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times had she argued for the importance of their lives, for the value of all life?
    Was hers not just as important? Was her own life to be so carelessly, so foolishly, thrown away? Was she not going to fight for the right to her own life as she had fought for others?
    She remembered telling Tilly that every life was precious. This was her only life and, despite her crushing agony, her life was precious to her. In her grief, she had allowed herself to be blind to that.
    As if coming out of a fog, she realized, too, that there were things going on that didn’t make sense. There had to be more to everything that had happened than she was seeing. Why had Baraccus killed himself? What had been his purpose? Who was he protecting? For what had he traded his life?
    She suddenly regretted thinking that she wanted to die, regretted being up on that wall. In fact, it now seemed to her as if she had somehow arrived at that spot in a dream.
    As much as she hurt, she wanted to live.
    But she was already moving too fast to stop, already flying out toward empty space.

Chapter 7
     
     
    Magda’s fingers clawed frantically at the stone to each side, but it wasn’t enough to halt her momentum. She swept out through the opening in the battlement toward the terrifying drop, with a scream caught in her throat.
    Just as she lost her footing going over the brink of the stone wall, a powerful gust of wind rising up the side of the mountain caught her body, lifting some of her weight as she snatched at the wall to each side and helping her get herself back to solid footing. The push from the wind coming up the mountain had been just the help she needed to stop herself from going over the edge.
    As she started to fall back toward the Keep, her left hand came up off the wall and she wheeled that arm in the air, trying to maintain her balance. As she toppled back, she grabbed at the wall to the right side and caught a joint of stone blocks. With the help of her grip on that joint, she was able to hold on tight enough to get her balance and keep herself from falling back off the wall. Finally solidly back on her feet, she let out a deep, frightened sigh. She knew that it would be a while before her galloping heart would slow.
    Her head was suddenly more clear than it had been all day.
    She was alive. She wanted to stay alive. She suddenly had a thousand questions and wanted the answers. She clutched at the stone block for support so that she wouldn’t accidentally fall, now that she knew she didn’t want to go over the side.
    That was when her fingers felt something odd in the joint between the blocks.
    It wasn’t rough like the stone. Rather, it had a smooth edge.
    In the fading light, Magda frowned as she looked over at the joint in the massive granite blocks. There, wedged between the dark, mottled stones, was a folded piece of paper.
    She couldn’t imagine what a folded piece of paper was doing, stuck there. It made no sense. Who would put a piece of paper there in the joint at the edge of the wall? And why?
    She leaned close, narrowing her eyes, trying to see better. The paper looked to be wedged tightly in place. She could only get ahold of the very edge of it with a finger and thumb. Being careful not to tear it, she gently wiggled the folded paper from side to side to loosen it from its hiding place.
    At last she was able to work it free.
    Careful not to let a gust of wind catch it and pull it from her fingers, she stepped down off the wall onto the deserted rampart as she unfolded the paper.
    There was something written on the paper. She immediately recognized her husband’s handwriting. With trembling fingers, she held the paper close in order to read it in the last light of the dying day.
    My time has passed, Magda. Yours has not. Your destiny is not here. Your destiny is to find truth. It will be difficult, but have the courage to take up that calling.
    Look out to the rise on the valley floor below, just outside the city to the left.