An imperial coach trundled up Mount Blackthorn, bearing Lorelei toward the palace. The sky was still dark, Nox glowing on the western horizon. On the bench beside Lorelei were a sheepskin coat, a scarf and hat knitted by her mother, and rabbit fur gloves. As the coach passed through the palace walls, she pulled the hat on and tucked her red hair into it to keep it from whipping about as she flew.
The coach trundled to a stop at the palace stairs. In a pleasant surprise, Princess Skylar herself opened the cabin door, holding a steaming mug of tea. A strikingly pretty woman with blond curls and glacier blue eyes, Skylar had seen twenty-eight winters pass, same as Lorelei. She wore an elegant dress made of silver silk that glowed violet in Nox’s fitful light.
Lorelei picked up her coat, gloves and scarf and stepped down from the coach. “Early meeting?”
Skylar held the mug out and pretended to be affronted. “Maybe I woke early to wish my best friend luck on her adventure.”
“You”—Lorelei slipped her gloves under her belt, folded the coat over one arm, and accepted the mug—“willingly get up early?”
Skylar’s adorable frown faded. “Okay, you win. I have a meeting shortly after reckoning. Now let’s get a move on or I’m going to be late.”
Hiding a smile, Lorelei warmed her hands around the cup and sipped the jasmine tea, her favorite. As she and Skylar headed toward the rear of the palace, she asked, “And who is the meeting with this time?”
“The master mason for the Syrdian arch. We’re discussing—” Skylar yawned loudly “—the final touches.”
Lorelei laughed. “Try to control your enthusiasm.”
“You misjudge me, my dear. I’m enjoying the project. I’ve decided that one of the final touches will be a dracora holding a lance on a spread-winged dragon.”
“Ransom?”
“It’s meant to honor all dracorae who fought in the campaign, but yes, in my heart, it’s Ransom.” Skylar had adored her brother, but he died in the Syrdian campaign fifteen years ago, though the campaign itself showed no signs of abating.
Lorelei squeezed her hand. “Then it will be for me, too.”
“Your expedition, though . . .” Skylar squeezed Lorelei’s hand back. “It’s rather exciting, isn’t it? Part of me wishes I’d taken Ash up on his offer to join you.”
Lorelei sipped the hot tea to quell the anxious tickle in her stomach. As they rounded the palace and headed for the rear gate, she said, “You can still change your mind. Postpone your meeting?”
“No, it’s too important. Father will be returning soon. I want the arch ready for the commemoration before he arrives.”
The guard at the rear gate bowed his head as they approached. Skylar nodded back, and they passed through the curtain wall.
A footpath led down to a broad shoulder of land between two mountains where the imperial eyrie, a massive structure of stone and wood, stood. It had huge, rolling doors at the front and rear, and a large cupola on the roof that allowed dragons entrance and egress. Near the front, a cohort of seven dragons was being readied. The lone silver dragon was the smallest, about five horses from tip to tail. The two brasses and three golds were noticeably larger—each six, maybe seven horses in length. Bothymus, the enormous indurium, was eight horses easily.
Eyrie master Stromm, a giant man with bright red hair, was directing his eyrie hands in the loading of saddlebags. Beyond the dragons, a dozen men and women, the alchemysts Lorelei was set to join, huddled near the paddock fence. As Lorelei and Skylar crossed a stream bed via a small wooden bridge, Lorelei’s agoraphobia intensified, and she began to feel nauseous. She’d always felt uncomfortable around groups, especially strangers, which was rather unfortunate for an imperial inquisitor. She managed well enough when she told herself it was her duty, but this was a day of leisure, and none of her tricks were working.
In a small mercy, Ash Torentada spotted them and broke away from the other alchemysts. He was a stunningly pretty man with dark, expressive eyes, long eyelashes, and full lips, and he’d been friends with Lorelei and Skylar since childhood. He wore a hooded coat and boots lined with ermine and matching kidskin gloves.
Skylar looked him up and down as they neared one another. “You know you’re going to get dirty, right?”
“Of course I do,” Ash said. “It’s an expedition.”
“Then why are you dressed for a winter solstice ball?”
“Skylar, my love, these are my work clothes. And besides”—he shot a glance toward one of the other alchemysts, a gorgeous man with swarthy skin and a trimmed beard—“there’s no need to look like a vole when there are pretty birds about.”
