you remember the woman with the blind child, Dagmar?” Ivo asked.
Ivo sat in his throne, his back to the opening in the wall, but Dagmar faced him, and she could see the frown that furrowed his brow.
“I do not.”
“You let her into the sanctum. You should remember,” Ivo grumbled.
Dagmar shook his head.
“It was during the Tournament of the King, only months after Bayr was born. You were distracted.” Ivo waved his hand like it was yesterday. “The child’s eyes were cloudy. No irises. He was just a little boy. Three or four years old. Old enough to talk.”
Dagmar’s face cleared in remembrance. “I do remember. I found the woman sleeping against the garden wall. She was sick and asked for a blessing.”
“A blessing for her son,” Ivo corrected, his voice dry.
“Yes . . . well.”
“I could not fix his eyes. But you knew that. That boy . . . is now a man. He is the blind archer they call Hod.”
“No!” Dagmar marveled. “I met him just today. He was extraordinary. The talk of the mount. He reminded me a little of Bayr. Mayhaps it was just his humility about his own prowess, but he was a pleasure to watch.”
“Hmm,” Ivo grunted. “He has an aptitude for many things. I thought he might be a keeper someday. He showed a great affinity for the runes at our first meeting.”
Ghisla tried to moderate her breaths, the dust from the tunnel tickling her nose.
“He came to see me today—he and his teacher—and pled for me to make him a supplicant.”
She covered her mouth, moaning into her hands. Oh, Hod. Why did you not tell me?
“He is not the first since the scourge,” Dagmar said. “He will not be the last.”
“No. And I turned him away as I have turned away all the others.”
She could not breathe. She would go back to the hillside. She would find Hod. But the conversation continued beyond her hiding spot, and she was frozen in place.
“Our mission has changed, Master,” Dagmar said. “We have to think of the daughters.”
“Yes . . . but I would have turned him away, regardless.”
“Why? You say he had an affinity for the runes.”
“He has been trained by Arwin, the cave keeper. In truth, he has been a supplicant all his life. His knowledge is already vast, his skills great. And that frightens me too.”
“Why?”
“I have not decided if he is good or evil.”
Dagmar’s gasp cloaked Ghisla’s. “Why would he be evil, Master?” Dagmar asked.
Ivo sighed. “Mayhaps evil is not the right word. He drew the rune of the blind god there, beneath the altar, in the dust. A child. A little, blind boy. Now he is grown, but his eyes are still as empty.”
“The blind god was not evil.”
“No . . . but evil used him. Evil uses the ignorant.”
“And you think evil might use the blind archer?”
“That is what I have not decided. I know it is foolish to ignore the signs. And there are many.”
“But the woman—I remember her now—she said you blessed him. She said you blessed her. When she left the temple, she was greatly restored.”
“No thanks to you,” Ivo grumbled.
“No thanks to me,” Dagmar repeated, a smile in his voice. They both grew quiet, thoughtful, and Dagmar stood, as though the matter was done.
Ghisla wanted to sink a blade into both of them. Her hands trembled with her rage. She would scream until their ears wept with blood, until they begged her for the mercy they had not shown Hod. How dare they? How dare they reject him? How dare they judge him?
“I will rest better when he is gone,” Master Ivo grumbled.
“He has unsettled you that much?” Dagmar asked, his interest piqued again. “I am surprised, Master. I sensed no darkness in him.”
Master Ivo harrumphed. “That may be . . . but I cannot ignore the signs.”
“So you have sent him away.”
“I have sent him away. There is no place for him here.”
Ghisla turned back to the tunnel and fled, not caring whether she was too loud, not caring whether she was discovered, not caring whether she ran headlong into a stone wall and ceased living altogether. By the time she reached the hillside and tumbled out through the hatch, her lungs burned, and her eyes were as blind as Hod’s, but she did not stop.
The Temple Wood stretched out at the base of the hill, and she staggered toward it, not even pausing to take the trail to ease her descent. The mount rose