Rylan sat across from Lorelei and Ash in the coach. As it lurched into motion, he said, “So, a newt . . . ?”
Lorelei cringed.
Ash said, “It’s a nickname I gave her when we were children, for the endearing way her mind skitters from topic to topic.”
“It doesn’t skitter,” Lorelei said.
“While I’ll grant you that, O smartest of inquisitors, I was having too much fun to notice at the time.” Ash gave her knee and affectionate squeeze. “She, Skylar, and I were tutored together, and she always seemed to have trouble focusing on any one thing. What I later realized was that, whether it was history, literature, maths, or science, when she seemed unable to concentrate on any one thing, she was actually jumping ahead of us. Far ahead, especially in logic. That’s why she’s become such an outstanding inquisitor. Isn’t that right, my little newt?”
Lorelei didn’t seem to be paying attention to Ash, or at least she was feigning not to.
Rylan nudged her foot with the toe of his boot. “You’re curious about the shrine, too, I take it?”
“She’s never seen it,” Ash said.
“I’m perfectly capable of answering for myself,” Lorelei spat. “As you’re no doubt aware, the shrine is heavily guarded. I’ve had a few chances to go to official functions, but the shrine would have been packed, and, well . . .”
“The crowd,” Rylan said, remembering what she’d said in Glaeyand.
“Yes, the crowd. Now, during the repairs, there’s hardly anyone there.”
A short, bumpy ride over old roads delivered them to the shrine’s open gates. They exited the coach and walked into the entryway. Ash told them to wait while he went to speak with the guards.
Lorelei watched him stride across the lantern-lit plaza, then turned toward Rylan. “So why do you want to visit the shrine?”
“Doesn’t everyone want to see it?”
“Most people do, I guess. But why do you?”
Rylan thought about telling her anything that might appease her, but the unexpected visit felt momentous, important in ways he couldn’t define. To lie about it would be to cheapen the experience. “Long ago, in this very place”—he waved to the facade with its majestic frieze and stout stone columns—“the empire was formed.”
“No, the empire existed centuries before it came to the Alran Basin.”
“True, but back then, it was just a few provinces, each barely able to defend its own borders. When they came to the basin and conquered the five settlements, they claimed it was their destiny. Until then, the provinces had been trying to impose their own laws and customs onto one another. It would eventually have led to war, but the discovery of the five shrines and the legends surrounding them gave them a common identity to rally around. The quintarchs rewrote history to make it seem as though the shrines, and so, Alra’s might, had always been theirs, but that was centuries later, of course.”
Lorelei’s eyebrows arched. “I’m impressed. But it wasn’t the quintarchs who rewrote history. It was the illustra.”
Rylan waggled his head. “Granted, but it’s a distinction without a difference. In those days, the quintarchs and illustrae were very much in lockstep.”
Lorelei gave him a scholar’s nod. “You know your history.”
“As do you. In any case, I’m a man who stands between two worlds—one foot in the empire, the other in the Holt. I’m borne on the currents created by the empire’s formation and the long, storied history of the Holt. To say I’m fascinated by their entwined tales would be to trivialize it. At times, it feels like a burning desire, impossible to ignore.”
“Believe me,” Lorelei said, smiling, “I understand compulsions.”
Ash emerged from the shrine and waved them forward. Lorelei and Rylan headed across the plaza toward the entrance. Rylan was so nervous his fingers were trembling. Getting so close to something so heavily guarded by the empire was almost like a theft in itself.
“Welcome,” Ash said as they reached the door.
“Thank you kindly, my good man,” Rylan said with a smile, and stepped across the threshold.
The shrine’s antechamber was bathed in the soft, golden light of lanterns in sconces on the walls. Near the entrance, a curious mix of men, four imperial guards in red and a pair of bald shepherds in white and gold, played tines on a wooden table. They gave Lorelei and Rylan a cursory glance, then went back to snapping cards. Other than a few alchemysts working at wooden tables, the room was empty.
Ash took a lantern from a sconce and led them into the tunnel in the far wall. A breeze that hadn’t been noticeable in the antechamber blew cool dry air on Rylan’s face.
They walked toward a pinpoint of light. Rylan’s gut felt tight. His hatred of the empire ran deep, but the shrine was different. It predated the empire by hundreds of years. Alra herself may have ordered its creation. Walking that tunnel felt like stepping back in time to the days of the Ruining.
Soon they entered a massive, open space with a natural granite ceiling above, glittering white quartzite below. The quartzite on the walls looked like white flames rising, some of which were behind scaffolding. There were a few carts as well, some with quartzite blocks in them.
Not far from the tunnel was a wide ramp, the famed causeway Rylan had read about, also made of quartzite. It curved gently inward toward the center of the circular space and rose about thirty feet above the floor to a glowing crystal and Strages’s body, arms spread wide, head thrown back, wrapped in white bandages and floating in midair on an invisible axis. The pinpoint of light was a piece of the Heartstone, the fabled artifact that had shattered into five pieces when Strages and four other powerful magi used the Heart to destroy Faedryn.
