Rylan sat behind Lorelei in Bothymus’s saddle as they flew in silence toward the Rookery. The sky was overcast, the wind calm.
Far to their right, Ruko, the gleaming silver vixen, soared above the treetops with Ash and Creed in the saddle. A short while ago, an elk had bugled in the distance, and Ruko had fought her reins to hunt for it. Ash, inexperienced with crop and fetter, had lost control of her for a time. He’d finally regained it and was guiding Ruko back toward Rylan and Lorelei.
Lorelei glanced over her shoulder. “You’re being quiet again.”
“I get quiet when I’m worried.”
“What are you so worried about?”
“We’ve been flying for nearly an hour and I still haven’t heard from Vedron. We’re going to the Deepwood Fens, which could go wrong in a thousand different ways. And even if we get through that alive, we may be too late to do anything about the crucible.”
Lorelei tugged on Bothymus’s reins to fly closer to Ruko. “I’m surprised you didn’t mention your father.”
Rylan had told her about his audience with the quintarchs. He still wasn’t sure he’d made the right move. “Yes, I’m worried about that as well.”
“The audience or Marstan?”
His first instinct was to brush the question off—he liked to keep his life to himself—but Lorelei deserved better. “My relationship with my father is complicated.”
“Yet you cared enough to fight for him.”
“I cared enough to fight for someone who wouldn’t sell the Holt to the highest bidder.”
“You think you doomed him by telling them so much . . . ?”
“Wouldn’t you feel the same?”
“Perhaps, yes, but in my estimation, you did the right thing. Whatever faults he may have, Marstan seems to care about the Holt and wants peace. I admire him for that much.”
“You do?”
“Don’t be so surprised. There are people in the empire who sympathize with the Kin, probably more than you realize.” She paused, the wind whipping her hair in Rylan’s face. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wish Aarik was alive.”
“So do I.”
Ruko swept up next to them, and Rylan found himself wishing the silver had chased the elk farther—he would’ve liked more time to talk with Lorelei alone. When he caught a brief flash of Vedron, her tail slapping the waters of a burbling stream, he realized it wouldn’t have mattered. He tapped Lorelei’s shoulder and pointed to a shorn bridgebough on a dying citadel up ahead. “Land there.”
Lorelei nodded and guided Bothymus toward it, leaving Ruko circling overhead, and landed gracefully. Vedron streaked upward from below, tucked her wings, and landed lightly beside them. She cooed and stared up at Bothymus, but Bothymus looked away.
Rylan eased himself down on the bridgebough, balanced across to Vedron, and climbed up in her saddle. Then they flew up and met Ruko again, and all three dragons flew hard toward the Rookery and the fen where Rylan desperately hoped they’d find Llorn’s crucible.
Vedron seemed to enjoy Ruko’s frequent trumpeting. She trumpeted back a few times, but fell silent when Bothymus blew one long blaring note.
“He’s right, I’m afraid.” Rylan leaned forward and patted Vedron’s neck. “We need to be quiet.”
The skies darkened to pewter gray. The Diamondflow shone like molten lead as it bent southward. Rylan knew they were getting close. “Fly below the canopy!”
The dragons descended, and as they wove between the towering citadels, Rylan felt Vedron’s curiosity about something to their left like she had last time they’d approached the Rookery.
Rylan loosened the reins. “Go ahead and find it, but fly lower.”
With Bothymus and Ruko trailing, Vedron descended until her wings brushed the tops of the blood maples and swamp cypresses that dotted the landscape. The smaller trees soon vanished, leaving bare swampy terrain and the occasional citadel. A patchy mist drifted slowly above the mire.
Ash pointed to their right. “There!”
In the distance was a series of black stone pillars, set in a circle. Vedron gurgled wetly and dipped in the air. The discomfort he felt from her was an echo of his own. It felt like his bowels were twisting in knots.
“Powerful,” Ash said.
Behind Ash, Creed grimaced and spat.
As they approached the closest pillar, Bothymus and Ruko began circling down.
“Get started,” Rylan called to them. “I’ll scout the area.”
As Bothymus and Ruko glided toward a hillock, Rylan flew Vedron upward, and the whole of the crucible was laid bare. The dimensions looked roughly the same as the palisade at Ancris. He counted seventeen pillars, also the same.
He scanned the horizon and the trees for scouts or dragons, but saw none, so he guided Vedron to the hillock. By then, Ash had unstrapped his case of alchemycal equipment and opened it on the grass. Much as he had in the shrine, he was using a chromatovellum kit to detect the nature and relative amount of umbra trapped in the soil.
Creed crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re not going to blow us all up, are you?”
Ash glared up at him. “I was caught off guard in the shrine.”
“And in the Tulip.”
Ash rolled his eyes. “I hadn’t made the connection between the peat and the stone.” He used a tiny spade to dig a bit of soil. “It won’t happen again.”
