Chapter 297: The Questions They Carried

Thor insisted upon training before she left for Concordia.

Surtr’s five captured agents did not alter this.

The cursed wooden horse did not alter this.

The possibility of a hidden volcanic chamber beneath Concordia did not alter this.

If anything, those matters strengthened her position.

“You nearly used lightning beside a child,” she said.

“I did not use it.”

“You nearly did.”

“I stopped.”

“Good. Now do it again.”

She hung six metal rings from the frame.

Then placed three members of the Ward Company between them.

I looked at her.

“No.”

Thor smiled.

“Better.”

The soldiers moved away.

Thor replaced them with sacks of flour.

“They are meant to represent people.”

“Why flour?”

“Melody found it.”

“That does not answer my question.”

“It rarely does.”

Thor sent the rings swinging.

One crossed another.

The copper trench remained beyond them.

“Your target is the third ring. You may not strike the sacks. You may not follow a path through the other rings. You may not melt the snow.”

“That last condition seems unnecessary.”

“Winter should be able to manage snow.”

I summoned my hammer.

The lines within it brightened.

I felt the possible paths.

Ring.

Chain.

Copper.

Ground.

Metal frame.

Thor’s armor.

The nails in the nearby fence.

The buckles of the watching soldiers.

I chose one route.

Waited.

The third ring passed behind the first.

I did nothing.

It emerged.

The lightning left my hammer.

A narrow white-blue thread.

Through the ring.

Into the copper.

Down.

No flour moved.

The snow remained.

Thor caught the ring and examined it.

“You waited.”

“Yes.”

“That was the lesson.”

“I thought the lesson was accuracy.”

“Accuracy is sometimes waiting until a safe path exists.”

She lowered the ring.

“You may go deal with the spies now.”

I dismissed the hammer.

“How generous.”

The five agents were held separately.

Not beneath Greykeep.

Eliza refused to place them anywhere near the old authority passages until the Castellan finished another inspection.

They occupied guarded rooms in three buildings across Havenreach.

Vessa remained in the preserved district because Surtr’s marks had been removed from her arm and needed treatment.

The wagon driver stayed beside the south gate.

The observer who had lost part of his cloak to Carrot occupied a room above the City Watch station.

The two others were held in unused storehouses.

Each room had ordinary locks.

Each also had a boundary from Thesra, an oath examination from Caldris, and light from Dorian that left no concealed marks in shadow.

None of those things made a prison kind.

They made it harder for Surtr to reach inside.

Mary organized the questioning.

Eliza objected to that term.

“We are not putting questions in an arrangement.”

Mary looked at her.

“What would you call it?”

“Interviews.”

“They entered the city under false identities.”

“Interrogations, then.”

Mary wrote the heading.

“Questioning” remained beneath it.

Eliza decided the distinction was not worth delaying the work.

Vessa agreed to speak first.

Thesra sat beside her.

Not between Vessa and the door.

Choice required the path out to remain visible.

Caldris stood near the wall.

He would identify any oath attempting to force an answer.

Maelin sat with her hands folded.

If Surtr tried to burn Vessa’s memories away, she would preserve what remained.

Aurelia attended as healer.

Anwen attended as witness.

Mary brought four books.

I brought one chair.

Everyone looked at it.

“There were already chairs,” Mary said.

“I wasn’t told.”

“There are always chairs in an interview room.”

“That is not universally true.”

Anwen’s expression suggested she possessed evidence.

Vessa drank from a cup Halwen had prepared.

His clean water carried no hidden ash.

She examined her healed arm.

The lava lines remained as pale scars.

“Surtr marked us himself.”

“Did you agree?” Thesra asked.

“The first time.”

“And afterward?”

Vessa looked down.

“There was no afterward. The mark kept agreeing for me.”

Thesra’s face became very still.

“That is not consent.”

“We were told it was the cost of strength.”

“Who told you?”

“Surtr.”

“Did he explain what the mark would permit him to do?”

