Rylan guided Vedron toward the elm grove. Lorelei followed on Bothymus. It was night and, with a bit of cloud cover, quite dark. They landed; then they watched and listened for any signs they’d been spotted. When they were reasonably certain no one had seen them, they dismounted and prepared to hike to Ancris.
They’d discussed what to do with the dragons and decided there was really no choice. “Go, old friend,” Lorelei said to Bothymus, squeezing his crop stone. “I’ll see you again one day.” She dropped the crop into his saddlebag. Bothymus glanced at Vedron, perhaps wondering if she’d join him, and then launched into the air and away.
Rylan rummaged through Vedron’s saddlebag and took out three paper packets, each the size and shape of a plum.
Lorelei frowned at them. “What are those?”
He stuffed the pouches into the leather bag at his belt. “Something I hope we don’t have to use.”
“Rylan—”
“They’re harmless. They just make a lot of noise and smoke. I like to have them if I need to get out fast.”
She seemed to relax after that. “You missed your calling, Rylan. You should’ve been an alchemyst.”
He winked at her. “Who says I’m not?” He went to Vedron and ran his knuckles along her neck. “Go on, now. I’ll be at the glade soon.”
Vedron keened.
“I said go.”
She beat her wings and rose into the sky and, much to Rylan’s dismay, trailed after Bothymus. Rylan conveyed his alarm through their bond, and finally she veered and headed toward the Holt.
He watched her silhouette dwindle, then he and Lorelei left the elm grove at a steady jog. They arrived in Ancris an hour later. As they entered the city proper, reckoning came and went with a muted display of goldenrod and shimmering pearl. Soon enough they arrived in Old Town and the House of the Holy Meadow, where Kellen was apparently recuperating. As Lorelei spoke quietly with the portly nun in the entryway, Rylan began to feel sick to his stomach. Memories of Beckett’s writhing body covered in flames kept flashing before him. Rylan blinked the vision away.
Lorelei took three gold coins from her purse and slid them into an iron lockbox with a slit on the top. The nun limped from her desk and headed down a hallway. Lorelei wrote a note on a small piece of paper, folded it, dripped wax onto it using a candle on a side table, and sealed it with a brass stamp of the House of the Holy Meadow, a bright sunrise over a field of wild grass.
The nun returned with a sixteen-year-old girl in a simple brown robe, sandals, and a rope belt. “Arnesse will deliver your message,” the nun said.
Lorelei handed her the sealed paper, gave her Creed’s address, and the girl sped through the front entrance. When she was gone, Lorelei glanced at Rylan and did a double take. “Are you all right?”
“Let’s just get this over with.”
The nun led them to the back of the abbey, opened a door, and waved them in. Lorelei thanked her and she left. Rylan took a deep breath and followed Lorelei into the room. They found Kellen propped in a bed, his back against a stack of pillows. A terrible burn mark covered the left side of his face, his ear, and scalp. In some places the burn was so bad the skin was mottled and bumpy. His hair was thinner and grayer, but still closely shorn. His cheeks sagged, and a wattle had begun to form under his chin.
Nevertheless, his ice blue stare remained unyielding. He looked at Rylan and pushed himself higher against the backboard. “Come to gloat, I suppose.”
“He’s come to help,” Lorelei said before Rylan speak.
“Help?” Kellen snorted. “How could he possibly help?”
Lorelei reached into the bag at her belt, pulled out the chalice, and held it out to him. Kellen’s eyes went wide. “You stole it.”
Lorelei said, “How we got it doesn’t matter right now. Ezraela died for this chalice, and you’d be dead, too, if it not for Rylan.”
Kellen reached for the chalice but stopped. “This isn’t over,” he told Rylan, “you’re going to tell me what happened.”
Lorelei tapped the chalice with her fingernail, producing a soft ting. “Just look at the bowl, will you?”
Kellen finally took it and stared at the bowl’s bright, shining interior. He frowned deeply. “You’ve treated it with something, some chem—” Then his eyes widened again. “A map . . .”
“To all six of Alra’s shrines,” Rylan said.
Kellen looked at Lorelei.
“It’s true,” she said, “and see along the base? It names Alra’s paragons. The five we know, plus Yeriel.”
