"Sophia Herman," said Hercio Herman.
He said it the way a man reads a charge sheet, and the expression that came with it filled her with dread.
She clutched Seesan and steeled herself. Remember what he is, she told herself. A villain. A man who abandoned his own blood over money.
She held out the necklace.
"My mother told me," she said, "to go to the Hermans with this."
Ian looked at the necklace in her small hand. "And your mother?"
Hercio took the locket and turned it, watching the light move inside the stone, while Sophia explained that her late mother's dying will had been for her to find the Herman family.
She smiled, relieved she had got the words out in the right order.
Somewhere behind her, a voice wondered aloud what kind of fool would ever believe a story like that.
Hercio looked at her with complete, unembarrassed scepticism.
Huh? She was genuinely shocked by how blatant the disbelief was.
A brown-haired aide stepped forward and received his order: take the child to the temple tomorrow and verify her sanctification.
Hercio's hand closed tight around the necklace. For a moment something uncertain passed over his face. Then it was gone, and a cruel glint took its place, because it hardly mattered either way — she would not be leaving this palace alive.
His aide questioned the harshness of that.
Hercio summoned the Shadow Knight Order.
Hearing the name, Sophia had a sudden and unwelcome realisation. She had come here thoughtlessly. A letter and a necklace. That was all the proof she had brought against a family that killed people for a living.
Hercio ordered his men to watch her.
She studied him from under her lashes. She didn't resemble the cruel old man at all, she decided. Not one line of him. Everything would be all right, she told herself, and then doubt got its fingers under the edge of that.
I'm really Sophia Herman, right?
The myth of the Torantis Empire began with a woman from the south.
She was a warrior. She founded a country, unified the continent, and her son became the first emperor of Torantis. In that same age the divine empire was created by a saintess, and the Torantis Empire was blessed by God. With the warrior and the saintess standing together, Mnemosyne, the god of memory, was accepted as the state religion.
Since then, every newborn of the imperial family and of the aristocracy has been obliged to receive the ceremony of sanctification.
The ceremony engraves a unique mark on the soul, one for each family, and priests with divine power can tell those marks apart.
Sophia sat by the window and worked it through. If she was the real Sophia Herman, then the mark of sanctification would still be there in her soul. Nothing she had done in two lifetimes could have scratched it off.
Hercio watched her from across the room.
The next day she was extremely sleepy. She complained inwardly that nobody could be expected to sleep with two guards and their scary eyes on her all night long.
The carriage left at dawn. She wondered whether the quiet departure meant the day's business was a state secret, and then a more horrifying possibility arrived: they were being secretive so that they could kill her without witnesses, if she turned out to be a fake.
She glanced nervously out of the carriage window. Hercio said nothing at all. His stern expression never moved.
At the temple a priest and another man came out to greet them, and the priest offered to escort her inside.
Sophia walked in, a small figure with the shadows of large men falling over her.
A priest stood before a font of blue flame. "Come forward, and I will confirm the trace of sanctification."
Resigned, she thought that it was hardly a big deal. If she wasn't the real one, she would simply die again. It would be the third time. One got used to things.
As his hand reached for her, she decided that if this was the moment that decided her fate, and if she died again here, she would spend her final breath cursing the bastard in heaven — the one-eyed deity up there in the stained glass, looking down at all of it.
"Congratulations, Your Highness," said the brown-haired man in the formal tunic. "You have found your granddaughter at last."
The blonde girl's eyes snapped open, bright with glee. Look at that, she told the man who had abandoned her, somewhere down inside herself. The granddaughter has been found.
On a bench in the temple sat a stern white-haired man with a goatee, a dark-haired attendant standing behind him. Her voice went on echoing in his mind while his face stayed stone. She was in his care now. He accepted it.
"Notify the palace," he said. "And the council."
"Yes, Your Highness."
A faint smile touched his mouth, and he admitted to himself, privately, that he had not felt this glad in years.
A kind-faced maid introduced herself as Sylvie and led the young miss to her new room. She apologised as she opened the door — it was only a temporary arrangement, and rather shabby, she was afraid.
Sophia stood in the doorway, dumbfounded. The room was rose-toned and opulent from the ceiling down. This was the absolute best room she had ever stood in. Shabby. Certainly.
The lavish life kept coming. A grand meal. A beautiful new dress from Janette. A fancy beverage in a glass so thin it seemed like a dare.
Cuddling her teddy bear afterwards, Sophia decided contentedly that her true calling in this world was to be a rich, unemployed bum.
Then she was offered a bottle of high-grade perfume oil, and the scent stopped her where she sat, because it was near enough to the perfume Monica used.
Sylvie began to brush her hair. Sophia's expression turned pensive, and she fell silent.
A dark memory went through her — villagers ambushed by magic beasts, a bloody hand lying on the ground, her own terror closing her throat.
She forced a smile back onto her face. Forget it. That was the past, and this time she was going to live well.
Her resolve hardened while Sylvie pinned up her hair. She scolded herself for drifting. Survival first, always, and her survival was called Sophia Herman now.
She looked around the beautiful room and made her vow to it: enjoy this new reality, cure the illness, and make a great deal of money.
"I have to be happy in this life," she announced, full of purpose. "Sylvie, could I have some snacks?"