The dark-skinned man, Deimas, was one of Ash’s fellow alchemysts. He’d traveled all the way from Lyros to help with the renovation at the shrine. He had penetrating eyes and the sort of lopsided smile that could melt glaciers.
In another small mercy, the other alchemysts kept their distance. A few waved or smiled. Master Renato ignored her altogether. It was Ash’s doing, she was sure. He’d prepared them for her peculiar needs. Lorelei wished meeting new people wasn’t so stressful, but she had always felt that way. That she’d managed to cope with it was due in no small part to her friends’ understanding.
Stromm, having finished securing the last of the saddlebags, cupped his hands to his mouth. “Ready, Master Renato!”
Master Renato, a portly fellow with jowls and a broad, straight brow, clapped and urged everyone forward with broad sweeps of his arms. “Let’s go, everyone. We’ve a long day ahead.”
Skylar kissed cheeks with Lorelei and took the mug. “May your journey be fruitful.” She turned to Ash and winked. “Yours as well.”
Ash headed toward Bothymus, the big indurium dragon, and called over his shoulder, “From your lips to the goddess’s ears . . .”
Lorelei shrugged into her coat, pulled on her gloves, and followed him.
All dragons were stunning beasts, but induria especially so. The light of the dark sun reflected off Bothymus’s scales in wild, chromatic displays, as if he’d rolled in diamond dust before leaving the eyrie. Seeing Lorelei’s approach, he reared up, beat his wings, and released a piercing cry, much to the consternation of Betheny, the hapless eyrie hand holding his reins. When he’d settled, Betheny handed Lorelei a glowing yellow gemstone wrapped in leather cord. The stone, roughly the size of a grape, was chrysolite, a rare gem harvested from meteorites that struck the mountains in the dead of winter. It was known as a crop and was one half of a pair. Its mate, called a fetter, was fitted into Bothymus’s bridle.
Lorelei wrapped the crop’s leather loops around her hand and wrist so the stone rested against her palm. She took the reins and gripped the crop tightly, and the link to Bothymus brightened in her mind. Riders described the link differently, but for Lorelei, it was calming, like spotting a close friend across a busy room.
Bothymus swung his head and stared down at her with moonstone eyes. Commanding a dragon with a crop was simple—like making a silent wish. In this manner, she urged Bothymus to ready himself for mounting. His fetter glowing softly in his bridle, he lay flat on the trampled ground and uttered a low gurgle.
Lorelei scratched the spiky wattle beneath his jaw. “Ready?”
Bothymus’s gurgle became rhythmic gulping.
“Good boy,” Lorelei told him, caressing his scales, but as she was about to mount, Ruko, the excitable silver vixen, trumpeted a rising note and beat her wings. Bothymus turned, spread the frills on his head, and hissed. Lorelei gripped the crop and tried to calm him again. When he started gurgling again, she climbed into the saddle and fit her legs into the padded leather restraints that would keep her firmly in place. She held a hand down to Ash, and he climbed into the saddle behind her. When he was settled and she released her mental hold, Bothymus pushed himself up on his fore-claws, stalked forward in the ungainly way of all dragons, swept his broad wings, and lifted them into the sky. Skylar waved up from the footpath, and Lorelei and Ash waved back. Then Bothymus wheeled to follow the other dragons.
Reckoning arrived with swaths of gold and citrine spilling like ink across the sky. Rust and ruby followed, then a ruddy orange. The show was brilliant, but soon enough, Nox slipped below the horizon, Lux rose above the mountains to the east, and the play of lights faded. Ancris dwindled behind them as they flew south with their cohort under a clear sky, the steady beat of dragon wings broken only by the occasional warble from Ruko.
Lorelei spoke over her shoulder, “I wanted to ask you about a report from Glaeyand I read last night. It said the alchemyst, Korvus Julianus, has gone missing.”
“He has?”
“Apparently so. The report said he went on a survey mission but never returned. The ferryman who went with him is missing as well. Then, a few days ago, Korvus’s apothecary in Glaeyand was torched. His wife died in the fire.”
“Tishana died in a fire? Faedryn’s wicked ways, what a tragedy!”
