Rielle let that thread of his memories go, disturbed by his assessment of her. What would he have done if I’d decided to stay with the Travellers and marry Baluka? Would he have ordered Baluka’s death? Was he that ruthless?
But she might just as well wonder if she’d have killed Sa-Gest deliberately, rather than accidentally, if he’d attacked her that day on the mountain road. He hadn’t. She hadn’t. Valhan hadn’t. And she had never deluded herself about Valhan’s willingness to kill in order to protect himself and the worlds. She’d only accepted it because she believed his ultimate motive was good: peace throughout the worlds.
This death and resurrection isn’t only to save himself. It’s about getting rid of the allies. He’s taking a huge risk in order to achieve that. If a safe life was all he wanted it would make far more sense to live quietly somewhere nobody paid much attention to.
She couldn’t imagine him doing that, though. He was not a man who would be satisfied with a simple existence. He was a man who burned himself alive in order to ultimately return to rule.
Despite everything she had learned, despite knowing he had used her, and had even ordered her death, she couldn’t help admiring him.
As abruptly as before, the pattern stopped flowing from Dahli. She blinked, looked up at him, then down at the casket.
One more step.
Reaching for more magic, she discovered that the world was running low. The others and Dahli still held more than enough to leave the world, so she took what remained in the world. Seeking the life below her, she relocated the young man’s mind.
It was not as it had been before.
Where there had been no mind there was consciousness. Thoughts were forming. Memories were waking. None of them were Valhan’s.
What is doing this? At once, she recognised pattern shifting. The mind within the body was undergoing the same constant habit of preservation and restoration that hers had gained when she’d become ageless. But of course it is. That was part of the pattern I imprinted. Valhan’s pattern, as an ageless man.
But it meant the original mind of the young man was being restored.
It was happening slowly and unevenly. As with Valhan’s memories imprinted in the hand, the most recent woke first.
She saw Valhan. She saw confusion. Is this really how a sorcerer became ageless? he wondered. He knew something was not right, but it was too late. His struggles were ineffective, and he gave up, terror fading at the same time as awareness.
Rielle shuddered as she realised the truth. This was no young man who had been born mindless. This was an ordinary young man whose body had been stolen, and mind suppressed.
Why hadn’t I seen this in Valhan’s memories?
She turned back to them, searching, and found nothing. Only then did she remember Valhan telling her that memories could be erased. She found knowledge of the experiments he’d undertaken to develop the method of resurrection, but none of the details.
She sought the mind of the young man. He was half awake, shivering and panting with terror.
If she imprinted Valhan’s memories over his, it would be as close to killing him as plunging a knife into his heart.
She had killed before, she reminded herself. And this was the only way the Raen could be resurrected. If she did not continue Valhan would die–properly this time. She had to do this.
And yet… she could not bring herself to. It was wrong to obliterate the mind of someone who had barely lived his life. A young sorcerer who had so much potential. Anyone, really.
But who will maintain peace in the worlds?
What would the worlds be, without Valhan? She couldn’t answer that question. She almost laughed aloud as she remembered what he had said. “I have never met anyone who could predict the future.” He had admitted he could never anticipate the consequences of his interference in a world. He was only certain that, without him, the worlds would fall into chaos.
But if he could not predict the consequences of anything, was he even right about that?
The death of the young man might save the worlds from ruin, or it might make no difference at all.
Which means Valhan’s resurrection might save the worlds from ruin, or make no difference at all.
That thought brought a rush of clarity.
If the outcome was uncertain either way, the choice was really between the life of a young man who had barely lived, and that of a powerful ruler who had lived a thousand cycles.
She knew too little of either to know who deserved that life more, but the one thing she was certain of, which her own actions had taught her, was that killing someone should not be done lightly or selfishly.