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  As soon as the stand was level, the other Watcher stepped near, balancing a head-sized globe on the top of the metal holder. Rani had heard of the Inquisitor’s Orb before - all the people in the City knew its power. Like the glasswrights’ globe that had been shattered so many months before, this sphere had been crafted by Jair himself, at the beginning of the Pilgrim’s reign. It incorporated all the power of that great age, when the Thousand Gods had watched over Morenia with a vengeance.

  The globe was made of a glass-like substance, although Rani could see that it was like no other glass she had ever handled. The smooth surface was finer than anything the glasswrights could ever have fashioned, solid like crystal, but translucent, swirled with colors, and utterly flawless. Rani thought of the last time she had settled her hands on a similar orb, the day she had spoken her apprentice oaths before Guildmistress Salina.

  Now, at Halaravilli’s bidding, Rani placed her hands on the smooth surface of the Inquisitor’s Orb, fighting her iron chains to bend her wrists. At the touch of her fingers, its swirling colors coalesced, merged into each other like ink feathering into water. Blue, green, yellow - all were swallowed up until the orb glowed with an inner light, a deep crimson like the shade of Rani’s blood. Like the garnet eyes on the Brotherhood’s snakes. Rani tried to swallow with her suddenly dry throat, and she barely managed a silent plea to Lan.

  The Inquisitor’s Orb would sense the truth of the answers she gave today. If she lied, the crimson light would change, and all the world would know that Rani was a traitor. A conspirator against the king. A murderer.

  Halaravilli waited until Rani’s palms were flat against the sphere, and then he gazed at her evenly. “The Inquisition shall now begin. What is your true name?”

  She stared at him in confusion. Her true name? Was that the name she had been born with? The name she had earned through her slavish labor in the guild? Was it the one she had claimed for herself when she ran in the streets with Mair’s troop? The name she had been granted by the Thousand Gods, when they permitted her to serve as the First Pilgrim?

  “I -” Her voice squeaked out, high and shrill, and she forced herself to swallow, to gulp down a calming breath. “Your Highness, I am called many things. Marita, Rani, Ranita, Ranimara, Rai -” Ranikaleka, she thought, not looking at Bardo. “Many things,” she continued. “But those names are all unimportant, for whatever one calls me, I am always the same. I remain the same poor pilgrim in search of the guidance of all the Thousand Gods.”

  Hal’s eyes remained deadly serious, and he intoned in a voice like death, “Then we shall call you Ranita Glasswright, for that is how you stand accused before us.” He continued after a long minute, “So, tell me Ranita. How did you come to be in the Palace?”

  Rani’s first thought was that the question was silly - everyone in this room knew how she had been selected as the First Pilgrim. Nevertheless, she should hardly duck out of easy questions, not when the orb pulsed beneath her hands, not when she knew the hard questions Hal might ask of her. If this was Hal’s idea of an Inquisition, perhaps she could answer and emerge unscathed, with her reputation untarnished. Rani offered up a fleeting prayer to all the Thousand Gods that she might be able to clear her name and avoid incriminating her sole surviving kin.

  Taking a deep breath, she launched into a spirited recitation of her coming to the cathedral, of the hundreds of bodies pressing in close upon one another. She explained how she had been distracted, held back in the crowd, as each of the pilgrims was greeted in the name of one of the Gods. She recounted how luck - luck, and the all the Thousand Gods - had brought her to the cathedral portal at the right time, in the right place, just as the priest was ready to name the First Pilgrim.

  Hal listened to every word, nodding as if in confirmation when she spoke of her wonder at being chosen. He looked neither to right nor left as he listened, and Rani found herself wanting to tell him more, wanting to share with him that it was Salina who had detained her in the square, it was the guildmistress who had held her back until the right instant. Still, Rani held her tongue. If she were forced to name Salina, then she’d be forced to name the Brotherhood, and then many others would suffer - not least, Bardo.

  The globe under her hands tingled, as if a low fire burned in its core. The warmth was beckoning, comforting after the dungeons’ chill.

