"You're always brave."

"I gave in to fear when I recanted, didn't I?" She darted her hand through the candle flame, leaving a fat smear of soot on her fingers. "But fire burned away that sin. It hurt terribly-"

"You felt it?" Dulice interrupted.

"Like I was there. Oh, don't look like that. All suffering passes, is it not so?" Despite her words Joan shuddered faintly.

"It's still suffering."

"It was a faster penance than prison. And when I was purified, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret carried me away. Up."

Dulice's breath hitched. "You saw Heaven?"

"A glimpse. So wonderful I sometimes can't believe I have remained down here so long."

"But how unfair to feel the fire, and not to fully taste the reward!"

"It's a pleasure delayed, that's all." Joan pinched wax drippings off the candle and smeared them on her fingers. "If I'd burned then, I'd be forgotten now, don't you think?"

"No! You crowned Charles."

"Pah. People could say anything once I was gone. They made me a witch at my trial, when I was standing right there!" She scowled. "You guard me from those lies now, Dulice. You take what's real and pin it to the page. If I'm tried again…"

"God forbid!"

"It's all caught in pictures, just as it happens. No lies, no foolish rumors…"

Joan flipped the sword lightly, fingering its blade. It was a poor substitute for her first, or so she'd often claimed. That had come from the monastery at St. Catherine de Fierbois, and she'd broken it over the back of a camp follower. "God waited thirteen years to take me into His heart again, Dulice. He's sending me toward Charles, and yet I know we must not fight."

"What will you do?"

Tears welled in the Maid's eyes. "I won't break with my Voices, not in the tiniest way. They say to go forward…"