He ran his fingers over the map inside the bowl and the inscription around it. “You’d better start from the beginning.”
Over the next hour, Lorelei told him of Rylan’s arrest, Durgan’s attempt to kill him in the Crag, her rescue of him, what Ash discovered in Korvus’s journal, and her trip to the palace with Praefectus Damika.
When she came to the point in the story where Quintarch Lucran refused to let them investigate, Kellen pursed his lips. “Tyrinia’s doing, yes?”
“Likely so,” Lorelei said, “but whatever the cause—”
“Hold on,” Rylan said. “Your mother told me about your father and Tyrinia, but why would she hold that against you? And if she is holding a grudge, why would she have given you a tutor and sponsored your enrollment into the academy?”
Lorelei turned to look away. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” Rylan said. “She had your badge taken. If we’re to have any hope of finding out the truth about the shrine and Llorn’s plan, we need the freedom to move about the city, question Azariah or even the Hissing Man if we can find him, and that’s only going to happen if we get Tyrinia to back off.”
Lorelei shrugged. “It’s never made much sense to me.”
Kellen cleared his throat. “I believe I can shed a bit of light on that.”
Lorelei opened her mouth. Closed it again. “You can?”
Kellen picked at a loose thread in his blanket. “You’re aware that Tyrinia’s labor with Skylar was difficult, yes?”
“Yes. So what?”
“Well, it was worse than most people realize. Tyrinia nearly died. The nuns told her she would if she conceived again. Lucran and Tyrinia were at odds even before then, but it worsened after Skylar’s birth. I suspect it was why she made advances toward your father. When Cain refused her, rumors started that she’d demanded our then-Praefectus, Austrus, to give Cain all the worst cases in Kiln, Fiddlehead, and Slade. After he died, well, I think she felt responsible. She reached out to your mother and offered her a stipend as a way for the city to honor his sacrifice.”
Lorelei frowned. “Which she made my mother dance for.”
“I have no doubt.” He turned to Rylan. “As you say, Tyrinia was kind to Lorelei. She . . .” He trailed off and looked at Lorelei.
“What?” Rylan asked.
Lorelei said, “I had some . . . problems. Being in public, being around people. Tyrinia knew about them. I’d confided in her, Skylar, too, hoping to get over it. I desperately wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps and become an inquisitor. It was a noble calling, and I was well suited to it in many other ways.”
Rylan waited for her to continue. When she didn’t he said, “But if you couldn’t go out in public . . .”
“I couldn’t do the job. I still wanted to try, and Tyrinia made sure I got that chance.”
“I took Lorelei under my wing,” Kellen said. “I gave her books, challenged her with active cases. We debated to sharpen her rhetorical skills. She was great at all of it. But her inability to stay calm in public, to pursue a case . . . well, it stopped her from moving up.”
“Then how did you fix it?”
“Kellen gave me a book by a philosopher named Anaghoshta.”
“Anaghoshta,” Rylan said, trying the name on for size.
“Anaghoshta III, in fact,” Kellen said. “Gehrost had recently been conquered. There wasn’t a man, woman, or child in that faraway city who didn’t know his name, but his texts had only recently started flowing to Ancris.”
“An empire that devours all it surveys,” Rylan said, “and still hungers for more.” It was an old Kin saying. He knew it was rude, but just then he didn’t care.
Kellen glared at him, but Lorelei quickly continued, “Anaghoshta’s teachings helped me find peace with myself, helped me control myself enough to become an inquisitor.”
“Which was precisely when Tyrinia’s attitude toward her changed,” Kellen said.
Lorelei pulled a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, but why?”
“When she saw you might be as successful as your father, she tried to prevent it. She tried to scuttle your graduation, but Austrus and I stopped her, which led to his firing and Damika getting his position. It’s what, in part, led to my own decision to retire.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Lorelei asked.
“Because you were doing so well. I thought Tyrinia might lay off when you became a full-fledged inquisitor. And she seemed to for a while, but this business with the Red Knives. Perhaps some of her old feelings came back when you began making headway on the case.”
Rylan said, “Making headway or stepping on toes?” When Kellen and Lorelei gaped at him but said nothing, he went on, “Lorelei said Tyrinia is close with my father.”
