the rose at her throat. “That is too much. If that is his purpose, then his purpose can burn.”
She blanched, but stood her ground and defended her faith, the faith that had once been his.
“You sound like the heretics you’ve often condemned. How often have I heard you admonish them for waiting for the Morninglord to do their work for them? He does not reveal himself to us that way, Abelar.”
Perhaps she had thought to strike him hard, but he did not perceive even a glancing blow. He took her by the arms.
“Have I been waiting, Jiiris? Have I been idle? I have taken the fight to evil my entire life and have been rewarded with one calamity after another. Through it all I have been steadfast, but …” he looked past her to Elden, sleeping in a bed of furs, “… he has gone too far. And I am tired of being tested.”
“Faith is not a test—”
“It can be nothing else!” He found himself shaking her gently, and released her with surprise. Elden stirred, rolled over onto his side, but did not awaken. Abelar spoke in an intense whisper. “What it cannot be is a hole into which I pour everything and from it receive nothing. That is not faith, Jiiris. I renounce it. I renounce him.”
She looked as if she had been struck hard. Saying the words aloud rather than merely thinking them crossed some indefinable barrier, put a chasm between his present and his past that he would never be able to cross. He hoped it had not put a chasm between he and Jiiris.
“Listen to me,” he said gently. “I see clearly now for the first time in a long while. There is light even where Lathander is absent. Who saved both my father and son? Who, Jiiris?” She simply stared and he answered his own question. “Servants of Mask. There is light in them.”
Jiiris shook her head. “No, Abelar. Saving Elden was a good thing, a wonderful thing. But I saw into those men when they stood in this tent. They are not good men. Not like you.”
“You judge them harshly. We are what we do, Jiiris.”
“No. We are what we are and sometimes that shows in what we do. But sometimes it does not. Hear this, Abelar. Before Elden fell asleep, he told me a bad man saved him from the other bad men. Do you hear? Children’s eyes see clearly.”
Elden rolled over in his furs and opened his eyes. His bleary eyes focused on Abelar.
“Papa?”
To Jiiris, Abelar said, “We will talk more of this later. For now, assemble my father and the leaders of the company. We must see the refugees to safety. There are not enough men here to stand against Forrin’s army and whatever storm Shar has brought to Sembia. Tell them to begin preparations.”
Jiiris’s eyes widened at his words. “But I thought …”
He took her by the shoulders. “I have turned from Lathander but not from the people of Saerb, not from you. I am the same man I was two days ere.”
She looked into his eyes and nodded.
“Papa?”
Abelar went to his son, sat beside him. Elden reached up a small hand. Abelar took it between his.
“I am here,” he said. “And I am not leaving again.”
Elden studied his face. “You diffent, Papa.”
Abelar nodded, felt his throat tighten. The eyes of children saw clearly, indeed.
Rivalen watched the coin spin, and pondered. He would have to kill Kesson Rel, but he did not know if he could do so.
Rivalen knew some of Kesson’s history. He had been a servant of Mask who later converted to Shar. After becoming one of Shar’s most powerful servants, being invested with a shard of divine power, he had succumbed to insanity and embraced heresy. Eventually the Lady of Loss had banished him to an isolated pocket of the Plane of Shadow, the Adumbral Calyx. There, he’d been left, forgotten.
Until now. Now he had emerged from his exile and brought the Calyx with him, threatening the delicate plans Rivalen had spent decades cultivating.
“Why now, Lady?” Rivalen asked the darkness. “Why here?”
Rivalen studied his remade holy symbol, noted the ghost of the fracture still visible on its surface. The line dividing his symbol reminded him of the divisions in his faith. Shar tolerated heresy, rewarded the heretic. Why? The answer was hidden in the dark folds of the Lady’s secrets.
He placed the holy symbol in an inner pocket and decided that he did not need to know.