Creed still cringed when Ash dropped the peat into the serum and swirled it.
The sour feeling in Rylan’s gut worsened. Ash looked queasy, too. He handed Rylan, Lorelei, and Creed each a nearly transparent indurium scale from the chromatovellum kit. Rylan used his to view the colors of the cloudy liquid in the beaker. “Looks similar to stuff at the shrine.”
“Not just similar,” Lorelei said. “It’s an exact match.”
Creed handed his scale to Ash. “Fine.” He coughed. “We’ve confirmed that we have two sources of unimaginable power. If they’re getting ready to sink this bloody thing”—he gestured to the empty bog around them—“where is everyone? Why isn’t this place being guarded?”
Although Lorelei was staring at the transparent scale pinched between her fingers, her gaze seemed to go beyond it. “They don’t need to protect it anymore.”
Rylan winced. Of course she was right. “They think the geoflare can no longer be stopped. At least, not from here.”
Ash stood and looked around. “Is there a vyrd near here?”
“Yes,” Rylan said, “a short flight”—he pointed to a tract of land beyond a bright red blood maple—“that way.”
Ash closed his case, locked it, and slung it over his shoulder. “Show me.”
They mounted their dragons, and Rylan and Vedron led them into the trees. It took a bit of finding, but eventually he spotted a clearing with a circle of standing stones and led them to it. The menhirs were weathered and considerably older than the ones in Glaeyand and far older than the one in Ancris. Ash slipped down from Ruko’s saddle and opened his alchemyst’s kit on the mossy ground. He took out an alchemycal device with a heavy wooden base and a needle sticking up from it. Behind the needle was a metal plate with a scale on it.
“What is it?” Rylan asked.
“A wayfinder.” Ash set it down in the center of the vyrd. “We use them to find the direction of, and approximate elapsed time since, the most recent crossing at a vyrd.” Near the base of the needle was a hook that held it in place, presumably to protect the delicate instrument while being transported. Ash unhooked the needle and rotated the wayfinder, and the needle began to shift along the gauge. “The direction that produces the most movement in the needle indicates the direction of the crossing. The distance the needle travels, generally speaking, tells how recent—”
Ash stopped and gaped at the instrument. The needle tip tilted all the way to the right, beyond all the markings on the scale.
“What does that mean?” Rylan asked.
Ash frowned. “It doesn’t make sense.” He pulled the needle back and let it go. It swung right and emitted a soft metallic tink as the needle met whatever restraint was inside the base. Ash picked up the wayfinder. “Either this thing is broken or the signal coming from this vyrd is stronger than any we’ve ever measured.” He stood and peered into the forest.
“What?” Lorelei asked.
“Stone and scree and bright blue sky, this is how the crucible is going to interact with the palisade.”
“Through the vyrda?”
“Through the maze . . .”
Lorelei squinted and said, “The maze is a concept, a way for ferrymen to navigate from one vyrda to another.”
“That’s true, so far as it goes, but the maze is much more than that. We’ve long believed that what underpins the vyrda and allows crossings is a vast web of indurium. Rich veins of it travel the length and breadth of the Holt as far as the Whitefells, but no farther. It’s why the vyrda are found all across the forest and the edges of the Great Basin but nowhere else in the world. We know that the segments between vyrda have a memory of sorts.” He held the wayfinder up. “It’s how we can determine the direction and elapsed time since the last crossing. The strength of this one indicates that the connection between this vyrd and the next is much more powerful than it used to be. A tunnel of sorts has been created for the umbra in the crucible to flow toward Ancris.”
“That’s how they’re going set off the geoflare,” Lorelei said.
Ash nodded. “A sinkhole here, a geoflare in Ancris. The power will equalize, but only after a huge explosion.”
Lorelei scratched her head. “There must be some way to stop it.”
Ash stared down at the rune-covered stones at their feet. “Someone created this tunnel to the next vyrd. It must go to the next and the next until it hits Ancris. If we can stop the flow before it gets there, we can avoid catastrophe.”
“Well, bravo,” called a scratchy, feminine voice.
Rylan spun and saw Blythe leaning against a standing stone. She was white as a sheet. Her waistcoat and trousers were torn and dirty. Her white shirt was stained with blood. A cut on her shoulder was bright red and still seeping.
“What are you doing here?” Rylan asked.
“You know what I’m doing here.”
“I mean, I thought you’d challenge Llorn.”
“I did.”
“And you won?”
“Sadly, no. Our fight was interrupted rather rudely by the Seven.”
“The Seven? Yeriel’s Seven?”
“Never mind, Rylan. You wanted to find your bloody crucible and now you have. So why don’t you all be good little boys and girls and leave?”
“We can’t. We need to figure out how to stop Llorn.”
Blythe pointed to Ash. “The pretty man just told you how. You need to stop Morraine from making a bridge to Ancris, but by now she and Llorn are likely standing on its fucking doorstep. Say buh-bye to your precious capital.”