[63]

My nameday is on day 339. I turned twenty-three. I got presents. We were back to having no money—even Tara, whose thirty-six thousand vik I knew were hidden in a drawer in Isela's office, waiting for her to be released from her vows. So they were mostly small things. Like half a tube of lipstick that I liked, secured by Hana, and a winter wreath that she had made. Tara had traded some of her jewelry (which technically belonged to everyone, but which everyone knew we would all let her take with her when she left us) for a set of fierce little spike earrings that she knew I would like (which technically still belonged to everyone). There was a pressed flower from Superior Isela, left over from the fall, and her simple statement, "Well done this year, Marisa. Very well done."

Palatine Elin surprised me by giving me sole use of her excellent-quality writing kit for the next few months. I had no idea why, then, but now it's obvious enough she had predicted what you would demand of me.

Wessex didn't visit himself, but he sent a gift, a slim envelope that I was initially half hopeful and half afraid would contain another stack of cash. It didn't, though. There was just a pict of Castor, Adem, Mak'ti, and Wessex, dressed as they did off-duty—and what looked like me, Hana, Tara, and Verity, armed for war, visors down. We were in a room that I had never seen before. Except for Mak'ti, every figure was posed like we were doing a not-entirely-appropriate dance. Hana confirmed that she had no memory of such an event, so it wasn't just me having forgotten.

Tara took it. She used both hands and propped her arm-brace clad elbows on her knees, which is what she does now when she wants to keep something from shaking. After a few seconds, she started to laugh. "It's not us," she said, laughing. "It's the decoys from Karsmire! The Daughters of Mak'ti!"

The pict has been taped inside of Palatine Elin's writing kit ever since. She will see the pict when I finish this report and give the writing kit back. I hope I get to see the look on her face.

❖ ❖ ❖

​

Your orders for me reached the Order of the Riven Veil on day 341. Elin gave them to me. I couldn't understand the reasoning behind them.

"I know why I must write about the operations," I said. "That part makes sense. For the continued fight against the Sanctifying Truth, yes?"

"I believe so, yes."

"I don't understand the rest. How could I possibly be a Throne Agent? That's Wessex. And that woman, Sandal. I have no knowledge of those arts."

"Not all Throne Agents are analysts, managers, or spies," Elin said. "If the Inquisitor wants you, it's as a rifleman, at least in part. Maybe a rifleman who can be trained as something else. But a rifleman first."

"Ah. Then… I can do it, at least. I'm capable of it." I shook my head. I looked over the orders again. "It doesn't say I'm commanded to be a Throne Agent. Just to make this long report. To submit myself to assessment for the role. I have to do that, yes?"

"Of course. The full history, starting on 110. Everything you can think of. Especially everything of personal, religious, or intellectual significance."

I grimaced. I quoted, "'Holding nothing too private.'"

If you were not an Inquisitor, I would have said you had no right. Instead I said, "I wish I could do anything else. I don't even know how. The longest thing I have ever written is a standard operations report."

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"You must do it," she said. She said it not without sympathy, but neither with any willingness to bend. "You will lay your soul bare, and let yourself be judged. I will intercede for you, if I must, if some fault is found."

"What can you do? What can anyone do against an Inquisitor?"

"I can be a little stone that will not move without starting an avalanche. But first you will obey. Pick up your pen and try. Be honest. Use resources wherever you can. You will have an Inquisitor's authority behind your research efforts. We have your helmet pictoria from all your missions. Find transcripts for what you cannot remember. Ask others who were there. Pray. The words will come."

I bowed. I promised that I would obey. But by then my thoughts had already begun to turn to Grendel and to Wessex. I had not turned my mind to judging them, before. Who was I to judge such men? But now I had to face being asked to become such a woman. Not a borrowed warrior to be used as a weapon in an Inquisitor's hand, but an Agent in my own right.

I had been in awe of Grendel, from the moment I met him until days after his death. The force of his personality, his intellect, the strange humility that attended his total confidence in his own absolute authority. And other things that I do not have the words to give to this page. He was like a hero from a myth.

And Wessex was brilliant, and clever. His mind was subtle and swift. He had seen the way to the Eldar through a few wrong bacteria in the wrong place. He had unspooled conspiracies I couldn't even comprehend.

And both of them were good. Genuinely good. They were fighting for humanity, and for individual human people. And for virtue against sin, life against death, mercy against horror. I can't even guess how many evils Grendel defeated or how many people he saved. The galaxy lost much when he died.

It is that goodness that terrifies me. Even now, with all the advantage of time, with all the documents before me and all my memories collected here, I cannot explain why their actions were anything but good. Even when they chose to let innocents die, or ruined lives without justice, or celebrated past evil when it led to present good.

Since before I became a novice, I have prayed Mina's rite. It has been my shelter in the deepest horror of my life. I pray it right now, as I am writing the end of this long, long report.

Help me to honor the martyr, tend the fallen, defend the innocent, and walk in the light.

I think how easy it would be to give it up. Not for evil, but for a kind of almost-good that thinks,

Help me to honor the most martyrs I can, though I must dishonor martyrs to do it.

Help me to tend as many fallen as I can, though I cast some down to die.

Help me defend as many innocents as I can, as I choose to kill a few.

Help me as I walk in darkness, to make it as brief as it may be.

I think that prayer was Grendel's life. I think it is Wessex's, whether or not he ever speaks the words.

I do not call it evil. I dare not even call it unnecessary. But it makes my skin crawl to think how easily I could make it my own.

❖ ❖ ❖

​

I began writing my report to you the next day, in the hours allocated to me out of those normally dedicated to Studies, Specialization Block, and Labor. It has taken fifty standard days.