[ For a long, long moment, Narmaya stares him down. It's not just the eyepatch rebuffing her this time. There's something so easy about his voice and the way he says it that she finds herself truly unable to tell if he's bluffing or not. But even if he is, if she withdraws now, then she might never understand the thing she's looking for, let alone find it elsewhere.

So. She'll just go ahead and ask. ]

Did any of them ever explain why? Why... all this, all the lies. All the... things they had us do, just because we believed?