“Goddess of light.” Lorelei stared awestruck at the twirling body. “I’ve seen paintings, but none do it justice.”
Ash motioned to the causeway. “Let’s go have a look.”
Lorelei opened her mouth, then closed it again. “You’re sure?”
Ash shrugged his shoulders. “Who’s going to know?” He headed for the causeway, leaving Lorelei and Rylan to follow if they wanted.
Lorelei looked at Rylan.
“I am a bit curious,” he said, knowing perfectly well why she was hesitating—it felt blasphemous. But for him that only deepened the pleasure.
“I am, too, but—” She stared down the dark tunnel. “Oh, why not . . .”
They trailed after Ash. The causeway was wide enough for two chariots at its base but narrowed as they went higher. Having been raised in the Holt, Rylan was no stranger to heights, but something about the steady erosion of walking space and the pathway’s steep incline was giving him vertigo.
Eventually they reached a square platform of sorts. The floating, iridescent shard was long and narrow, and shaped like a knife. Strages’s body was more gruesome than it had looked from below. The linen bandages wrapping his torso and limbs were yellow and threadbare. Why the Church hadn’t changed them Rylan had no idea, but they made the exposed skull seem even grislier. The steel helm was pitted and nicked. The eyeholes were covered, making Rylan wonder if the helm was somehow related to the illustrae’s masks. His skin was desiccated, his dried lips drawn back, exposing mottled gums and a travesty of chipped teeth. Where his nose might once have been were two slits.
“Would that I looked so good after a millenium,” Ash said, breaking the silence.
“Don’t joke,” Lorelei said.
“What, you think Strages cares? Or Alra does?”
Lorelei shook her head. “Just don’t.”
“Fine, no more jokes.” Ash looked about. “In truth, even after all this time working on it, I’m still struck by it.” He pointed to the border along the walls, where quartzite gave way to granite. “Flames indeed. Flames that have lasted a thousand years. Flames that will last a thousand more. It really is something to behold.”
“I wonder what the world would look like now,” Rylan said, “if the Kin had inherited the shrines instead of the empire.”
Rylan wasn’t sure why he’d said it. Partly because he abhorred the empire’s autocratic ways, certainly. Perhaps partly to provoke a response. Lorelei stiffened, and Ash exchanged a look with her.
“No offense,” Rylan said quickly. “I’m just amazed by how something so innocent looking can determine so much, how it can change history.” He pointed to the fiery quartzite border. “A spark can ignite a wildfire.”
Ash nodded. “I agree, though Alra surely had a hand in guiding the fire’s spread.”
“Perhaps,” Rylan said. “But sometimes we ascribe forethought to what was, at the time, nothing more than desperation.”
Ash stared at the glowing crystal. “Are you saying she had no plan for the future?”
It was Lorelei who answered. “She must have, but to pretend she saw all of this?” She waved to the shrine around them. “Ancris, the Holt, all of it? I rather think she was worried more about Faedryn destroying everything than she was about an empire yet to be born.”
Rylan was pleasantly surprised. He’d assumed Lorelei would have blinders on, like Inquisitor Kellen and his ilk. He motioned to Strages, “The paragons have been floating like this since the shrine was built?”
“We only know what happened since the empire came to the mountains,” replied Ash, “but yes, we believe Strages was bound to the shrine in some way.”
“Why so?”
Ash shrugged. “No one knows for certain, not even the Church. Our best guess is that it keeps him alive . . . in a manner of speaking.”
Ash decided their time was up, and he and Lorelei headed again for the causeway. As Rylan lingered, Strages’ body spun to face him. The eyeless helm and the lipless grin made Rylan shiver. What must it have been like when Alra and Faedryn walked the earth?
He rushed to catch up with the others. Halfway down the causeway, he tapped Ash’s shoulder and pointed to the carts, the stacked blocks of quartzite. “The work you’re doing . . . you’re not worried it will interfere with the spell in some way?”
Ash laughed. “Of course, we are. The project was delayed three times because of it. But we had to do something, and we’ve taken a careful approach—we never remove more than a hundred blocks at a time. We’re more than halfway done now. I think we’ll be fine.”
“And why, precisely, was the project required in the first place?”
At ground level, they headed for the tunnel. Ash said, “Many years ago, the shrine was surveyed every decade or so, but then it was stopped for some reason. Maybe they thought it was no longer necessary. When Master Renato restarted it three years ago, they found cracks in the quartzite. He was adamant about fixing them. It took some time, but the Church finally approved his recommendations, and none to soon. It was getting much worse.”
“I seem to recall,” Rylan said, hoping the time was right, “Master Renato came to Glaeyand not long ago. Was that related to the renovations?”