“I’m sorry to break the news. Did you know them well?”
“Not well, no. I met Master Korvus a few times, but he barely spoke to me.”
“Well, it’s suspected Korvus ran afoul of the Red Knives. I was just curious if Master Renato mentioned anything about it.”
“Master Renato . . . speak to me about anything besides how many blocks I’ve cured . . .” Ash snorted. “That’ll be the day. But why do you ask? Is it related to your chandlery in some way?”
“I wish . . .” Realizing how Ash might interpret her reply, Lorelei quickly added, “Not that I want anything bad to happen to Master Korvus. It’s just, watching that bloody chandlery is so tedious. I’d rather throw myself down on those mountains than spend another night there.”
“Please don’t.”
Lorelei laughed. “You’d hardly miss me.”
Ash tightened his grip around her waist and kissed her ear noisily. “I would miss you every single moment of every single day.”
She laughed again, then turned in the saddle and kissed his cheek. “Then I’ll stay.”
“Good. Now, let’s have no more talk of arson or chandlers or falls to one’s death.”
“All right, tell me what we’re hoping to find at this magnificent mountain then.”
She knew some of the details, of course. The geoflare at Tortoise Peak had been discovered more than a year ago. Geoflares were exceedingly rare events, and studying one that had so recently flared was even rarer. Master Renato had wanted to visit it immediately, Ash had told her a few months back, but the renovation to Alra’s shrine had forced him to set his excitement aside. He never gave up on the idea, though. As the months passed, he pushed the work crews and managed to get ahead of schedule so that he could justify leaving Ancris for a day to fly to Tortoise Peak and study it.
“The plan,” Ash said, “is to take soil samples from the islands and the exposed earth. We’re going to measure the strength of their aura and umbra, plus the spectra they throw off. We’ll also measure the islands’ rotational speeds—or lack thereof—near the top, middle, and base of the mass. When we’re done, we’ll compare it to other geoflares and see if there’s a difference.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.” Lorelei just wanted to take in the majesty of it all.
“It will be. And it’ll take weeks to sort through once we get back to the city, but you’ll not hear me complaining. This is why I became an alchemyst.”
“I thought it was to haul stone all day and night.”
“Ha!” He raised his gloved hands in front of her. “These hands, dearest, were made for more delicate work.”
Unfortunately for Ash, the work at the shrine was drudgery for the most part. Each quartzite block weighed a hundred libra or more, he’d told her, and had to be removed from the shrine, carted to the workspace in the antechamber, and treated with a special alchemycal solution. Only after the block had been cured could it be carted back and fitted into place exactly where it had been taken from. About as exciting as watching a chandlery, but with considerably more smashed fingers.
“And what of your handsome friend from Lyros?” she asked him, referring to Deimas and the raven-haired beauty in front of him on the silver dragon.
“Deimas? He hardly even knows I exist.”
“Sorry,” Lorelei said with a cringe.
Ash shrugged against her back. “Vita est vita,” he said. Life is life.
They flew several more hours until Master Renato waved over his shoulders to the group and pointed at a mountain in the distance. “There!”
As they came closer, it became clear that the mountain was no mountain at all, but a group of floating islands hovering above a massive crater. Lorelei could hardly believe the scope of it. She’d read about geoflares and often wondered what it would be like to visit one, which was half the reason she’d pestered Ash into getting Master Renato’s permission for her to come.
Mountain peaks had especially high concentrations of aura. Normally, aura was shed from them, dissipating as it rose toward the firmament, and the mountain remained unaffected. But sometimes the stone was altered in some way—no one knew why—and its ability to shed aura diminished. Then the aura accumulated, building energy over aeons until, eventually, the mountains blew outward in a geoflare. That was precisely what had happened with Tortoise Peak some dozen years ago. Master Renato and the alchemysts wanted to find out what made this mountain different than the rest. And what had caused it to finally explode.
The dragons and their riders followed Master Renato between the floating islands toward the geoflare, then veered and followed a wider channel. It felt strange to be flying among floating islands, like gravity had been forgotten. The rock faces below them were dark and bare, and the ones above were layered in snow. She felt an elation of sorts due to the aura still trapped in the stone.
“You know your assignments!” Master Renato roared from his gold dragon.