“No.”

Thesra placed one hand on the table.

Vessa’s answer remained hers.

No domain forced more from it.

“How long did you serve him?” Mary asked.

“Seven years.”

“Voluntarily?”

“At first.”

“What changed?”

Vessa touched the pale lines.

“We stopped being sent on missions. We started being used as passages.”

“For Surtr’s power?” I asked.

“For his attention. His commands. Sometimes his fire.”

“Could he see through you?”

“Not clearly.”

“Hear?”

“If we allowed the mark to open.”

“And if you didn’t?”

She looked at the place where the command had emptied her expression.

“He reminded us.”

Maelin leaned forward.

“May I examine what the mark removed from your memory?”

Vessa’s shoulders tightened.

“You can do that?”

“I may be able to identify absences. I cannot promise to restore them.”

“What will you see?”

“Only what the memory retains.”

“Will everyone here see it?”

“No.”

Vessa looked at Thesra.

“Can I stop her after she begins?”

“Yes,” Thesra said.

Vessa held out her hand.

Maelin did not take it immediately.

“Is that permission?”

“Yes.”

Only then did the goddess of memory touch her.

Vessa gasped.

The lamps dimmed.

Dorian’s light remained.

A red line appeared between Maelin’s fingers and the scars on Vessa’s arm.

Memory tried to burn.

Maelin held its shape.

Not the fire.

What had existed before the fire reached it.

A room appeared faintly around us.

Black stone.

A table cut from volcanic glass.

Five people standing before Surtr.

A sixth figure near the wall.

Not an agent.

A god.

White robes.

Hands folded.

Face hidden by the brightness behind him.

I knew the posture.

Othellos.

Vessa pulled her hand away.

The memory vanished.

Maelin released it at once.

Thesra’s boundary did not resist.

Vessa breathed hard.

“He was there.”

“Othellos?” I asked.

“I don’t remember.”

“You just did.”

“No.”

She looked frightened.

“I remember the room. Surtr. The others. I don’t remember seeing anyone beside him.”

Maelin rubbed her thumb across her palm.

“The memory of Othellos was removed separately.”

“By Othellos?”

“I cannot determine that.”

Anwen wrote a witnessing statement.

Mary copied it.

Neither called the memory proof.

It was evidence.

There was a difference.

“What did Surtr tell you?” Eliza asked.

Vessa closed her eyes.

“To carry three questions into Havenreach.”

“The foundation,” Mary said.

“Could his fire enter beneath your sanctuary?”

“The pain thread?”

“Could suffering open your healers?”

“The toy?”

“Would the children accept power offered as a gift?”

“And the hostage?” I asked.

Vessa looked at me.

“That was not planned.”

“Your companion took a child.”

“He was told to adapt.”

Eliza’s jaw tightened.

Instructions vague enough to excuse any cruelty afterward.

I had heard rulers use them before.

“Was the observer a fourth question?” Mary asked.

“No.”

“What was his purpose?”

“To see your answers.”

“Did he report?”

“I don’t know.”

The observer had carried no obvious divine mark.

That had made him harder to find.

It may also have prevented Surtr from seeing through him.

If he had not completed a separate signal, Surtr knew only that the planned contacts had failed.

That was hopeful.

Not certainty.

We had learned to distinguish those too.

Caldris moved from the wall.

“There is another oath beneath her answers.”

Vessa looked at him.

“I have no oath.”

“Not one you made.”

He crouched beside the table.

“Surtr placed a condition around his name. You may discuss his orders. You may discuss his actions. If you speak what he fears, the oath closes your throat.”

Vessa swallowed.

Pain crossed her face.

“What does he fear?” I asked.

Caldris looked at me.

“She cannot answer that while it remains.”

“Can you remove it?”

“I can separate an imposed oath from the person forced to carry it.”

“Will that hurt her?”

“Yes.”

Aurelia spoke.

“Then she decides.”

