“And yet he caused the Emperor’s daughter to tear her bridegroom from limb to limb,” he said sternly.

“He awoke trapped in her flesh! He was in a blind panic. It drove him mad not to be able to see himself.”

“You excuse the deed?”

“No! Of course not. I understand it, which is not the same. When the dragon understood what he had done, when he understood what had befallen him, he regretted it very deeply.”

The Patriarch shook his head with sorrow. “Child, have you learned nothing from your experience yet? Nothing of the lies unclean spirits will offer to tempt you? You of all people should know better.”

Around and around we went. I was fighting another losing battle, and I knew it. In the end, I would acquiesce. I was alone and scared, and I did not want to be stoned to death. I would betray the dragon’s memory as surely as I had betrayed Cillian’s, Jehanne’s, Bao’s….. even Raphael’s, as much as he deserved it. Unless one counted the coach-driver, Snow Tiger’s memory was the only one I’d been able to protect. I couldn’t save the dragon’s.

But I would not surrender without a fight.

During the long, losing argument, I thought about a woman I had known in the City of Elua, Lianne Tremaine, the King’s Poet. She was the youngest ever to have been appointed to that post.

And she was good, very good. I heard her recite a poem about a man mourning the death of his beloved. It had moved everyone in the room to tears, including me.

Even so, she had been a member of the Circle of Shalomon, longing for gifts the spirits they summoned could bestow. When I asked her what more a poet of her stature could possibly want, she had replied that there were always further thresholds to cross.

I seek words of such surpassing beauty that they might melt the hardest heart of stone, she had said to me.

I hadn’t understood the hunger at the time, but I was beginning to. If one of those fallen spirits had appeared in my cell and offered to gift my tongue with words that would melt the Patriarch’s heart, I would have accepted it in a heartbeat and damned the consequences.

Of course, the King’s Poet had been driven by excessive ambition, not fear and desperation. Still, I did not think this business of forcing me to betray my fondest memories was teaching me to resist the temptation to sin.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

When I saw the Patriarch’s face begin to darken with frustration and impatience flickering in his eyes, I gave up.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” I whispered, bowing my head and gazing at the translucent jade bangle, apologizing in my heart to the dragon above his reflecting pool. “I do not mean to be so stubborn. It is only….. it is hard to admit one has been so foolish as to be taken in by the same lies twice.”

“Well done, child.” Leaning over his portable desk, Pyotr Rostov reached out and lifted my chin. At least he didn’t have his creamy look. Apparently, the confession of sins that didn’t involve fornication, unclean acts, or blaspheming against Yeshua weren’t quite as delectable. “Remember, pride is also a sin.”

I nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

Having stripped that away from me and besmirched it to his satisfaction, he moved on to further acts of iniquity on my part—namely, my role as Emperor Zhu’s jade-eyed witch, the Imperial swallower-of-memories.

It was a gift of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, the ability to take away memories.

Among my folk, it had a purpose. It hid the hollow hill and the stone doorway that I had passed through after Cillian’s death, that Bao had seen in his dreams since he’d held half of my diadh-anam. Those of us whom the Maghuin Dhonn Herself acknowledged as Her own kept the secret of Her sacred place. Those She did not accept surrendered it, giving unto the keeping of Old Nemed, who was the only one of us to wield that particular gift until I had discovered it within myself at a time of extreme need.

It worked only if the memory was offered freely and willingly. Old Nemed had said no one the Maghuin Dhonn Herself did not acknowledge ever, ever failed to consent to have her take their memory.

I believed it.

The memories I had taken in Ch’in were those of every soldier, engineer, and alchemist with knowledge of the workings of the Divine Thunder, those terrible bronze tubes and fire-powder that belched foul smoke and spat death across an impossible distance. I had seen firsthand the horrible carnage they wrought on the battlefield.

Tortoise…..