“She is,” Lorelei said. “With Lucran gone so often, she’s practically been forced to as Domina. What of it?”
“Maybe she took your disobeying him as a direct affront to her.”
“It’s possible,” Lorelei said, “perhaps even likely. Whatever the case, she got the last laugh. I’m no longer an inquisitor, and I’ll probably be charged with insubordination, disobeying the quintarch’s orders, stealing an imperial mount. I’ll be lucky to avoid time in the quarries.”
“You’re deep in shit, no doubt,” Kellen said, holding up the chalice. “But you’re onto something with this. Find out what, and Lucran might go easy on you.” He turned the chalice around in his hands. “Six shrines . . . Amazing. And Yeriel a paragon.”
“Did you know about any of this?” Lorelei asked. “Anything from your research?”
Kellen shrugged. “Perhaps. I have come across several mentions of Yeriel, her wardens, and the veil. The Church of Alra had yet to form at that point. Most people thought Yeriel was an oddity, something that could be let alone, at least until the empire gained a more solid foothold in the mountains and the Holt. One account mentions that Yeriel had been thrown in prison, but seven women, all of them wardens, freed her. I assumed some rival of hers had imprisoned her, some powerful but long-forgotten mage. If you’re right about what this”—he raised the chalice again—“says, it seems more likely she was trapped in the shrine, like all the paragons were after the Ruining, and that the wardens—the original Seven, I suspect—freed her from it.”
“But what would the wardens gain by helping her escape?” Lorelei asked. “And why her in particular? Why not one of the others? Why not all of them?”
Kellen rubbed his thumb over Yeriel’s name on the base of the chalice. “Not sure. We know very little about the Seven and the wardens, even less about Yeriel herself.”
Rylan motioned to the chalice. “The Chosen seem very keen to get that back. How could it have stayed hidden for so long? And how did it suddenly reappear?”
“Let’s not forget,” Kellen said, “the Chosen are far from ancient history. They formed only eighty years ago, after the failed Holy Rebellion. The Church and the people most loyal to them never forgot how they were treated by the quintarchs. But they couldn’t strike back directly, so they decided to play a long game. They worked in secret to place their followers in the senate, in the courts, in the halls of the constables and the inquisitors. Just as importantly, they worked to promote their officers in our armies, fleets, and dragon legions. They haven’t been wholly successful—the quintarchs work constantly against them—but even so, the Chosen’s reach is now vast. The question isn’t how the chalice escaped their notice or how it suddenly reappeared. Both are easily explained by the way the rich and powerful families of the empire grabbed everything they could and hoarded it, and how some of those families fell into misfortune and”—he lifted the bronze chalice—“were forced to sell their property to pay off the moneylenders.”
“Then what is the question?” Rylan asked.
“It’s why it’s so important to them to prevent the chalice from falling into the wrong hands. They care very much about maintaining the illusion that the Church is not merely holy but perfect and unquestionable. If people start asking questions about them—like why there are five and only five shrines—they might start digging up other questions or doubting the Church’s preeminence.” Kellen stabbed a hairy finger at Lorelei. “What did the inscription at the shrine say?”
Lorelei put on an official voice. “Here lies Yeriel Darksinger, Umbral Witch, betrayer of Faedryn and all his fell servants. May she atone for her sins when Alra rises again.”
“‘When Alra rises again . . .’ Clearly there’s more to the Ruining than we know. Perhaps that’s what they’re trying to keep secret.”
“Or maybe it’s to do with the Hissing Man’s meeting with Aarik and Llorn,” Lorelei said.
Kellen shrugged. “It could be both. The Hissing Man’s plans could very well be related to Alra’s rising.”
“That’s mad,” Rylan said.
“You think so?” Kellen stared hard at Rylan. “Ill winds gather over Ancris, Rylan Holbrooke. Who’s to say what fortune they’ll bring?”
They heard footsteps pounding down the hallway. A moment later, Creed’s voice bellowed, “Lorelei?”
Lorelei rushed to the door. “We’re here!”
Creed appeared in the doorway, breathing hard. He glanced at Rylan, then beckoned Lorelei. “We’ve got to get out of here, now.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“The praetorian guard are on their way here. They’re coming for you.”