Which was why she had to keep pressing him for information. “Tell me about Midne. How can you be a woman who lived a thousand years ago?”

“You already know the answer to that.” Corlant slowed his steps as they turned down a new stretch of tents. “You have seen parts of the diary. You know that I and the other Twelve are born and reborn for all of time. Well, only six of us now.” He smiled. A stretched, unnatural thing.

Yes, Iseult thought. I do have his nose. And she had that smile too.

“But I was blessed.” He patted the gold draped around his neck, longer than what the Hell-Bards wore but otherwise identical. “One of my fellow Paladins purged me of the unclean power of Sirmaya.”

Sirmaya. That name had been in the diary. A goddess whom Eridysi had worshipped.

Ahead, a long tent leaned against a half-fallen wall. “The prisoners’ tent,” Corlant explained, and sure enough, subdued, grief-swallowed Threads shivered into Iseult’s senses.

Purist guards nodded reverently at Corlant’s approach, their Threads grassy with curiosity and peach with respect. “Blessed are the pure,” they mumbled in unison, while one swept open the tent’s flap.

Corlant’s spine crooked. He slithered inside.

Iseult slithered in too.

“You will begin training today.” Corlant paused just beyond the entrance, and Iseult paused beside him while heartbeat by heartbeat, her eyes adjusted and the prisoners came into view, enclosed in crude cages too low for standing. Their bodies and faces were as subdued as their Threads.

“Your reward.” Corlant opened his arms and moved to the nearest cage, where he rapped a knobby knuckle against the wood. The Threads within shook with fear. Against her will, Iseult’s stasis faltered. Gooseflesh raked down her arms.

“I will take her now,” he ordered a Purist guard. “The Threadwitch.”

The Threadwitch. There was only one person it could be, and sure enough, Alma moved to the front of the cage. Her arms were bound, but her chin was high. Her eyes drilled into Iseult’s. Do something, she seemed to say. Do it now.

Iseult turned away.

“Bring her into the moonlight,” Corlant commanded, and before Iseult could scuttle away from his touch, he had his fingers on her shoulder. Five icicles digging deep. He pushed her toward the exit and back into the cold.

Alma and the Purist shambled just behind, joining Iseult and Corlant fifteen paces from the tent, beside a pile of old stones. Snow began to fall.

“Place her on the rocks.”

The Purist obeyed, shoving Alma chest-first onto the remnants of a wall. Her back and neck were exposed as if execution loomed, and Purists gathered to watch. Some were soldiers, some were guards; most were simply fanatics who smelled blood in the water.

“Now cleave her,” Corlant commanded.