  She should have been prepared for the prince’s next question, even though it was delivered in an easy, off-hand manner. “So, Ranita, were you in the cathedral square often?”

  “Oh, no!” Rani remembered that she was supposed to have come to the City from far-away Zarithia, even as she recalled that she was bound to speak the truth. She swallowed the easy lie - “Never” - and managed instead the truthful, “Not often at all.”

  Hal rounded on her, like a wolf cutting a lamb from the herd. “And when was the last time you had been in the cathedral, before your selection as First Pilgrim?”

  His grey eyes were so penetrating that Rani could not help but wonder if he had noticed her on that day, when Tuvashanoran had been presented as Defender of the Faith. Rani’s mouth went dry, and her heart began to constrict in her chest. She had no ready lie, no half-truth for this prince who had befriended her. Befriended her, or so she had thought. Perhaps he had merely been playing her for a fool, feeding her a tale, as he had fed the entire court, making them believe that he was a babbling idiot.

  “Ranita Glasswright, I asked you a question. When were you last in the cathedral, before the day you were selected as First Pilgrim?”

  Rani swallowed hard, but she could produce no more than a whisper. “On the day your brother was to become Defender of the Faith, Your Highness.”

  There was a rustle among Jair’s Watchers, the murmur of a crowd that was pleased by the play it had come to witness. Hal raised a commanding hand to the captain of the black-clad contingent, and persisted as if he were unaware of Rani’s inner struggle. “And what were you doing in the cathedral on that day, Ranita?”

  Ranita. Her name as an apprentice, a glasswright. A name her family had sacrificed for. A name her family had died for. She swallowed hard, raising guileless eyes to meet the prince’s. “I did no evil that day, Your Highness.”

  Taking a deep breath, she plunged into the story, careful to tell only the truth, even as she excised any part of her tale that would implicate Tuvashanoran’s true murderer, Bardo. Her story was the last offering she could make in honor of her family.

  She told how she had come to the cathedral, and how the sunlight had shone brilliantly through the stained glass. She told of the beauty and the glory, watching Prince Tuvashanoran kneel before the altar. She captured the pageantry, the gallantry, the knowledge that she was in the company of one of the greatest men in the history of all Morenia. And then, scarcely pausing for breath, she told how she had seen the bow outlined against the Defender’s Window, and how she had cried out to save the prince. To save Tuvashanoran. Not to kill him.

  As Rani spoke, the globe beneath her fingers grew warm. At first, she thought that was the normal property of glass growing used to human touch. But as she chose her words, as she remembered the fervency of her faith on that autumn day, the globe pulsed beneath her hands, radiating heat like an oaken fire.

  “And, Ranita, did you know anyone in the cathedral that morning?”

  Her carefully constructed tale shimmered in the air between them. With her fingers poised over the globe, there was no possibility of lying, no chance of dodging the question that called for a simple yes or no. She thought of taking her punishment and ending this entire sad charade. She thought that she should answer in the negative, do her best to preserve the last member of her family, to save Bardo. She should speak words that would permit her brother to live, would permit Guildmistress Salina to survive, as her true flesh-and-blood mother no longer could. This was the moment she had waited for, the moment that all the Thousand Gods had guided her to - this was her chance to salvage life from the horrors of
death that she had witnessed.

  Hal looked directly into her eyes and repeated his question. “Ranita Glasswright, did you know anyone in the cathedral?”

  “Yes.” She braved his gaze, pleading with him to release her from the next, inevitable question, but knowing that she had already made her decision. She had already chosen truth, and justice, and the light of the Thousand Gods.

  “Who?”

  Rani’s heart pounded in her ears, and she longed to raise her fingers from the tell-tale globe. Her palms were burning now, scalding against the blood-red orb, and she imagined that her flesh would soon begin to curl. One little lie. One little denial of fact, twisting of the truth. Surely, the Thousand Gods would understand, would commend loyalty to family and caste.

  But, looking into the strong lines of Hal’s face, seeing the ghost of Prince Tuvashanoran, she realized that she would not lie. She would not try to save Salina. Salina, or Bardo, or the Brotherhood. Larindolian, or Felicianda, or Bashi. She would tell her story. She would tell the truth, set out the pattern, trade her words for whatever the prince would give her in exchange. She must mind her true caste - her merchant caste - as the Touched creature had ordered her to do so long before.

