Shani Venn was found in the kitchen.
She was not in a secret room, a temple or beside the Empty Throne, but at a long kitchen table. Shani was cutting black bread for the younger maids and listening as two girls argued over who should carry water to Lissa's wing.
When Elian entered, everyone fell silent.
Shani did not bow. She merely laid the knife on the table.
"If you've come to pay for me again, Your Highness, I'll hide in the oven."
"The oven is small."
"I'm a maid. We know how to take up very little room."
Tavel coughed softly. He was carrying three books and one blank tablet. Miran stood by the door, watching the corridor. Her rank as a guard had been taken from her, but the habits remained.
Elian looked at Shani.
"You always saved Lissa."
Shani blinked.
"That sounds like an accusation."
"It isn't. It's what the books say."
Tavel laid the books on the table. In the first, Shani was a little laundry helper who led Lissa out of a burning wing. In the second, she was a stableman's daughter who switched a cup containing a sleeping draught. In the third, she was a nameless girl by the window who stopped the princess from opening Savern's letter.
In every Draft Shani had a different background and a different position, but she invariably saved Lissa.
The maid studied the pages for a long time.
"I'm not that good a person," she said at last.
Miran snorted.
Tavel almost smiled.
Elian said:
"Then it isn't about what sort of person you are."
Shani looked up.
"What is it about?"
He remembered the king's voice: the world cannot remember everyone.
"The choice you make before you have time to be afraid."
Shani said nothing.
Tavel turned the blank tablet over.
"There is something else."
Lines emerged on the tablet. They appeared slowly, like breath misting glass:
Shani Venn.
Shani Venn.
Shani Venn.
The name appeared again and again. The handwriting changed. The law changed. The place changed. But the name remained whole.
"Why?" Shani asked.
Tavel looked at Elian.
Elian had already understood the answer.
"Because no one tried to turn you into a symbol," Elian said. "The nobility argued over blood, Savern over order, my father with the Throne. But each time you saw someone in trouble beside you and helped them."
Shani said quietly:
"That doesn't sound like power."
"It does."
He said it with certainty, though he himself had learnt the truth about his past only a few hours ago.
The system responded:
"A name unchanged in every Draft has been found. Current Draft stability reduced."
The spoons on the kitchen tables trembled and chimed. The fire in the oven dwindled. For a moment the walls darkened, while the floor sank and immediately returned to its place.
Nim Arg stood by the window.
Amid the bread, smoke, onion skins and frightened maids, the Corrector looked more out of place than ever.
Miran drew her blade.
Nim did not look at her.
"An exchange," he said.
His voice was level, without age or sex.
Elian already knew he was about to hear something worse than a threat.
"Shani Venn is erased from every Draft. Orm Hal is restored as a witness of the formula."
No one in the kitchen moved.
Orm could prove the order had been forged and force the Council to submit to its own formula. Without his testimony before the joint Council of every Draft, Elian's truth would once again remain nothing but an accusation.
Shani clutched the bread knife and looked at Elian.
"No," Elian said.
Nim turned his smooth face towards him.
"Orm is more useful."
"I know."
"With Orm, you are closer to victory."
"I know."
"Shani Venn does not change the law."
Elian looked at the maid.
"She does."
And for the first time he spoke the rule aloud not as a conjecture, but as a defence:
"A person named before a witness ceases to be an emptiness to the Empty Throne."
Tavel's head came up.
Miran repeated it quietly, taking care to memorise the exact wording:
"Named before a witness."
Shani whispered:
"Am I a witness?"
Elian answered:
"You were the first."
Nim took a step.
Cups began to vanish from the tables. They did not fall or break, but disappeared as though they had never been brought into the kitchen. The maidservants cried out. One forgot why she was holding a jug. Another looked at Shani and frowned, unable to remember her friend's name.
Elian spoke more loudly:
"Shani Venn."
Miran joined him:
"Shani Venn."
"Shani Venn," Tavel repeated hoarsely.
Three people repeated the name, and the erasure stopped. The maidservants recognised Shani again, and the vanished cups began to reappear on the tables.
Nim stopped.
The system responded:
"Protective rule partially confirmed. Orm Hal remains unavailable until the next Draft."
Shani looked at him.
"You refused to bring Orm back for my sake."
"No."
"I will not surrender a living person even for a useful witness."
Open in the reader