He paused. Hansherat supposed he was remembering strange and terrible things from long ago, which even he could not bring himself to describe. “This wasn’t even my quarrel, you know,” he said at last, shuffling closer to the fire. “One of those within me, Balredon or Tannivar, one of them—they can still hide secrets from me—someone made an enemy, who was aligned with another, who betrayed a third. It goes on and on. I think you know this already. Whenever a sorcerer is killed, the slain one becomes part of the slayer. Thus we devour one another, filling ourselves with the souls and memories of our victims. Sometimes, for a sorcerer, death is a kind of escape, as it was for my own father, when he induced me to murder him. He hoped to hide from his enemies in the body of his own son. That wa
