Orison sighed, a long, shuddery kind of thing. "You understand what I do," she said, "as far as our mission is concerned. I do not see why anything else matters. But I understand that you will not let this go."

She had to rearrange herself to begin talking. "I do not know if I know where to begin. I was born in the capital to two immigrants. I still do not know where my parents came from, but they brought my two elder brother from there. My sisters and I are identical triplets. We were very, very poor," she explained. "We starved as children. That is why I am so small now, I believe. We are all very small now. Our parents died when we were young, of some disease, or something else. We know not. We all worked so much." She offered him her hand, not to hold, but to see the collection of scars she had amassed from the various jobs she had worked as a child. Much of her childhood had been spent helping farmers.

"Somehow, it fell to me to be the head of the household. My sisters and I, when nothing else could be done, worked . . . on the streets. Many men will pay for a young girl. I learned to steal things, as well. Pickpocketing, at first, and then stealing from people's homes. This continued for quite a while."

She had to take a few moments to get herself together, to remember what had happened. "One of my brothers was killed. By me. I killed him. He liked to hit my sisters and I, and . . . do things to us."

"I learned poisons. It was a time of misery and sickness and starvation, all of my childhood. But later, when I was on my own, I met another thief. We worked so well together, as partners." She did not have to say that they had been more than partners, that they had been very in love; the tone of her voice had changed and she looked, if possible, even more sad.

Orison sighed, again. "We had broken into a nobleman's treasury and . . . something went wrong. We had to run. We got separated and I have not seen him since; I have no way of finding him and he no way of finding me. I decided that if I were to catch the attention of the Ruler, become Chosen, I would be able to go farther to look for him. That was . . . a while ago. I have not been good at keeping up with how much time has gone by. I have gone many places and done many things for our Ruler."

She did seem very unhappy by the end of her telling. She drained the rest of her mead, then looked Leo dead in the eyes across the table. "Are you happy now?"

Orison tucked her legs up into the chair with her, and had her hands in her lap. "No," she answered, not even bothering to fight him for the information. "And no god led me to where I am."

Orison rolled her eyes. "My skill is not in battle," she said. "I have not fought a beast, but I have fought; I carry a sword. I prefer a bow if I must be in combat." She felt raw on the inside. Sharing was not her thing, especially as it regarded to her past, and bringing up her partner had somehow reopened the wound.

Orison was looking off into the distance again. Sadness had fallen over her, muffling everything else like a blanket over her head. Her exterior, for once, aligned with her interior. All of her posturing and distance seemed to have been scraped away, and left behind was a wafer of a woman who was entirely alone in the world.

Orison blinked several times before she realized that he was talking, and then it took her a moment to understand what he had said. "I . . . I think I do. We are staying here for the night, anyway, right?" She pushed herself to stand and wobbled slightly, almost having to sit back down, but she managed to regain her balance.

"That is why . . . I do not like to talk."

Orison nodded and found their room; she curled up on the bed. She seemed so small and insubstantial, but she would be just fine in the morning. Or at least fine enough to be as she was before.