Use me, said a voice in his head. It wasn’t Fistandantilus this time but Sathira’s harsh hiss. Two green pinpricks flared within the stone, watching him.

What harm will a second murder do, when you’ve already had me kill once?

She was right, he knew. Sathira had slain Symeon-not right away, perhaps, but killed him slowly just the same. She would do the same to anyone he named. All he had to do was speak her name and bring her to life. If he used the demon for the good of the realm, as he had the first time, would it be truly evil? He opened his mouth to speak, and the presence in the gem crouched, poised to surge out in a gout of shadow and hate.

Suddenly, he stopped. He was Kingpriest now, for Paladine’s sake. He had the clergy, the Knighthood, and the imperial army at his call. What were Ilista and Beldyn beside that, even if every bandit’s sword in Taol backed them? How much could the demon do that Holger and his Scatas could not?

“No,” he hissed. “I don’t need you.”

The glinting eyes within the gem narrowed to slits, and he felt a stab of fear. Then, however, the sound of soft, mocking laughter filled his mind, and his fright changed to gnawing dread.

Ah, Holiness, the demon said. You will. You will.

Chapter Fifteen

Cathan drew his hood down, trying not to shiver in the autumn wind as he twisted his sling in his hand. Deep in the highlands south of Luciel, he crouched on a ridge thick with mountain ashes, their branches heavy with scarlet berries. Below, the imperial highroad snaked through the craggy hills. From his vantage, he could see two leagues of the broad, stone-paved path, all of it empty. In the two days he’d been perched on this outcrop he’d seem no other living being. He was alone in this place, save for his horse-tethered downhill and contentedly cropping at patches of tough grass-and a lone hawk that circled hungrily beneath the pall of gray clouds.

He hadn’t wanted to go on watch duty and resisted at first, telling Lord Tavarrc he wanted to stay near Wentha. She had returned from the edge of death, but she was still weak and frail. Even more than that, he didn’t want to leave Beldyn. In the week after he swore his oath, he kept near the monk, watching for trouble with a hand on his sword, and he balked at the notion of leaving to go out into the hills. He argued about it with the baron, and things might have come to shouting if Beldyn himself hadn’t intervened, drawing him aside and speaking to him quietly.

“This is a dangerous time,” the monk had said. “I need to know the men on watch are trustworthy.”

So here he was, with a only horse for company, watching the hawk soar over the hills. As he did he let his mind wander, going back to that night in Farenne’s house, when the light had poured from Beldyn’s hands and banished the Longosai. Part of him still didn’t believe it-it must be a trick of some sort-but there was no denying that Wentha was well again, and dozens of others as well.

Swearing the oath had been far from an easy decision. He’d forsaken Paladine and come to hate the clerics who worshiped the god. Bowing to any god had seemed a betrayal. In the end, though, it had come down to the simple fact: Wentha lived, and Beldyn was the reason.

Now he was one of many. When he’d left for sentry duty, more than fifty men and women had already knelt at the monk’s feet. The number surely had grown, and soon word of the miracle at Luciel would spread to the neighboring towns. A holy man has come. Bring your sick, your suffering, and he will cure them. How many folk would swear to Brother Beldyn then?

Suddenly he sucked in a breath. He’d heard something: the tread of a foot in the grass behind him. He reached for his sword, starting to turn-then stopped as the edge of a blade touched his neck. His skin turned cold as the steel pressed against his skin-not hard enough to draw blood but holding him completely still, not even daring to breathe.

“Daydreaming,” said a gruff voice. “A watchman should pay attention, or he might lose his head.”

The sword lifted away. He spun to his feet at once, jerking his blade from its scabbard with a ring that echoed down in the valley below. He stupidly took a step toward his assailant before he recognized the etched armor the man wore and stopped.

“Sir Gareth?”

The Knight raised his sword in salute, then nodded at Cathan’s own blade. “What’s this, boy?” he asked. “Do you mean to attack me again?”

Flushing, Cathan lowered his weapon. He’d carefully avoided Gareth thus far, afraid the Knight might find out whose slingstone nearly killed him. Apparently, he had. “I didn’t mean-”

“Easy, lad,” Gareth said, sheathing his sword again. “I seek no satisfaction for what you did. There is no honor in holding grudges-and besides, I survived. Now, if I’d died, that would be different. I would have been furious.”

Cathan frowned, not sure if Gareth was joking. The Knight’s face might have been made of stone, as stern as ever.

Awkwardly, Cathan slid his sword back into its scabbard. He ventured a tentative grin. “What are you doing here?”

“I tired of your village, to be honest,” the Knight replied, stepping forward to peer down at the highroad. “So I asked Her Grace’s leave to ride out here. It might help if someone attentive was on lookout. You’re lucky I wasn’t an imperial scout, lad, or I’d have-” He broke off, his eyes going wide as they ranged past Cathan, then whispered a curse. “Huma, hammer and lance.”

Cathan turned, his heart lurching as he followed Gareth’s gaze. At first he didn’t see anything, but when he squinted he made out what the Knight had spotted. Faint and distant above the hills to the east, the sky had turned dark, a gray-brown cloud rising from the road.

“What is it?” he hissed, already suspecting.

Sir Gareth reached to his sword again, brushing its hilt. “The last thing I wanted to see.”

All they could see of the body as they climbed was one arm, dangling over a ledge halfway up the slope. There was blood on the fingertips, already beginning to dry, and a lone fly had lit on the hand, perched as if wondering what to do with such a feast. Cathan felt his stomach twist as he stared at the corpse, wondering who it was, and nearly lost his footing, grabbing the root of a nearby tree as his feet slid out from under him. Gravel rattled down the cliff beneath him. The noise drew a fierce look from Sir Gareth, and they stopped for a moment, listening, before the Knight nodded and started toward the top of the hill again.

They had ridden here at a gallop, nearly five miles to the next vantage-a looming tor fringed with furze. When Cathan had whistled and no reply came from above, he and Gareth had exchanged hard glances. Perhaps the sentry Tavarre posted here had dozed off. Or perhaps not.

Unburdened by armor, he got to the body first and soon wished he hadn’t. The man was sprawled on its stomach, the moss beneath him dark and damp with blood. At once, Cathan saw what had killed him: a pair of long, deep gashes in his back, deep enough to show the white of bone and the drab colors of the man’s insides. More flies crawled on the open wounds. Cathan retched and spat.

Gareth came up beside him, looked at the body, then reached down and rolled it onto his back. Cathan tasted bile when he saw the man’s battered face. He’d hit the ledge head-first, and it took a moment for Cathan to recognize him.

“Deledos,” he groaned. “The chandler’s son.”

“They cut him down from behind.” Gareth’s voice was thick with disgust. “Then threw him over the edge.” He waved his sword at the precipice above. Turning away from Deledos’s corpse, he started up the hill again.