Page 110 of Scorched Earth

“The same way I overcome any urge. Willpower. Morality. Dedication to the Six.”

So it was as simple as that. Lydia’s shoulders slumped with the confirmation of what she’d suspected in her heart. There was no trick, no technique, no skill to be learned. She succumbed to the Corrupter because she didn’t have the willpower to overcome her own urges. Because she was weak. Tears welled in her eyes, and Lydia scrubbed them away furiously.

Ceenah kept circling the fountain, only its music breaking the silence between them until she said, “There is a reason why the Corrupter made the keeping of stolen life the sweetest of pleasures. Temptation is his weapon, and he wields it with a mastery very fewcan resist. That is why it is taught that the corrupted have a separate mark, not that they were marked by Hegeria and turned to darkness. It is easy to resist temptation when you do not realize it exists. Except it does leave Hegeria’s marked woefully unprepared if they stumble across that line. Which is why in Anukastre, we teach our children the truth. Teach them how to be strong. How to be true to the Six, and to themselves. Most choose never to cross the line, for it is also easier to resist a temptation you’ve never tasted.”

Lydia knew the taste far too well. “But some cross the line? Like yourself.”

“Yes.”

“Do… do many of them succumb?”

“Yes. And they are executed.”

Lydia closed her eyes, knowing the question that was coming.

“Have you crossed the line, Lydia of Mudamora?” The cold blade of Ceenah’s sword pressed against her throat. “Have you succumbed?”

Lie lie lie!“Yes.”

Lydia squeezed her hands into fists, waiting for the cruel slice of the blade that would end her life, but Ceenah lowered her sword. “Only you fought back to yourself, which means you are strong indeed.”

Her eyes shot open. “But—”

“I return to my first question,” Ceenah interrupted. “Why do you wish to know how to take life without keeping it? Why not instead ask how to avoid taking it at all?”

“Because I want to be able to defend myself and my friends,” Lydia answered. “I have little martial skill, but my mark is as dangerous as any blade. If I could use it as you do, I’d be a different sort of warrior.”

“You speak the truth.” Ceenah’s fingers flexed on the grip of her sword. “Yet not the whole truth.”

“That is the whole truth!” Her frustration was rising on a tide of anger because she’d already confessed so much. Yet it wasn’t enough. “That is the reason. I want to be strong but not at the sake of my soul. I don’t want to be used but I also don’t want to use others. What more is there to say?”

“You tell me.”

Lydia’s anger was taking over, and the ever-present darkness that lurked within her was using it to rip down the walls of her control, the Corrupter’s voice whispering up out of the darkness. “I want to be strong enough that the Corrupter can’t control me. Can’t make me serve his will.”

“None of the gods can control you,” Ceenah said. “None of them make you serve their will, least of allhim.”

That wasn’t true. She could hear him, hear his cursed voice whispering for her to take, to kill, to revel in the strength of stolen life.

Understanding struck her like a slap to the face. It wasn’t the Corrupter’s voice she heard in her thoughts.

It was her own.

“I want to be master of myself,” she blurted out. “I want to be in control of myself. Not by hiding from what I’m capable of, but by using my power on terms I can live with.”

“Good,” Ceenah said. “Then let me teach you how.”

41LYDIA

“Ceenah says she won’t teach me with so many vulnerable people within reach,” Lydia told Killian the moment she returned to their room. “She plans to travel with us and teach me on the road, because we’ll be surrounded by those who can stop me, like you and Xadrian.”

Killian stared at her, then said, “It seems like a good way to get yourself killed. All it takes is one slipup, and either Xadrian or one of his soldiers will cut off your head. I already have enough problems keeping Agrippa from killing you.”

“Agrippa isn’t going to kill me.”

“I might,” came a muffled response through the wall, and Killian cursed and kicked at the bed frame. Then cursed again, this time in pain, because the bed frame was made of stone.

Lydia crossed her arms. “I want to learn from her, Killian. I need to. If this is the risk, I accept it. It’s my decision.”