Without looking at her, he said, “I wasn’t thinking of my mission when I said I do not regret standing here. I was thinking of meeting you.”

All speech died on her tongue. Her entire existence felt washed as by a current that threatened to drag her out beyond hope of return. She would not ask what he meant because she knew it herself, that strange and inexplicable sense when two people discover that, tangled into their souls, twists the connection of an invisible thread that weaves their fates one to the other, that asks their hearts to speak whether in silence or in words, in action or in thought.

The haunt smiled wryly and turned his dark gaze upon her, an expression as much regret as longing. “I shall now attempt to smooth over this awkward moment. It is true, I am seeking signs of a living threat. But this Pall isn’t it. This Pall has no tides, no currents, no inflow or outflow. It is stagnant, and thus it is dying.”

“Dying?” That word she could say. It was easier than revealing the vulnerability in her heart. But the word hooked her to the memory of Berri’s anguished tears.

“‘Dying’ is the wrong word.” He mulled for a bit, having the gift of quiet.

She waited.

He raised a hand to touch his lips. “It tastes like ashes. Flat Pall has no living existence of its own. More like residue left over after combustion. Do you know if the Pall has risen elsewhere in the wide world, beyond the empire? In an earlier era, perhaps?”

She temporized. “I don’t know. What are you looking for?”

He sighed. “Listening, more like. Sorcery has a tone. A bell. You and I both heard it. I don’t know what it means that its resonance has caught in the Spires now, in these days. It’s coming from somewhere. My task is to find it.”

“There really were sorcerer-kings, in ancient times?”

“There was sorcery, yes. There were people who used their wicked power to rule. Well, not even to rule, but to take and to trample, to blight and to bleed life out of living things in order to extend and expand their own. As long as they shone brightly in their own eyes, in their own fastnesses, they cared not if they cast the world into darkness and despair and disorder.”

“And then what happened?”

“The usual story. Those who opposed them, fought them, even though it must have seemed a futile war. Still, honorable people will stand up when they must. In the end, the honorable people won, although at a terrible cost.”

“You were one of those honorable people.”