hate me for. I knew how to cope with that kind of scorn—by retreating. I had done so for five years. But this, I did not know how to take.
“I’m responsible for more than that,” I said. “There was nothing there, just an empty chamber, another piece of the Underground. I defiled holy ground. I destroyed a priceless work of art that we have lost the means to recreate. I desecrated a piece of history. That is a violation of every oath a Scriber swears!” I had tried to hide my past for too long; I could not accept that it mattered so little to her. I wanted to explain to her the wrong I had done, to make her understand, to make her hate me. I was comfortable with being hated. “And I did it for a tall tale. A children’s song! People died for nothing, and I’m responsible for it!”
“You couldn’t have known what would happen.” Her expression remained inscrutable. It was too much for me to take.
“ Don’t do that! ” Five years worth of anger exploded out of my mouth. “Don’t you dare say that, like it was nothing. Damn it to the Dragon, what does it take to make you care? What is wrong with you? Raise your voice, scowl, something ; don’t just stand there!”
“Would it make things any different? What’s done is done.”
“Is that what you tell yourself? Is that how you could watch that girl burn without even a frown?”
She did not frown then, either, but her voice was cold. “I do not have to explain myself to you, Scriber Dennon.”
I almost struck her. She was well over a foot taller than me, almost twice as broad in the shoulders, and as strong in one finger as I was in both arms, no doubt. But I almost struck her. I was angrier than I had ever been—and worse, I barely understood why. The only thing that stopped me from attacking her was a low, quiet noise. A whisper.
“ All will burn. ”
The rage that always came with the whispers struck me in the chest like a hammer, but rather than making me go through with the attack, it stopped me. Was the anger I felt even my own? Was I about to attack the King’s niece because of a voice in my head? Mother below, I’m truly losing my mind , I thought, fighting to control the fury being thrust upon me.
“Scriber, did you hear something?” Bryndine was instantly alert, peering into the darkness.
“You heard it?” I was pleased and terrified in equal parts. If she heard the whispers too, perhaps I was not mad—though if it was not madness, I did not know what else it could be. But then I realized she did not mean the voice. There was another sound, footsteps on the grass. I turned towards the noise, scanning the hillside with Bryndine.
There was a glint of light in the dark; starlight on metal. Staring in the direction it had come from, I saw a figure in the shadows, climbing the hill towards us.
“You shouldn’t have killed my Hareld.” Josia Kellen’s voice crept up the slope, thin and sad. I could see her now; somehow she had laid hands on a sword, and she pointed it at Bryndine accusingly. “You shouldn’t have killed him.” It should have been ridiculous, that small motherly figure waving a sword at a woman twice her size. But the look on her face, the way the shadows hugged the creases and wrinkles in her skin—she could have been a creature from legend, a spirit in the dark.
Bryndine stepped in front of me. “Drop your sword,” she commanded, though she had no weapon of her own; she had not brought her sword to the rite.
Josia lunged, thrusting the tip of the sword forward like a spear. Terror and instinct took hold of me, and I leapt backwards. But Bryndine didn’t flinch. With speed that would have been surprising had I not already seen her fight in Waymark, she sidestepped the thrust and brought a hand down hard on Josia’s forearm. With a cry of pain, Josia dropped the sword; Bryndine caught it before it hit the ground and levelled it at the other woman’s throat.
“Don’t hurt her!” I called, running to