He’d imagined some version of this moment so many times. Cithrin throwing herself at his feet, weeping and begging his forgiveness. Or else haughty and dismissive, reveling in his humiliation. Neither version of her made sense now that she was here.
She was here. Why was she here? And she was so beautiful. And why couldn’t he catch his breath?
“I didn’t know you were here,” he heard himself say, wincing even as he spoke the words. Of course he hadn’t known. God, he sounded like an idiot. But she didn’t laugh at him, only lifted her hand a degree. And yet here I am.
“Geder!” another voice said. Cary, the actor. She stepped out from Cithrin’s side, her arms wide, and scooped him up in a vast hug. And then Hornet, grinning, and Mikel and Sandr. And a couple of new people Geder didn’t even know. They all hugged him and clapped him on the back, grinning and laughing and greeting him like he was an old friend they hadn’t seen in too long. And at the end of them, Clara Kalliam took him in her arms too, pressing her cheek to his.
And then Cithrin was there, and she put her arms around him, embracing him gently. Don’t wake up from this, Geder thought. If this is a dream, die in it. Only don’t wake up.
“I don’t understand,” Geder said. And then, without being sure quite what he meant, “I’m sorry.”
“There’s someone else you need to talk to,” Lehrer said, his hand on Geder’s shoulder. “Before any of the rest of this.”
The priest looked much like the others, only maybe thinner and more worn. Olive-toned skin and wiry hair, and an expression of gentleness and an indulgent fondness. “We haven’t met,” the man said, “but it seems we have a great number of friends in common. I am called Kitap rol Keshmet, or sometimes Master Kit.”
He took Geder’s hand in both of his. Amid the shock and confusion and joy, Geder felt a thread of fear. “Are you with Basrahip?”
“I knew him once, when he was a boy. But that was many years ago.”
Geder felt a cool breath of fear. “Are you an apostate, then?”
The priest sighed. “I’m afraid you’ll have to decide that for yourself.”
Geder shook his head. His body felt weirdly separate, like he was watching himself from a distance. “For myself?”
Lehrer took Geder’s elbow and guided him to a chair. Kit walked along with them and sat at Geder’s side. A beetle that had escaped the frames and mesh floated in the air, its wings beating so quickly he couldn’t tell they were there except for a soft buzzing.
“I think you are aware of the curious gifts that the spiders allow men like myself, yes? I hope you will understand, then, the position I find myself in.”
“I don’t think I do,” Geder said. His father sat beside him, leaning in toward the priest. Cithrin put her weight on the divan’s side, leaning casually against it. Her gown clung to her arm, draped from her shoulders and breasts. Geder couldn’t focus clearly on anything but her. At least not until Kit spoke again.
“I believe you have been played for a fool, Lord Regent. I believe that, but you must make up your own mind on the matter. And because of my… condition, I find I must choose my words with you very carefully.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everything you’ve heard about the goddess and her role in the world might be wrong,” Kit said. “You will have to consider it, and come to your own conclusion. Knowing what you do of me, and Basrahip, and all the men who are like the two of us, you can weigh what you know of us and of the world, and decide for yourself what is true. It’s possible that we will disagree.”
Something in Geder’s mind shifted. “Disagree?” he echoed.
“You can disagree,” Kit said, his voice low and powerful as a drum. “To look at the world and doubt the stories you’ve heard of it is your right. Your responsibility, even. If something can be harmed by a question, I think it should be. Must be, even. And especially when it’s said by someone like me.”
“But Basrahip—”
“The things the Basrahip says may be wrong,” Kit said. “You should look at the evidence yourself and see what sense you make of it. I understand you’re something of a scholar.”
“I was,” Geder said. His hand was shaking. That was very strange. Why should his hands be shaking? “I am. I’ve translated text out of a dozen languages. Not always very well, but… I have… I have a collection of speculative essays.”
“Then perhaps you understand already the importance of looking outside of a story for other bits of evidence that a thing is true.”
“But written words are dead,” Geder said. “They’re just things. They can’t be true or false. The living voice can carry intention in a way that written words can’t.”
“Possibly,” Kit said. “But only possibly. Are you certain of that?”
“You’re doing it to me now, though,” Geder said. “You’re using the power of the goddess to… to…”
“To open your mind to doubt,” Kit said, “and to ask that you reevaluate the conclusions you’ve drawn. Not mine. Your own. If they are true, then considering them can do no harm. For example, you have heard—I did too when I was at the temple—that nothing written can be judged and those things which are spoken can be. Is that your experience?”
“Yes,” Geder said, and looked at his father. Lehrer’s expression mixed fear and pain and a fierceness Geder had rarely seen. “I mean, I think so…”
“Listen to my voice, Lord Geder,” Kit said. “Some of the things the Basrahip has told you may be true. Others may not. You must judge them for yourself and decide whether the world he describes is the same as the one you know. You are permitted to disagree.”
“But—”
“Listen to my voice, friend. You can disagree.”
Cary came to him, a cup of water in her hand. Geder sipped from it out of a kind of habit. He looked out past the pale screens to the moonlight on the roofs of Camnipol to the vast tower of the Kingspire. The banner of the goddess, red in the daylight, had faded almost to black. Lights glowed in the high windows where Basrahip and the other priests held their ceremonies. The great doors had been swung open to allow in the night’s cool air. Geder felt like the tower himself. It felt as though the fog that had taken him for the past months was being stirred by a cold wind. The illness that no cunning man could identify, much less treat, began to resolve. The sensation of it was physical, and the words that it carried were I can disagree. He hadn’t been ill. He’d been confused. Caught between two things that he couldn’t reconcile until a kind of moral vertigo had consumed him. But he could disagree.
“They came to help, Son,” Lehrer said.
Everything that Basrahip said, everything about the war and the goddess and the nature of the apostate… He could disagree. As soon as it was said, he knew that he did, and the force of it pushed at his throat like too many people rushing through too small a door.
“I don’t know,” Geder said, and the words were like a confession. “I don’t know. I’m not… sure.”
“Is there some question that’s bothered you, my lord?” Kit asked.
“The fire years,” Geder said, then stopped. His jaw felt almost stiff with the effort of saying it. He paused, tried to catch his breath. The words hurt in a way he couldn’t quite explain. It wasn’t physical, but if it had been, it would have been the bright, itching pain of tearing off a scab. “Basrahip said there were years after the dragons fell when the whole world was burned, but there’s nothing about that in any of the histories.”