Tortoise had been one of the stick-fighters who had accompanied us, a member of Bao’s old gang of thugs and ruffians. For all that, he’d been a loyal companion with a generous heart, the first to pledge himself to the quest to free the dragon and the princess. In my last memory of him, he had been hurrying across the battlefield to aid me, jouncing in the saddle, his homely face determined.

And then the Divine Thunder had boomed, and Tortoise was no longer there. There was only a smoldering crater with his unrecognizable remains.

“Why did you do it, Moirin?” the Patriarch asked in a gentle tone. Lost in my reverie, I looked blankly at him. “Why did you use witchcraft to steal men’s memories on the Emperor’s behalf?”

“Oh…..” I rubbed my hands over my face, remembering the acrid taste of sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal permeating my awareness. Too weary to argue, I tried a different tack. “Is that what folk are saying? I fear it is but a fanciful tale spread by the Emperor’s men to explain his clemency.”

Pyotr Rostov regarded me in silence.

Beneath my head-scarf, sweat gathered along my brow. “Surely you do not believe me capable of such a dire thing.”

“I do,” he said soberly. “Make no mistake, Moirin. I do not underestimate your foul magics, bound though they may be.” His voice took on an edge. “Do you think I do not know your folk have the ability to cloud men’s minds? Your ancestor Berlik swayed the thoughts of Rebbe Avraham ben David, a great and devout leader, one of the greatest thinkers of his day; swayed him from the path of righteousness and discipline to a soft-minded tolerance of sin. By what dire magic was that done?”

I shook my head. “None that I know of, my lord.”

“You are lying again.” A note of sorrow returned to his voice. “Ah, Moirin! God cannot save you if you will not let me help you.” Behind his veneer of compassion, the threat of stoning lurked. He dipped his pen in the inkwell. “Now, why did you use witchcraft to steal men’s memories?”

My eyes stung with defeat. “I did not steal them, my lord. Every single one was offered to me.”

That made him pause. “But you did not have to take them.”

“No,” I murmured. “But if I had not, the Emperor would have put to death every man with knowledge of the Divine Thunder’s workings. It was an act of mercy on his part to allow me to take their memories instead.”

He was silent.

“That was the choice, my lord,” I added. “You will have to explain to me how what I did was a sin.”

“It was witchcraft,” he said simply.

“Aye, but—”

“Moirin…..” Pyotr Rostov sighed. “Oh, child! I do not deny that this was a very difficult choice. But the choice Emperor Zhu laid upon you was a false one, based on a false premise.” He steepled his fingers. “He did not have to kill those men, did he? That was his choice.”

“Aye, but—” My voice faltered. How could I make him understand that the weapons of the Divine Thunder had been that terrible? That it was worth almost any cost to suppress that knowledge, even the cost of innocent lives? Although I lacked a poet’s words, I had glimpsed a future more dreadful than I could begin to articulate. The smoking crater that housed Tortoise’s remains was only the beginning. It led to a far, far worse place.

“You took this sin upon your head that the Emperor’s hands might remain clean,” he said firmly. “It is enough that you repent of it.”

I bowed my head. “Yes, my lord.”

“Moirin.”

I looked up at him. “Yes, my lord?”

His fingers were still steepled. “Understand, child. The scripture is very clear in places. In the earliest writings, it tells us that we must not allow a witch to live.” His velvet-brown eyes were warm and earnest. “Based on what you have confessed from the first day to the last, I would be justified in putting you to death. But I believe that God’s grace is truly infinite, and even one such as you should be given the chance to repent. Do you understand?”

I shivered involuntarily, huddled on my stool, my chains rattling. “I am trying. I am always trying.”

“No.” Pyotr Rostov smiled at me. “Mostly, you are still trying to defy me, still trying to find some way to escape. I know. But God and I have not given up on you, Moirin. Here and there, we catch glimpses of the truth, and it is the truth that will free you in the end.” He paused, contemplating me. “Have you anything left to confess?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so.”

