“What terms?” Luti asked.
“I’m turning myself in,” Chandra told her. “Once I am in custody, Walbert will withdraw his forces from the mountain.” She looked at Gideon. “Will he keep his word?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, believing him-his promise confirmed what she expected of Walbert from what others had said of the man. Then she said to Mother Luti, “There are no other conditions. The Keralians will not be expected to abide by any terms or rules.”
“Chandra,” Luti said with concern, “are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“I’m sure.” She looked at Gideon. “And I’m ready to leave.”
“No!” Brannon burst into the workshop. “You can’t go!”
Chandra turned around to look at the boy. She should have realized he would eavesdrop. “I have to go,” she said to him. “Mother Luti will explain it to you.”
“Something bad will happen to you there,” Brannon said with certainty.
“Maybe,” she said, “but I have to go.”
“I’m coming with you!”
“No.” She shook her head.
“But you promised! You said that the next time you left, I could come with you.”
“I did not promise,” she said firmly. “Anyway, I feel certain that you’d be very unhappy in the Temple.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t suit people like us,” Chandra said.
The boy looked to Mother Luti for a second opinion, but it was Gideon who spoke. “Chandra’s right. You wouldn’t like it there.”
“You won’t like it there, either,” Brannon said to Chandra.
“No, but that doesn’t matter anymore,” Chandra said. “This is my choice, Brannon.”
He looked angry and sad. “When are you coming back?”
She didn’t answer, not knowing what to say.
“Soon?” he prodded.
“No,” she said truthfully. “I don’t think I’ll be coming back soon.”
Chandra walked through the large front gate and beyond the monastery walls with Gideon at her side. When the gate closed behind them, she let out her breath in a rush.
Her decision was made, accepted, and enacted. She had committed herself to her fate, however unpleasant-and perhaps short-it might be. The Keralians wouldn’t suffer or die the way others had indeed suffered and died because of her. She had prevented it from happening again.
Mother Luti had dealt with Walbert at a distance for years, and she knew his reputation was good, though she disliked what he intended to see in the world. She would not have let Chandra leave if she suspected Walbert of treachery or dishonesty in this matter. And Gideon had said Walbert would keep his word, and Chandra believed him.
Now she stood between the walls of the monastery and the mystical white barrier that had surrounded it for days. Beyond the barrier, a dozen armed soldiers awaited her.
Not quite knowing how to proceed, she glanced at Gideon.
He was looking straight ahead, wearing the impassive expression he relied on when he wanted to conceal things from others.
“Gideon?” she prodded, wondering what to do.
“Walbert asked me to come,” he said quietly, without looking at her, “because he wanted to send someone you couldn’t ambush. In case your offer wasn’t sincere.”
“It is sincere,” she said.
“I know.” Now he looked her at her. “Why?”
She wasn’t going to answer. But then she glimpsed some of the concern that his cool expression masked, and she shrugged. “Ghosts, you might say.”
“Ghosts?”
“I can’t carry any more of them.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“No, I don’t suppose you do.”
Gideon looked ahead again, his gaze on the translucent white barrier that separated them from the soldiers. “I didn’t come to help you get out of this.”
“I didn’t think you had,” she said.
“If you were counting on-”
“I’m not.”
“You’ve made your choice,” Gideon said firmly.
“Yes. And now that I have…” She gestured to the white barrier that separated her and the monastery from the world. “I think it might create the wrong impression if I blasted a fiery hole in this thing. So how do I get through it?”
“Just walk through it,” he said.
“Just…”
“You’ll be fine.”
She shrugged again and walked forward. As soon as she entered the shimmering wall of white, she felt the binding weight of ice surrounding her. She took a breath, trying not to panic or let fire start glowing along her skin in defensive reaction… until the white barrier began collapsing and contracting, moving in on her from all directions with alarming rapidity.
Startled, she called forth fire and tried to blow her way out of the smothering blanket of white that was enfolding her.