Solaris? She had been in his head, but had she been there, physically there? Vkandis? He felt that warmth like a distant hum, and awoke.

Karal? He heard Herald Mage Vanyel's voice in his head, as the mage sent him a mind-image of the cell that held them.

Karal shuddered, because he did know, from a faint memory of his early childhood, that they were in the Cell of Sacrifice— located under the temple, it held special enemies to Karse, enemies that would be denounced in a public ceremony before being executed—or as the priests put in, in the midst of their blood magic, "sacrificed."

The amount of pain it caused Vkandis to have such things happen in his name, Karal knew well. Plus that he, though a God, was so weakened as to be powerless to stop it.

A thought struck Karal, that despite the common superstitions he had grown up with— that the Heralds of Valdemar were demons— that he could recall no great love for the brutality of the Sunpriests, for their kidnapping and murder of children, cursed though they might be. No matter what justifications the priests used to give, a cursed, or gifted child still was someone's child, loved or missed.

As he told Vanyel they were below the temple, he added, "And we are near the village of Borderhame. It's about a half day's walk."

Vanyel tried to work out why the Karsite said this, why it mattered.

"I think Vkandis wants me to start a revolution," Karal said, "and I wish I knew just the first step of figuring out how."

Meanwhile, back at the border, Tylendel was interrogating the prisoners as he usually did, but he was doing it without Vanyel — Vanyel, who had been captured and tortured by these people.

"Where is he?" He screamed at the next one. The bodies of the previous three lay nearby.

"I don't know, Lord Herald," the older man replied, shaking, in Karsite, which Tylendel, through his long experience at the border, understood well.

The man had to be nearing 60, and Tylendel, out of respect for his own father, who had been murdered in his youth, could not bring himself to treat him as he had the others. "And where are you from, to not know the local area?"

The man paused. "You would destroy my home if I told you. You'd kill my children— my grandchildren."

"Kill your grandchildren?" Tylendel scoffed. "I'm a Herald of Valdemar, and you believe I will kill your grandchildren?" The older man looked at the bodies slumped next to him. At one in particular. "You have killed my cousin's friend already. "As bloody, as brutal as they are, if what the priests say is true…" He trailed off crying, for he also remembered children the priests had killed, toddling, playing with dolls and toys.

"I give you my word," said Tylendel, "that if you win me the support of your settlement, not only will I not harm your grandchildren, I will prevent anyone from hurting them, to the best of my power."

The older man considered himself a good judge of personality. He had lived a long life, and would have died long ago if his judgment had been weak. And so though he knew it could be a death sentence, he trusted the instinct of a moment. "I'm from Borderhame," he said. It's the Karsite town closest to Valdemar, and perhaps we have seen more of you Heralds than most. So many of our young men have been conscripted as soldiers. Do you understand what you've done?"

And the hatred of Karsites that always prevented Tylendel from feeling guilt when he executed prisoners dissolved enough that for an instant, he could barely stand to be within his own mind. "I'm sorry," he said, choking with tears as he looked at the lifeless face of this man's cousin's friend.