  “Salina. That woman there.”

  “You stupid cow!” Salina’s poison spewed across the audience chamber.

  “Silence her!” Hal snapped immediately, and one of the soldiers produced a gag, using it efficiently on the writhing, foul-mouthed guildmistress. The black-robed Watchers at the edges of the chamber took a step closer, but Hal waved them back to their places.

  “Salina, you say,” he turned to Rani when a semblance of peace had returned to the room. “And how do you know Salina?”

  Even now, before she spoke the words, Rani could feel the globe cooling beneath her fingers. She could feel the Thousand Gods hovering about her, waiting for her to speak the truth. Now, Jair was standing beside her, resting his calm hands on her shoulders.

  Jair, the First Pilgrim, the man who had lived his life in each of the City’s castes. She felt his presence, like she had felt the power of her father, the force of her brother. Jair comforted her, even as he laid out the rough road she must follow. She was a trader by birth. She saw patterns and harnessed them, trading to preserve herself. Minding her caste, minding her birth right, Rani Trader began to tell the court all she knew about Tuvashanoran’s death, about the Brotherhood, about its plots for power and control in the City.

  When she started to speak, she was conscious of the people around her. She could see Hal’s lean face studying her intently; she could catch a glimmer of the old king, watching her confession with rheumy eyes. Larindolian, Felicianda, Bashi, even Bardo and Salina behind her - they all paid attention to every word she chose.

  As she spoke, though, she ceased to be aware of her companions in the hall. She told of her sick realization in the cathedral, of the instant she knew that everything had gone most horribly wrong, and then Tuvashanoran was slain, cut down by the cruelest arrow because he had turned at her innocent words of warning. She told of her terror when she had found her family home burned, her shame and anger when her childhood friend, Varna, denounced her. As she related all that had happened in the City streets, she remembered more and more details - a glimpse of truth buried deep in Mair’s words, a glimmer of reality shielded behind Dalarati’s dedication to the Crown and to chivalry.

  She spared nothing and no one in her telling, confessing even to murdering the proud young soldier in his barracks room. As she related that greatest crime, she stared at her own hands, amazed that they did not still bear the mark of sacrificial blood.

  The first time she mentioned Salina’s name, the guildmistress stiffened. When Rani identified Larindolian as the man in the deserted quarter, berating Instructor Morada, the chamberlain gasped and started to choke out a denial. As she labeled Bardo as the Brotherhood contact whom she had met in the cathedral, the very member of the Brotherhood who had encouraged her to execute Prince Halaravilli, Bardo had cried out her name, but his voice was faint in her ringing ears. He was silent when she reported the callouses on his hands, his boasting that he had learned noble weaponry under the Brotherhood’s tutelage. When she named the queen as the leader of all the Brotherhood, Felicianda spoke no word at all; she merely tightened her fingers on the arms of her throne.

  By the time Rani was finished, there was nothing but silence in the audience chamber.

  “And so,” she said at last, inclining her head toward Prince Halaravilli, “I stand before you today. I have failed in everything I tried - I left my father’s home never to return, I destroyed the glasswrights’ guild, I murdered a soldier, and I defiled the good office of the First Pilgrim. I have no choice but to throw myself upon the mercy of this court and the good graces of the king.”

  In the silence that followed, Rani spread her fingers across the surface of the crimson orb. Where it had beat hot as blood before, now it was cool to the touch, soothing, like the whisper of a mother’s hand across her fevered brow. Rani drank in that comforting chill, remembering to breathe, trying not to think.

  And Halaravilli himself seemed captured by the same awe that commanded her. The prince looked out at the assembled witnesses, but he appeared unable to speak, unable to command the convened court.

  Unable that was, until Larindolian recovered his voice. “Lies!” the chamberlain hissed. “All lies!”

  “And what reason would I have to lie!” Rani cried, stung back to life by the desperate denial.

