For five terrible seconds, Davin Sorell stared at his former student, the storm howling around them like the end of the world. In the master’s eyes, forty years of pride, ambition, and theoretical elegance were fighting against the cold, unbending reality of the mud at his feet.
“If I give you that key, Corvin,” Sorell whispered, his voice trembling with a terror far deeper than the fear of drowning, “then forty years of my life... My books, my lectures, my sister’s monument... It was all nothing. It was all a mistake.”
“It was an error in building, Master,” Corvin answered softly, his voice devoid of hatred or triumph. “And in building, an error isn’t a moral sin. It’s a mistake to be corrected. But leaving that boy to die under that stone so you don’t have to admit you were wrong—that’s a sin that no title will ever wash away.”
From behind the stone stand, young Varo’s voice rose in a weak, agonized sob: “Master Sorell... I told you the bearing was hot... I showed you the bronze filings at dawn... Why wouldn’t you listen?” The words struck Sorell like an iron chisel driven into his chest. The abstraction was gone. The grand royal monument had dissolved into an eighteen-year-old boy bleeding on the flat stone slabs. Slowly, with fingers that shook like dry birch leaves, Davin Sorell reached into his tunic, unhitched the iron counterseal key from his neck chain. Then he held it out in his open palm.
