understand this, so I will answer no other questions about it.
“Your mother was a slave of your temple. I did not ‘see’ her before she had been
enslaved. I could see her only because she was kept drugged and they had cut out
her tongue; your hierarchy feared her. She was raped by your father and did not
bear you with joy. She willed her own death.”
Torchholder ran his fingers through his beard. The S’danzo was disturbed by what
she had seen: slavery, mutilation, rape and birth-death. He was concerned by
what it had to mean.
“Did you see her? See her as mortal eyes would have seen her?” he asked, holding
his breath.
Illyra let hers out slowly. “She was not like other women, Lord Hierarch. She
had no hair-but a crown of black feathers covering her head and arms, like
wings, instead.”
The vision came clear to him: a Nisi witch. His elders had dared much more than
he had imagined possible; Stormbringer’s warning and Ischade’s whispers made
chilling sense to him now. Vashanka’s priests had dared to bring witch-blood to
the god. His mouth hung open.
“I will hear no other questions, priest,” Illyra warned.
He fished out a fresh-minted gold coin from his purse and laid it on her table.
“I do not want any more answers, My Lady,” he told her as he entered the
sunlight again.
The difference between priests and practitioners of all other forms of magecraft
was more than philosophical. Yet both sides agreed the mortal shell of mankind
could not safely contain an aptitude for communicative-that is, priestly-power,