  “Who knows what reason a gutter rat has to do anything! You are an ungrateful beast! This royal family has taken you under its wings, nursed you at its breast, while all the time you were the stinging serpent. You place the blame on Instructor Morada, a woman who is dead and cannot speak for herself. Why should we believe you?”

  “I have shouldered blame for myself, my lord,” Rani answered, the chill from the orb seeping into her words. “I confessed to murdering Dalarati, although even then I acted on your command.”

  Larindolian spluttered, but Hal interrupted before the chamberlain could fling more accusations about the room. “Ranita’s story is easily tested. Let us see who bears the mark of the snake.”

  “What!” bullied Larindolian. “Would you have us strip here in the audience hall?” The chamberlain tried a haughty laugh.

  As Hal raised a commanding hand, the soldiers stepped forward from the columns, bristling with drawn swords. A quick shake of the prince’s head froze the traditional fighting men in their stance of readiness, and then a hand signal freed Jair’s Watchers to step forward from their marble columns.

  Rani could not make out their faces inside their black cowls; rather, she could only watch as two black-robed figures approached each of the accused. A pair flanked the queen, ready to lay hands on royal flesh, but King Shanoranvilli finally broke his silence. “No, son. You go too far.”

  Hal stared at his father solemnly, pity deep in his eyes, and he gave a tight nod to Felicianda’s Watchers. “Don’t let her move,” he instructed, and the two figures drew closer, even as the queen raised her imperious chin. Before she could speak, Hal glanced at his pale younger brother. “Him, too.” Bashi started to protest his innocence, but Hal ignored the prince, gesturing tightly with his hand.

  No one dared to breathe in the chamber, in the instant after the command. Then, the audience hall was filled with the sound of ripping fabric. Rani whirled about, staggering in her iron chains, as first Bardo’s arm was bared, then Salina’s snake-encircled calf. Even as the assembly gaped at the writhing snakes on the naked traitors’ flesh, Larindolian fought for freedom, twisting beneath his captors’ hands as if he were a fish on a line. The black-robed figures moved in an intricate ballet, though, and in a few heartbeats the chamberlain had been bared to his smallclothes. The snakes that twined about his chest were all the more fierce for his flushed skin, for the rage that made him pant, made the serpents writhe like living beings.

>   Even Halaravilli was unnerved by the spectacle, by the nest of serpents that seemed to engulf the lord chamberlain. When the prince could find his voice, he turned to his father. “My lord,” Hal’s voice was respectful, even as it was filled with awe, “As Chief Inquisitor, I present to you five traitors, members of the so-called Brotherhood of Justice.”

  King Shanoranvilli seemed almost not to hear his son. The old man stared in amazement at his chamberlain, steadfastly avoiding any other sight in the room - Bardo or Salina or Bashanorandi, or, especially, Queen Felicianda. When he finally spoke, his voice was old and tired. “And Lord Chief Inquisitor, what sentence would you have me pass?”

  Hal did not hesitate; he knew the rules. “Death is the sentence for all traitors. Let these mongrel dogs hang by their necks on a slow rope, until they are dead, and then let their bodies be cast into an earthen grave, denied forever the purification of the pyre.”

  Felicianda gasped, drawing all eyes in the chamber as she fell to her knees, ignoring the black-robed figures around her. “My lord, I beg of you! Prince Bashanorandi is not one of us! He does not bear our mark of the snakes! He is innocent in all that has happened.”

  The queen’s plea crumpled Shanoranvilli’s face, and Rani realized that until then, the king had held out hopes that he could save Felicianda, that he could spare the woman he loved. Her cry, though, amounted to a confession, and the king merely shook his head in wordless sorrow. With difficulty, he whispered to his loyal son, “Your words are harsh, Lord Chief Inquisitor.”

  “My words are fair, Your Majesty. Death has always been the sentence for traitors. These folk knew that when they first nestled the snake to their breasts. They knew it when they plotted against the crown. They knew it when they murdered my brother, your son, when they planned to murder me and set my brother Bashanorandi on your throne, perhaps even before you were ready to leave it.”