He put away his things, straightened his papers, and corked his inkwell. He stood and laid a hand on my scarf-wrapped head. “My child, you have made your confession to me. I, a mortal man and a lowly sinner myself, do not have the power to absolve you. This, only God can do. These sins you have confessed to me, and any you may have neglected, either through ignorance or forgetfulness, may God forgive you for them, in this world and the next.”

I wondered if I was supposed to feel any different. I didn’t feel much of anything, except a vague sense of relief that the process of confession appeared to have reached an end, and apprehension about what came next.

The latter was well placed.

The Patriarch removed his hand from my head. “I am satisfied with your progress, Moirin. I am willing to pronounce you ready for the next stage of your penance.”

“Oh?” My heart sank. “What is that, my lord?”

He gave me another smile. “Come, and see.”

TWENTY-NINE

For the first time in days, I was allowed to leave my cell.

That was the one good thing about this second stage of my penance. To be sure, it was the only good thing about it.

Pyotr Rostov led me through the modest living quarters back to the temple where I had first arrived, passing through a curtained doorway in an alcove behind what I would later learn was a stand for chanters during the liturgy.

We entered the temple proper. Yeshua ben Yosef was there in the presence of the immense mosaic on the wall, holding the world cupped in his hand, looking stern and imposing and not at all like the kind fellow from Aleksei’s readings. That Yeshua had prevented an adulterous woman from being stoned. This one looked like he would give the order himself, and look on with an impassive gaze.

The Patriarch’s wife, Luba, was there waiting for us at the foot of the altar, a wooden bucket on the floor beside her. They exchanged a few words in Vralian.

“Very good,” Rostov said, switching back to D’Angeline for my benefit. “Now, Moirin. It is important that you understand this is not a punishment. To do penance is to seek redemption, to purge one’s sins. It is a time to reflect and meditate.”

“Yes, my lord,” I said obediently when he paused.

Luba’s upper lip curled. A few times, she had brought food to me; otherwise, I’d seen very little of her since I’d been brought here, and I suspected that was by her choice. On no occasion had she spoken a single word to me. But although she did not like me and did not want me here, based on their interactions, I was certain she would sooner cut out her tongue than defy her husband.

“As an act of penance, you will wash the floor,” the Patriarch said.

“Oh, I see.” I relaxed a bit. No doubt he thought it was a fitting humiliation for the descendant of three royal houses, but I had been raised in a cave in the Alban wilderness. From the time I was old enough to hold a broom, I’d swept our hearth every day. I wasn’t afraid of hard work, nor did I think it beneath me.

I glanced at the bucket, looking for a mop.

With a satisfied look on her face, Luba held out a very, very small scrub-brush.

“You see the squares, Moirin?” Her husband pointed at the floor. Until this moment, I hadn’t bothered to take it in. The floor was also a mosaic, this one formed of pebbles in contrasting hues. The pattern was an abstract one of small squares, each one a box containing a flared cross.

Any sense of relief I had vanished. “Yes, my lord.”

“On your knees, you will scrub each one in order,” he said, pacing to the far right of the altar. “Beginning here.” He raised a finger in caution. “You are not to touch the altar, or anything on it. You are not to venture past it into the sanctuary. Is that understood?”

I sighed. “It is.”

“This is not a punishment,” the Patriarch repeated. “It is an opportunity. Focus your thoughts on each square. Contemplate the sign of the cross, that vile instrument on which Yeshua suffered for your sake. Think upon his suffering. Think upon your sins, and beg his forgiveness. Will you do this?”

As if I had a choice. “Yes, my lord,” I muttered.

“Moirin.” He said my name sharply. I looked reluctantly at him. “Over each square, you will utter this prayer. ‘Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ Say it.”

“Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” I echoed.

He spoke to his wife in Vralian, then addressed me in D’Angeline. “Very good. Say it again.”

I repeated it, while Luba listened intently.

The Patriarch nodded in satisfaction. “She will be listening to make sure you do not err.” His face softened. “I know you do not mean the words, not yet. But repetition is a powerful tool. If you say a thing often enough, it may become true.”