“Mmm, I’m not sure,” Ash said. Rylan was about to press him, but Ash turned to Lorelei and winced. “Ach, that reminds me. I forgot all about your peat.”
Lorelei glanced at Rylan. “Not now, Ash.”
“What? He’s not going to say anything. Are you, Rylan?”
Rylan tried to keep his disappointment from showing. “Say anything about what?”
“Lorelei brought me some peat. I meant to run some tests on it, but it’s been so busy around here. Now’s the perfect time. Just don’t say anything about it, okay?” He leaned toward Rylan and whispered. “There’s no one around to see me borrowing ingredients!”
As they entered the antechamber, a guard looked up, but one of the shepherds slapped down a card and the guard, along with the rest of the players, groaned.
Ash led them to a workbench and picked up a small wooden box. Rylan immediately recognized the design of the lid’s wooden inlay—a thistle in bloom with two unfurling leaves, like Blythe’s mother used to make. Rylan managed to hide his surprise. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Ash led them to a storeroom. The shelves at the back were filled with collection plates and glass vials that, in normal times, would be filled with water that had been exposed to the light of the Heartstone. The nearer shelves were stacked with dozens of pots similar to those Rylan had seen on the workbenches in the main room. Ash went to a shelf containing what appeared to be alchemycal agents and reagents, slid off a small chest, and set it and Blythe’s box on a table.
“This is a chromatovellum kit.” Ash threw back the chest’s lid and pulled out a pewter spoon and three glass bottles, one of which was empty, and set them next to the box. When he took out the empty beaker and a measuring spoon, he accidentally knocked the box off the table, spilling peat everywhere.
“Alra’s blinding light.” Ash bent down and began scooping the peat back into the box. “Do you have any idea what Master Renato would say if he saw me now?”
“It’s the rushing rabbit who stumbles down the mountain,” Lorelei said in what Rylan guessed was an imitation of Ash’s master, “while the goat, planning each step carefully, makes the journey safely.”
Ash collected what peat he could, then he stood and made a face. “Be the goat, Ash.”
Lorelei and Ash fell into a fit of laughter. Rylan looked on, amused. His life was filled with so many lies and so much worry he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed out loud. He was well aware his feeling of friendship with Lorelei and Ash was an illusion, but he made no attempt to dispel it.
Ash placed the box back on the table, used a measuring spoon to scoop one cyathus of peat, and dropped the peat into the empty beaker. To this he added a measure of thick, clear liquid—likely a water and gelatin mixture similar to what he’d used near the eyrie. “By exciting the umbra in the suspension”—Ash picked up the bottle and gave it a vigorous stir—“we can view it through the indurium scales, then compare it to the charts.”
Ash took a small book the chest flipped to a particular page, and laid it on the table. The open pages contained a list of locations in the Holt—Brevin, Andalingr, Glaeyand, the Deepwood Fens, and the like. Beside each location was a band of colors. Though many of the bands were similar, Rylan could detect minute differences in each.
Ash ran his finger down the page. “These colored lines are called spectra. A sample was taken from each location and charted using the same experiment we’re about to run. It should tell us roughly where Lorelei’s sample comes from.” Ash took out three dragon scales and handed one each to Lorelei and Rylan. Rylan marveled at it. Though its shape was the normal teardrop of an indurium scale, it contained almost none of the milky color. It was all but transparent. Rylan assumed it had been treated to show the colored lines in the book. It was also light as a feather—much lighter than a typical scale.
“When the solution begins to glow,” Ash continued, “hold it up to the light. I warn you, it may make you feel queasy. Step into the main room if you need to.”
When Lorelei and Rylan had both nodded, Ash took the last bottle, carefully poured some of the contents into the spoon, and dropped it into the peat suspension. The suspension began to glow, indigo blue like a hunk of Nox. Rylan felt like a pit viper was writhing in his stomach. He doubled over and clutched his gut. He heard Lorelei moan beside him. She looked as sick as he felt and dropped her scale on the floor. Then she doubled over, pressed her hands to her belly, and retched.
“Darkest night, where is it?” Ash was rifling through his chest. Then he rushed to the shelf of reagents, grabbed a vial of blue liquid, and unstoppered it. He raised the vial like he was about to dash the contents into the darkly glowing bottle, but the glow darkened until it was pitch black. Staring at it, Rylan felt like he was stepping into his grave.
The bottle imploded with a bone-jarring crunch. The churning in Rylan’s gut suddenly vanished, but he still felt uneasy. As he straightened up, he realized they were no longer alone. A shepherd with a bald head and a long beard stood in the doorway. He wasn’t one of the ones who’d been playing cards—his robe was more ornate, and the starburst on his tabard had a full eight points instead of four, a shepherd of the first order who reported directly to Illustra Azariah.
“What, by Alra’s unending grace,” the man said, “are you doing in here?”