Chapter 4: The Test

Sister Wenna Hallow stood in the Citadel yard with a templar captain at her shoulder.

She looked ten years older than the last time Isabeau had seen her.

She had taught Isabeau her letters when she was nine.

She had braided her hair for the Feast of Ashes, and told her every night that the Flame was a gift, not a leash.

Now Wenna looked at the king's soldiers on the walls, and at Isabeau coming down the steps, and her mouth went thin.

"Saintess," she said.

"Sister."

"The High Priest sends his blessing. He asks me to see with my own eyes that you're alive, and that you are still what you were."

The captain's hand rested on his sword.

He was a young man with a hard jaw, and he was staring at the king's horns.

Veyron stood behind Isabeau, two steps back, in full armor again with his gloves on.

He hadn't said a word since the gate.

"Test me," Isabeau said.

Her heart was pounding so loudly she could hear it.

Wenna nodded toward the doorway of the guard house.

"There's a man inside. One of ours, taken in the assault. They say he won't last the hour."

He lay on a pallet, a templar boy with a belly wound packed in black blood.

His lips were grey.

Isabeau knelt and put both hands on him, and she was afraid.

She had woken in terror, certain this was the moment her power would go out.

She let the Flame go.

It did not go out.

It roared.

White light shot from her palms and filled the guard house, climbing the walls.

The boy on the pallet arched and screamed and then went completely still.

When it died down, he was sitting up.

His skin was pink.

His belly was smooth and clean, with no wound on it at all.

He looked at Isabeau with his mouth open, and then he began to weep and say the Flame's name over and over.

The captain had gone white to the roots of his hair.

Wenna didn't move.

She was staring at Isabeau's hands, and the light was still pouring off her fingers in slow, warm ripples.

"Isabeau," she said quietly. "Are you untouched?"

Every eye in the yard was on her.

The king, and the captain, and every demon on the wall.

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