of the revethavar. It is destroyed, I said to myself. It cannot hurt thee again. But it had hurt me so grievously in that one encounter that I could not persuade myself that the memory of it was harmless.

I got up and paced the length of the room, which was no great distance, and applied a technique I had learned as a novice, imagining that each step I took wore away the fear of the revethavar a little more.

I was still pacing when the door opened and Canon Hestamar said, “The Amal’othala bids you return.”

I was glad to go, to get away from my circling, endlessly twining thoughts, even though it meant an audience with both the Amal’othala and Dach’othala Vernezar.

They were shouting at each other when Canon Hestamar and I came in. Canon Lumanar looked like he wanted to cover his ears.

“You are not the only one with eyes in his head!” the Amal’othala finished furiously.

Vernezar saw me and tried to shift the tone of the argument. “It seemed too trivial to bother you with.”

“A new Witness for the Dead is hardly trivial, given our current circumstances, which you must know I know.”

“She begged me to help her!”

The Amal’othala’s eyebrows went up. “Did she?”

“She was terrified of being sent away from Amalo for training, and I certainly couldn’t promise her she wouldn’t be.”

“Better that she have no training at all?” said the Amal’othala.

Vernezar shot me a resentful look. “I knew Othala Celehar could be trusted to teach her what she needed to know.”

I wasn’t sure his confidence was well placed. The Amal’othala said, “Othala Celehar is not certified to train novices.”

“Well, she isn’t exactly a novice, is she?” said Vernezar. “She’s an adult woman.”

“A widow,” I said.

“Yes, a widow,” Vernezar said eagerly. “I can’t put her in with a bunch of adolescents!”

“Once again,” the Amal’othala said dryly, “you seem to forget that ‘putting’ Othalo Tomasaran anywhere was not your prerogative.” He sighed heavily. “Well, what’s done is done. Othala Celehar, how is Othalo Tomasaran’s training proceeding?”

I wasn’t sure what the Amal’othala wanted from me, so I fell back on the simple truth. “She is a Witness vel ama for the Dead.” She had been that the first day she appeared in the Prince Zhaicava Building, but it was safer than going into what I had seen fit to call her training.

“And we need a new Witness for the Dead?” said the Amal’othala.

It was a petty piece of revenge. He already knew the answer; he was just making me say it in front of Vernezar. “Yes,” I said. “We are no longer a Witness.” The words felt like chains.

Vernezar said, “You aren’t?”