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my shoes with reluctance, and the priest had to help me with the buckles, for I could not cease marveling at their complexity. I gazed wondering at his deft fingers, at the cords of blue silk that secured his head-piece against the coarse black of his tight-curled hair. “Holy to Adonai.” Such contrasts of color, of texture!
    At the temple door, he paused and took my upturned face in his hands. I closed my eyes as he kissed my brow, knowing it for kinship, for blessing, for forgiveness. This was not my place, and Adonai was not my God. All of this, I knew.
    It was a grave trust I had been given.
    I prayed I would be worthy of it.
    With that, the priest released me and opened the temple door. Sunlight streamed across the threshold, and the Name surged within me at the sight of so much brightness, ringing in my head with clarion tones.
    I shut my teeth hard on it and stepped into the dazzling light. The sky, so blue! And the bushes! Never had I seen such green. I could see every leaf, sharp-edged; I could sense their roots, rustling in the dry soil.
    And the people; oh, Elua, the people.
    Joscelin, wild-eyed, leapt to his feet. All I could do was stare at him, dumbstruck. Every line, every plane of him was writ in an alphabet of flesh and bone, spelling out love. How had I never seen it? And Imriel, at his side-a tangled knot of fear and need, achingly vulnerable. It made my heart ache to look upon him.
    “Do you have it?” Joscelin asked, half-dreading my answer. “Did you succeed?”
    I nodded, the Name of God lodged in the throat like a stone.
    “Can you ... can you speak?” he asked.
    “I’m not sure,” I whispered.
    In three swift strides, Joscelin reached me and swept me into a crushing embrace, raining kisses on my face. I clung to him, then kissed him hard, to make sure I still could. Fear left him in a shudder when I let him go. I knelt, then, and opened my arms to Imriel. He flung himself in them and caught me about the neck in a choke-hold, burying his face against my neck.
    “I was scared, Phèdre. I didn’t know what would happen.”
    “Neither did I, Imri,” I murmured. “Neither did I.”
    “What happens now?” It was Joscelin who spoke, and it was the Sabaeans he addressed, a hard edge to his voice. I straightened beside him.
    They had put off their helmets and laid their shields aside during the long wait-and it must have been long, for the sun, I perceived, was nigh overhead. Hanoch ben Hadad looked at me with a mix of awe and disbelief.
    “You have beheld the Sacred Name?” he asked.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “How do we know this is so?”
    I had no answer. I merely gazed at him, while the Name of God echoed like thunder in my thoughts, welling up to fill my mouth until I dared not utter a word. Across the clearing, the priest of Aaron’s line stood in the temple doorway watching gravely, gems flashing across his gold-plated breast, gold at his brow, bare feet on the earthen floor.
    “Hanoch,” one of the soldiers said, trembling. “Hanoch, there is a brightness upon her face. I am afraid. Ask no more.”
    “ Why ?” The Sabaean captain’s voice rose in a rage. “After so long, why you ?”
    And that, too, I could not answer. Had I dared, I might have said that it was no curse, no wrath of god that had bound them for centuries, but only fear and guilt. The priest knew it. How many others before him had known? But no one had dared to ask the voiceless. And I-this was not my place, and Adonai was not my God. I could not answer for Him to the Sabaeans. They must ask Him themselves. What was entrusted to me served only one purpose. Aught else would be a transgression.
    “Lady.” It was a young soldier who stepped forward, his bronze helmet under his arm, his eyes soft and wondering. “I am Eshkol ben Avidan, and I am not afraid. I am sorry we sought to detain you. If you will it, we will take you to Tisaar. And there, I think, you may go free, although it is not my place to assure it.”
    “Eshkol!” ben Hadad hissed. “It is insubordination you speak!”
    “No, captain,” the soldier said politely. “It is, I think, wisdom.”
    In the temple doorway, the priest smiled.
    “Yes, my lord soldier,” I said, swallowing against the insistent pressure of the Name. “If you will take us, we will go.”

Seventy-Eight
    IT WAS a long journey back to Tisaar, and a strange one. I sat silent for most of it, learning how to breathe and think with the awesome presence of the Name