When she entered the workshop, Mother Luti said to her, “Chandra, you have a visitor.”
Her stunned gaze was already fixed on him. “Gideon?”
He nodded to her in silent greeting.
Gideon looked considerably better than he had the last time she’d seen him. His thick black hair was neatly braided down his back, and his face was clean-shaven and free of bruises. His pale brown tunic and leggings were clean and tidy, and he looked healthy and alert. The healing magic of the Order was obviously effective.
He did not have his sural with him; as a member of the Order, he would not have been admitted to the monastery while carrying a weapon.
And Chandra, though surprised to see him, specifically, wasn’t at all surprised that he had agreed to come here alone and unarmed, even after a pyromancer had killed one of his colleagues at the gate the other day. She knew by now that Gideon did what others wouldn’t or couldn’t do.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Walbert accepts your terms,” he said. “I’ve come to take you into custody.”
“Terms?” Luti repeated, looking quizzically at Chandra.
“He accepts?” When Gideon nodded, Chandra took a deep breath. “Good. I’m glad.”
“What terms?” Luti asked.
“I’m turning myself in,” Chandra told her. “Once I am in custody, Walbert will withdraw his forces from the mountain.” She looked at Gideon. “Will he keep his word?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, believing him-his promise confirmed what she expected of Walbert from what others had said of the man. Then she said to Mother Luti, “There are no other conditions. The Keralians will not be expected to abide by any terms or rules.”
“Chandra,” Luti said with concern, “are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“I’m sure.” She looked at Gideon. “And I’m ready to leave.”
“No!” Brannon burst into the workshop. “You can’t go!”
Chandra turned around to look at the boy. She should have realized he would eavesdrop. “I have to go,” she said to him. “Mother Luti will explain it to you.”
“Something bad will happen to you there,” Brannon said with certainty.
“Maybe,” she said, “but I have to go.”
“I’m coming with you!”
“No.” She shook her head.
“But you promised! You said that the next time you left, I could come with you.”
“I did not promise,” she said firmly. “Anyway, I feel certain that you’d be very unhappy in the Temple.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t suit people like us,” Chandra said.
The boy looked to Mother Luti for a second opinion, but it was Gideon who spoke. “Chandra’s right. You wouldn’t like it there.”
“You won’t like it there, either,” Brannon said to Chandra.
“No, but that doesn’t matter anymore,” Chandra said. “This is my choice, Brannon.”
He looked angry and sad. “When are you coming back?”
She didn’t answer, not knowing what to say.
“Soon?” he prodded.
“No,” she said truthfully. “I don’t think I’ll be coming back soon.”
Chandra walked through the large front gate and beyond the monastery walls with Gideon at her side. When the gate closed behind them, she let out her breath in a rush.
Her decision was made, accepted, and enacted. She had committed herself to her fate, however unpleasant-and perhaps short-it might be. The Keralians wouldn’t suffer or die the way others had indeed suffered and died because of her. She had prevented it from happening again.
Mother Luti had dealt with Walbert at a distance for years, and she knew his reputation was good, though she disliked what he intended to see in the world. She would not have let Chandra leave if she suspected Walbert of treachery or dishonesty in this matter. And Gideon had said Walbert would keep his word, and Chandra believed him.
Now she stood between the walls of the monastery and the mystical white barrier that had surrounded it for days. Beyond the barrier, a dozen armed soldiers awaited her.
Not quite knowing how to proceed, she glanced at Gideon.
He was looking straight ahead, wearing the impassive expression he relied on when he wanted to conceal things from others.
“Gideon?” she prodded, wondering what to do.
“Walbert asked me to come,” he said quietly, without looking at her, “because he wanted to send someone you couldn’t ambush. In case your offer wasn’t sincere.”
“It is sincere,” she said.
“I know.” Now he looked her at her. “Why?”
She wasn’t going to answer. But then she glimpsed some of the concern that his cool expression masked, and she shrugged. “Ghosts, you might say.”
“Ghosts?”
“I can’t carry any more of them.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“No, I don’t suppose you do.”
Gideon looked ahead again, his gaze on the translucent white barrier that separated them from the soldiers. “I didn’t come to help you get out of this.”
“I didn’t think you had,” she said.
“If you were counting on-”
“I’m not.”
“You’ve made your choice,” Gideon said firmly.
“Yes. And now that I have…” She gestured to the white barrier that separated her and the monastery from the world. “I think it might create the wrong impression if I blasted a fiery hole in this thing. So how do I get through it?”
“Just walk through it,” he said.
“Just…”
“You’ll be fine.”
She shrugged again and walked forward. As soon as she entered the shimmering wall of white, she felt the binding weight of ice surrounding her. She took a breath, trying not to panic or let fire start glowing along her skin in defensive reaction… until the white barrier began collapsing and contracting, moving in on her from all directions with alarming rapidity.
Startled, she called forth fire and tried to blow her way out of the smothering blanket of white that was enfolding her.
“Don’t,” Gideon said calmly, approaching her as she struggled within the shrinking wall of light and power. “It won’t hurt you.”
White magic was surrounding her, moving in on her, and covering her. It doused her fire as soon as she called flames to life. She tried again, and it happened again. Her hands, her hair, her arms all were smoking with her futile efforts to defend herself.
A trap!
The barrier was shrinking into a cloak that draped over every bit of Chandra’s body. She struggled against it in horror, trying to tear it off or punch a hole through it, but it just kept folding in on her and shrinking. Then it started molding itself to her, following the contours of her body, the curve of her breast, the line of her thigh, and even the tapered shape of each individual finger.
“Gideon?” She heard how breathless her voice was and realized she was panting.
“It won’t hurt you,” he repeated. “It’s just to prevent… accidents.”
The thing settled all over her body and finally stopped moving. It didn’t affect her vision, but she could see that it covered her entirely, like a second skin. It even covered her hair. The enchanted sheath didn’t hurt, tingle, or sting, and it didn’t impede her physical movement in any way. But another failed attempt to create fire revealed to her exactly what it was.
“My very own portable prison,” she said grimly. Her power was trapped inside this close-fitting shell of magic, just as she was.
“They thought it was for the best.” Gideon nodded toward a place further down the hill, where the white mages who had created and maintained the barrier around the monastery were still camped. “They were a little concerned about what you might do in Zinara.”
“You didn’t do this to me?” she asked with a frown. “They did?”
“Yes,” he said. “They’re afraid of you.”
“And you’re not?” she challenged.
He gave her a bland look.
“But you knew about this,” she said with certainty. And he had told her to step into it.