On the afternoon of the day the mantia had foretold, she stood at the base of the Gray Tower, along with Jordel, Baran, Bleys, and a handful of thains.

Then she could almost smell the lyrea leaves she had burned to summon the mantia; she could feel herself floating free from her body, in time, not space. She could see herself doing what she was about to do.

“There he is,” said Jordel quietly.

Too far away to tell who it was, she nonetheless knew who it was. On his shoulders was a weather-worn cloak of red; in one hand, a black cloak of exile.

She took up her songbow. She spun a gravebolt in her right hand until its impulse well was full. She fitted it to the bow and waited.

Morlock wasn’t following the shifting paths of the Maze. He was breaking across them. She guessed he must be furious, afraid.

He held the black cloak aloft and she knew he was furious, defiant. He had a right to be furious. He and his companions had saved the world that she and the Graith would have let die. He didn’t deserve this. But the Graith had decreed it: he was an exile, too dangerous to be allowed back into the Wardlands. Some feared that he was ambitious to be king. For some, it was bad enough that he could make the attempt. Some hated him, like Bleys, for their own reasons. Some feared him, especially after the battle with Naevros, when some of them had died, dropped dead from the dais under the Dome of the Graith.

Some of those things might change in time. But an exile who returned to the land was killed. That was the First Decree. He could not be allowed to return.

She took aim with the gravebolt.

In her vision of the future, she had seen herself doing these things and she had wondered why—why would she do this, how could she bring herself to do this? But the more she thought about it, the more reasons she thought of.

Not hate or fear. She had been afraid that terrible day of the battle beyond the edge of the world; she had felt pain, as Morlock’s damned sword shattered the soul armor they had made to protect Naevros. But she’d been glad the Graith and the Sunkillers were defeated, glad that the world would go on living.

But if he came back now, he would be killed. There was one way that she knew to keep him from coming back. She knew it would work because she had seen it in the future. Causal loop: knowledge of the future creates the future. . . .

She took aim with the songbow. She could see him quite clearly now. She remembered what they had meant to each other, even though she couldn’t quite summon those feelings now. She didn’t feel anything, really. She wasn’t telling herself this was for his benefit. But if he came back, and they killed him, and she could have prevented it, how could she live with herself? She was doing this for herself. There was work to do in the Graith, in the Wardlands, and it needed her. She had to be alive and reasonably sane to do it.

He was not very near now—still a thousand paces from the base of the Tower at least. But close enough. She was confident her bolt would fly true. She had already seen it all. She let the bolt fly; the bow sang gently in her hand.

“A hit,” Jordel said calmly, as if he were the judge of an archery contest.

Yes: a hit. Morlock had fallen over. She had been wounded herself; she knew what his mind was doing now. He would look to see what had hurt him. He would look at the gravebolt that had passed through him—through his leg, she thought. He would see the runic rose on the bolt and recognize it.

He was motionless for a long time, so long she feared he was dead. (And how would she live with that?)

Then he rose to his feet. He was too far away for her to see his face, but he was looking toward them here, that was obvious.

If she knew him from a mile away, then he ought to know her. She stood away from the group so that he could see her better.

He stood still for a long time as the fire from his Ambrosial blood spread through the plain around him.

At last he moved. He took the red cloak from his shoulders and tossed it away into the burning grass. He took the black cloak in both hands and bound it across his shoulders. He turned and limped away into the west, trailing blood and fire behind him as he went. She stayed watching until he was out of sight. She stayed there, not watching, until the sun set in the east and the bloodfires lit the blue autumnal land below like bonfires.

Jordel touched her shoulder. She turned toward him.

“You did the right thing,” he said. “Come. Let’s go eat.”

“That’s not what you said before.”

“I always say that.”

“I mean . . . about it being the right thing.”

“I didn’t say it was wrong. I said you didn’t need to do it. Now that you’ve done it, you don’t need to feel bad about it. You probably saved his life.”

“I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t feel anything.”

“You will. Come on. It’s cold out here.”

It was cold. Inside the tower there would be—a fire.

“Let’s stay out for a while longer,” she said. She was starting to feel something, and she didn’t like it.

The thains and the summoner had all gone in. Jordel and Baran stayed out with her, although she didn’t ask them to. She was always grateful to them for that.

But when she had mastered her feelings, she went in and got something to eat. You have to eat.

Morlock Ambrosius, wearing the black cloak of exile from the Wardlands, limped into the night. Eventually, he took a strip from his shirt and bound up his leg to slow the bleeding, but he didn’t bother to do anything else to it. It would heal or not heal. He was indifferent to it. Eventually the bleeding stopped, but the pain went on for a long time. He was aware of it without the slightest desire to do anything about it.

Another day of aimless walking and he found himself at night in a town on the coast of the Narrow Sea. Some of the buildings were lit up, so not everyone here was dead. One of the buildings had an open door, so he walked into it.

There were empty benches and tables. He sat down on a bench.

A man came up to him and said, “What can I do for you?”

That struck Morlock as funny, and he laughed.

“Maybe you’ve had too much to drink already,” said the man.

Morlock looked at him. He looked around. The place was an inn or something.

Now there was someone else there. There were two men, one bald, one black-haired, both with red-brown faces and black eyes. “He’s been in a fight,” the bald man was saying. “Look at that bandage on his leg! Listen, we can’t have him dying here.”

“He’s not dying. He’s just hungry and thirsty. Right, friend? You want something? You’ve got money to pay for it, something to trade?”

“Money,” Morlock repeated idly. He should have some fingers of gold from the Endless Empire. He took a couple from a pocket and looked at them with vague interest.

“See there!” said the man with black hair. “I bet you won that fight you were in, friend. What’ll you have? Food? Drink? Both?”

He was hungry. And you have to eat.

“Drink,” said Morlock Ambrosius.

SIGIL

I, Deor syr Theorn, told this tale at your request, the true tale of our harven-kin’s exile from the Wardlands. It is a mostly true tale, I think: I talked to many people, even some I hated, to learn the things I put in it. Other things I had to guess at. That’s true in any history, and don’t trust the historian who says differently. I began the tale long ago but finished it only tonight. You may no longer remember that you asked for it. But I think it’s a tale that you need to hear.

Wyrththeorn, you are the youngest of my many sons, and you have caused me more worry than the others put together. From the time that you were hatched, I constantly found you causing some kind of mischief with your clever fingers, your crafty mind, your crooked, insistent urge to know and do.