"I made him do nothing," Whitelock retorted, then his tone softened. "I made thee do nothing. I merely encouraged thee. The choices, the actions, and the consequences thereof, were thine own because thou didst know Windemere threatened Lord British's rule. Threatened thy rule." He nodded, then, as if he had just been firmly convinced of what had been said. "Yes. I think, in time, thou wouldst have done what I had to do in order to have Windemere removed."

"I never would have had Shaana murdered!" Blackthorn roared.

At last, silence took hold of the scribe's artful tongue; vexation knotted his spotted brow. For many minutes, he pondered, fingers interlocked and rubbing against each other. He did not continue until he uttered an embittered sigh. "Yes, that we do believe. The knight, Shaana, was thy light, thy guide. Even when she was absent, lost in the Underworld, thou wouldst have done anything for her. And thou wilt do anything for her, I think, even though her body rots as we speak. Yes, I fear that when thou dost make decisions, thou wilt certainly consider what she would have said to thee if she were still alive." His lone eye contorted with frustration. "That, unfortunately, is most disturbing. It means there is someone else with thee, like I was once—like I am—someone still capable of love, hope, and forgiveness. Someone of which we are not aware." The rest of his features contorted, and now it seemed as if all his face suffered from his disfigurement. "And we wonder where that person is hiding," he hissed. "We wonder what that person is hiding."

We. The scribe spoke of others, but the introspection in his hideous whispers suggested those others were certainly not men, certainly not real except, perhaps, within the scribe's own mind. "Thou art insane," said Blackthorn.

"No!" The scribe pounded the desk, raised himself to his feet, shouting. "I am not the one who is insane! Dost thou still not understand who I am?"

Blackthorn's accusation, as quiet as it was, rebounded across the chamber as if shouted in a canyon. "Thou art my father!"

Once again, the scribe did not respond while he thought. "No," Whitelock said at last. "That is what thou dost wish to believe, what thou hast always wanted to believe, ever since we first peered at each other within the chamber of the shards." He brought his hand his chest, held it against the red slash. "Look down and see into thy heart."

A part of Blackthorn resisted, refused to take his eyes from the scribe. Nevertheless, his gaze traveled down to his own chest, froze with his breath, boiled with his mind. He had not felt the cut, sharp as it was to have sliced cleanly through his armor, a diagonal slash that mirrored the wound he had given the scribe. He noticed his gloved fingers touch the rivulets of thickening blood. Slowly the wound began to burn, a slight tingle from barely a scratch. The scribe was right; the stroke had been masterful.

Whitelock was speaking, his speech distant, hollow, rising from the depths as if Blackthorn listened to him from within a gigantic amphitheater. "Thy father died when thou didst let him burn at thy mother's grave," he said. "Oh, thou hast always dreamt that thou hadst carried him from those flames, that thou didst hide him away within the halls of Empath Abbey. 'Tis what you want to believe and 'tis the only way thou canst explain what has happened to thee since then." The scribe's voice grew merciless. "But I assure thee that it is not thy father who is responsible for thy current actions, nor Britannia's current state of affairs." Now the words arrived as if the scribe spat them from a just hand's length away, and they were full of malice, disgust. "Thou didst do nothing the day that thy father died. Did nothing but watch." He pointed to his hairline, where his father had possessed that white lock of hair. "Watched as that last spark ignited the oil upon his brow—" The scribe's finger trailed down the ruins of his flesh. "Watched as the fire first burned across his face, then fully consumed him." He backed away. Somehow the crown had appeared in his hands. "All because thou didst believe that Windemere's family and Lord British were right about the Windmere's death sentence, and that thy father was wrong." The crown dropped, clattered upon the floor, spun round and round. "Now, thou hast disposed of both. And soon, thee and I will no longer need to fight against one another. We will be one again, and we will no longer need to worry about what has been hidden."