‘When did he give this to you?’ Styerra asked.
Her eyes were bloodshot and wet with tears. Her hands shook as he held out the small red notebook. The one she and Erath had passed love letters back and forth in.
There was a new entry, scribbled in black ink.
S,
The Masters know.
Leave this place, before it’s too late.
Forget about me.
Live your life.
E
‘He passed it to me just moments before the Masters came to our dorm,’ Ervos said. ‘They took him.’
‘Where?’ Styerra whispered.
Ervos frowned. ‘A cell. He’s committed treason against the Five, Styerra. You know what his fate will be.’
She gasped at his words.
‘And there’s little time before they come for you, too. The penance you’ll pay for this … it’s not the kind you can come back from.’
His voice was younger, but the sound of it was still so gentle, so purely Ervos that it made Ezer’s own heart twist.
He’d spoken to her that way so many times. It was a steady, consoling voice, the kind that took all her fears away.
Styerra wept in his arms.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ervos said. ‘I wish there was another way. I won’t let them do this to you.’
‘He promised me,’ Styerra cried. ‘He said he’d found a place, a power … a space we could be safe to be together, without the gods’ laws to keep us apart.’
‘Thereisno place the gods’ laws cannot reach,’ Ervos said. ‘Erath lied to you.’
But Ervos was a liar, too.
And now …
Now Ezer wondered what else he’d lied about.
‘He wouldn’t see reason,’ Ervos added. ‘I tried, but … he’s not well, Styerra. His mind is lusting for things that cannot be. And thank the gods I discovered it, because he almost took you down with him. Just like Zeban and the others. It’salla lie. The blank book, the strange god. A test, a trap, meant to show the gods who the unbelievers are. You must believe the truth and set Erath’s lies aside. You must erase the poison he’s tried to place in your mind. And you must run, before it’s too late.’
Styerra began to cry again.
She looked weak, not at all like the woman Ezer imagined her mother to be. A warrior, who’d fought bravely to fend away the shadow wolves so her newborn baby could survive.
But this woman, in this memory …
She was just a child.
A brokenhearted child.
‘I can’t,’ Styerra said. ‘I have to see him, speak to him?—’