“Yes, Master Renato!” came the chorus from Ash and the other the junior alchemysts.
Ash pointed to one of the larger islands near the edge of the massive, floating cluster. “We’re there.”
Lorelei guided Bothymus to the island and they landed. Ash rummaged through a saddlebag and took out a journal, a trowel, and several glass beakers with strips of white cloth glued to them. He dug up four samples from around the peak, placed them in the beakers, and labeled each using a wooden pencil. Lorelei, meanwhile, crunched across the snow toward the edge of the island and stared down. On the other islands, alchemysts were collecting similar samples while their dragons rested nearby. She hadn’t realized it before, but looking down at the other islands and the landscape below, she could tell her island was moving.
“Do the islands shift over time?”
Ash looked up from his journal. “What’s that?”
“Do the islands shift?”
He shrugged and continued to write. “Some people say they can, but the islands have a memory of sorts. They tend to remain near, and facing, the fragments of earth they’d once been attached to, so it takes quite a bit of force to dislodge them, like a winter gale.”
Lorelei marveled at the spectacle of it all. Leaving Ash to his work, she wandered the island’s peak, then its far side, feeling more than a little like the entire thing was about to crumble and send her plummeting to the ground below. She was just getting ready to head back when she spotted a crater. At its center was the exposed face of what looked like a broken column of blue-flecked stone.
“Ash, what’s this?”
Ash’s head popped up beyond a snow-covered boulder. He came over, stared at the broken column, and frowned. “I’ve no idea.”
The near-perfect silence was suddenly broken by the peal of a dragon on one of the islands below them. Across the snowy peak from Lorelei and Ash, Bothymus reared back, flapped his wings, and roared. Staring south toward Ancris, Lorelei spotted a bronze dragon soaring their way.
Ash was suddenly standing beside her. “What’s this now?”
A horn blew for everyone to gather.
“This can’t be good,” Ash said.
They mounted Bothymus and flew to a low-lying hill well wide of the geoflare. The others were already there, everyone watching the bronze approach and land with a snow-lifting sweep of its broad wings. To Lorelei’s shock, the rider was none other than Theron, the chamberlain of Highreach. “Master Renato,” he said, “I have a message from the Domina.”
The Domina was Quintarch Lucran’s wife, Tyrinia.
“Yes?” Master Renato said, stepping forward.
“You’re to cease your research,” Theron said, “and return to Ancris immediately.”
A murmur rose among the other alchemysts. Master Renato’s cheeks turned red. “But Chamberlain, I was granted permission for this expedition by Consul Skylar.”
“Be that as it may,” Theron said, “you are not in Ancris any longer, but in the province of Ancrada, over which the Domina has authority.”
“Are you saying the Domina is refusing to allow us to continue?”
Theron sneered. “How incisive of you. Yes, Master Renato, that’s precisely what I’m saying. The renovations are behind schedule—”
“Forgive me,” Master Renato said, “but they’re not. We’re ahead of schedule. I made sure of it before we left.”
“If you have time for an excursion like this, Master Alchemyst, what can it mean but that you padded your schedule?”
Master Renato blinked, opened his mouth and closed it again. “Schedules are always padded,” he said, “to account for the unforeseen.”
“You had many such setbacks early on, did you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“And you may have more,” Theron bulled on, “things that, by your own admission, you did not and could never have foreseen. Is it not so?”
“Yes, but . . .” Master Renato paused for a deep breath. “We’re already here, Chamberlain. Surely the Domina—”
“The Domina wishes to make clear that until the shrine has been repaired, it is your one and only priority. You are to cease work immediately and return to Ancris, at which point your alchemysts will report directly to the shrine and continue their work. You, in the meantime, will report to the Domina at the palace.”
Master Renato looked heartbroken, staring up at the geoflare and its floating islands. But what could he say? He couldn’t defy Tyrinia openly. And appealing to Skylar would require he return to Ancris, gain an audience, and have her agree to fight for him. And even if Skylar did agree, there was a good chance Tyrinia’s authority would still win out. It wouldn’t be worth the fight.
“Of course,” Master Renato finally said.
In short order, everyone was mounted and flying north. More than one alchemyst gazed back longingly. Lorelei did, too, but not from some lost research opportunity. She was too curious about the glittering column of stone in the ground and what it meant.