Vessa did not decide immediately.

That was part of repairing choice.

She asked what the removal would involve.

Caldris explained.

He would identify the exact words of the imposed oath.

Thesra would maintain Vessa’s freedom to refuse.

Maelin would preserve any memory the oath tried to destroy.

Aurelia would heal physical harm only as Vessa permitted.

Halwen’s clean water would carry away Surtr’s ash after it separated.

No single god would reach farther than their domain.

Vessa listened.

Then asked for time.

Mary closed the first book.

The interview ended.

No one called delay disobedience.

Thor left through the Concordia gate before midday.

She carried the cursed horse inside a box I had frozen shut.

Halwen had washed the outer wood with clean water.

Dorian’s light had exposed every visible mark.

Caldris found no oath attached to the object.

Thesra found only one choice within it.

Acceptance.

The dangerous part.

Thor placed the box beneath one arm.

Mjölnir hung at her side.

“Do not open it,” I said.

“I know.”

“Do not strike it.”

“I know.”

“Do not let Loki examine it alone.”

She hesitated.

“I know.”

“That pause was concerning.”

“It was realistic.”

Evelyn came to see her off.

“Io is waiting?”

“At the gate.”

“And the children?”

“With Lisbeth, Mara, Atreyu, Bruni, Aurethar, and most of the palace guard.”

“That seems adequate.”

“It is not,” Thor said. “It is what we have.”

She stepped toward the transit arch.

The Castellan’s bronze light met Concordia’s gold.

Both keepers accepted the passage.

Before crossing, Thor looked back at me.

“Practice the return.”

“Of the hammer?”

“Of the lightning.”

She passed through.

The gate closed.

I understood what she meant several minutes later.

That was becoming common.

The other four interviews revealed less.

The wagon driver believed he had entered Havenreach only once.

Maelin found three earlier visits in the memory of his boots.

Not his mind.

The leather remembered different mud.

One visit to survey the sanctuary site.

One to observe the city gates.

One to leave supplies for the hidden observer.

The driver’s own memories had been burned after each departure.

He had not known he was returning to the same city.

Thesra asked whether he wished Maelin to restore what she could.

He said no.

That answer was recorded and respected.

The agent captured near the nursery refused to speak.

Caldris found no imposed oath.

Thesra found fear.

His silence was still his choice.

Eliza did not threaten him.

Mary placed the carved horse on the table inside its frozen box.

He looked at it.

Only once.

Long enough.

“What did Surtr promise you?” I asked.

Nothing.

“What did Othellos promise Surtr?”

His attention shifted.

A small movement.

Alistair noticed.

So did Anwen.

The agent remained silent.

We had still learned something.

The storehouse infiltrator asked for Aurelia.

Not me.

Not Eliza.

Aurelia entered alone at first.

The rest of us waited beyond Dorian’s light boundary.

He could see us.

We could hear him.

No one pretended privacy that did not exist.

“I heard you forgive Maelin,” he said.

Aurelia sat.

“Yes.”

“And Thesra.”

“Yes.”

“Would you forgive Surtr?”

The room became quiet.

Aurelia considered.

“My forgiveness is not immunity from consequence.”

“That was not the question.”

“No.”

She folded her hands.

“If Surtr genuinely sought forgiveness, I would hear him.”

The man laughed.

“You think he wants it?”

“I think you do.”

His laughter stopped.

He looked toward the door.

Thesra stood beyond it.

Choice waited without pressing.

“I burned a village,” he said.

Aurelia did not look away.

“Why?”

“Orders.”

“That answers who wanted it. Not why you did it.”

“He would have killed me.”

“That explains fear.”

The man’s hands tightened.

“There was no choice.”

Thesra spoke from outside the boundary.

“There is almost always a choice. That does not mean every choice is survivable or fair.”

He looked at her.

“So I should have died?”

“No,” Aurelia said. “You should not have been placed there.”

The answer unsettled him more than condemnation might have.