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PROLOGUE

SHE dreamed

In the vault of heaven spin wheels of gold, winking and dazzling The thruhout creation, so hot and wet that it becomes a haze This mist clears to reveal the toy atop a ht eternally in repose Stone fingers clutch the precious crown, sylea pearl, lapis lazuli, pale sapphire, carnelian, ruby, ee-brown sardonyx

Movelimpse

Villae in his sleep, and smiles

A hand scratches at the door of a hovel woven out of sticks, the one in which Brother Fidelis sheltered As the door opens, the shadow of a ht, his face obscured He is tall and fair-haired, not Brother Fidelis at all Crying out in fear, he runs away as a lion stalks into view

Candlelight illue of a book, his expression calaze intent He follows the streah he does not speak aloud A wind through the openmakes the flame waver and shudder until she sees in that flah

Heresy

She knelt in the place of St Thecla as the holy saint witnessed the cruel punishment meted out by the eainst her authority: The blessed Daisan ascended to the sacrificial platform He was bound onto a bronze wheel Never did his sh the priests flayed the skin fro the elect privileged to witness his death and redemption?

The floodwaters of joy wash back over her to burn her

Is this not the heretical poison introduced into her soul by Hugh’s lies?

Yet what if Hugh isn’t lying? Has he really discovered a suppressed account of the rede

In her confusion, the dreaht

In a high hall burn lamps molded into the shapes of phoenixes Their flaly fixed into their brass tail feathers Here the skopos presides over a synod called to pass judg forbrother Ivar stands boldly at the forefront Who will interrogate theate the church itself? If the Redemption is true, if the blessed Daisan redee lifted bodily into heaven in the Ekstasis while he prayed, then have the church mothers hidden the truth? Or only lost it?

Who is the liar?