35: THE CASTLE OF ICE
Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since Talon failed to kill a Manol vané
No one spoke as Brother Qown finished.
“That must have been a hard choice,” Kihrin said. He’d known that choice himself, back when he’d been gaeshed, but had never seriously considered it.
“I’m glad you decided to stay,” Janel said. She leaned over and kissed the top of Qown’s head.
Dorna reached over and patted the priest’s hand.
“Me too,” Qown said. “I want to help make things better. I thought that ability would have been limited in the Afterlife.” To Dorna, he said, “And I didn’t know the right people to guarantee my Return.”1
“I’ll pick up from here,” Janel said.
Janel’s Turn. The Ice Demesne, Yor, Quur.
Senera and I rushed over to Brother Qown. He had pulled his legs to his chest, rocking back and forth, crying into his robes.
“Is this because of the gaesh?” I asked her.
“No.” Senera felt Brother Qown’s wrists, the skin under his jaw, then looked at both eyes, lifting his eyelids with her thumbs. “He’s not experiencing a gaesh loop.”
“A loop?”
“Contradictory gaesh commands. The conflict usually proves lethal. That said, something’s put him into shock. Help me get him over to the bed.”
I went to lift him and cried out as I felt like my arms might jerk from their sockets. I’d forgotten my lack of strength.
“Together,” Senera said.
“I see.” I lifted with her this time, and we managed to carry Brother Qown to the bed. I saw what she meant—he hadn’t lost consciousness, nor was he having a seizure. He stared straight ahead, eyes unfocused.
And I knew that look. I knew it in my bones.
I’d lived in that state where you’re too numb to be sad or unhappy or angry. That place where nothing has meaning and everything hurts.
“It may not be a … what did you call it? A gaesh loop? But I do think it’s in response to the gaesh. He’s gone into a stupor due to what’s happened to him.” I paused. “Or he’s been possessed by a demon, but I don’t think so.”
Senera sighed. “Fine. Leave him.”
I threw her a look filled with venom.
“We don’t have time,” she explained. “His attendance isn’t mandatory at the banquet. Yours is. We’ll deal with him later.”
I hopped up on the bed and put my arm around Brother Qown. “I’m not leaving him alone like this. He could snap out of it and hurt himself. And if someone tries to hurt him, he’s defenseless. I’m staying.”
Senera’s nostrils flared. “You’re not.”
“I am.”
Before I could do anything else, she touched Brother Qown’s forehead. His eyes closed and his chin fell to his collarbone, and he settled as dead weight in my arms. “There. He’s sleeping and won’t be a danger to anyone, himself included. I’ll lock the door when we leave. Now you can come with me on your own two feet, or I can summon guards to drag you, but either way, you’re going to the feast, now. I’ll let you choose.”
I slid my arm back out from behind Brother Qown, eased him back onto the bed, and pulled the furs up over him.
I tried to be as dignified as possible walking to the door. I had always planned to accompany her. I’d come here with a single job: find the spear Khoreval and steal it. Now I had two: find the spear Khoreval and Brother Qown’s gaesh and steal both. Doing either job would require being treated like something other than a prisoner. I had to convince Relos Var that he’d turned me to his cause. But I had to sell it. I had to make it believable.
Nobody values the prize they win without an effort.2
So we left Brother Qown to sleep, and Senera locked the door behind us.
No guards stood in the halls, no soldiers hovered over us. There was no need.
The building’s décor looked like nothing I’d seen before; all perfect black rock and geometric crystal insets and sparkling silver lines. Everything felt clean and crisp and cold, conjuring up an impression of endless glaciers and frozen icicles.
“How old is this palace?”
“Older than the empire,” Senera admitted. “Built by the god-king Cherthog and the god-queen Suless.”
“I’m surprised it survived the Quuros invasion.”
“Technically, it didn’t. They rebuilt it.”
I didn’t even pretend not to be impressed. This construction rivaled Atrine, and Kandor himself had built that.
We climbed stairs, and I decided my earlier assessment of this palace’s beauty and complexity had been premature.
At first, I thought the stairs had led us outside, to an enormous marble square set on a mountaintop. All around us, below us, jagged mountain ranges wrestled with silken teal skies. White clouds danced at our feet. The father of a thousand storms lurked in valleys below us but left our position untouched, so we might enjoy lightning play in clouds miles away.
Then I realized I felt no wind, no cold. The air didn’t swirl around me. The sunlight glinted off a silver lattice leading up above our heads. When I reached out as if to touch the sky, my fingertips rested against invisible cold crystal walls. Perfect, transparent walls.
We were still inside.
In a fallen age, the god-king of winter had fashioned himself a great hall to showcase his domain. And by some miracle, his Quuros destroyers had salvaged it, even as they ruined everything else.
The snow king’s palace …
The view struck me as so miraculous, I nearly forgot to breathe.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Senera said. “The first time I came here, I must have stood here for hours.”
I placed my hand against the clear wall again, watching as my fingers’ warmth left condensation trails against the cold, clear substance. “What are the walls made from?”
“Not a clue.”3
The walls were angled. I thought they must meet above our heads, a truncated pyramid flattened to form a small square ceiling—the only opaque section. Here, geometric crystal and silver glittered, crafted to suggest a vast and mighty empire of cold and ice. Crystal shards framed in metals jutted up or crouched down at precision angles, fitted together to form patterns like icicles or snowflakes—or cold and distant stars. The ceiling floated at least a hundred feet high, refracting mage-light so it glittered violet and blue through the crystals.
And like Senera, I might have spent hours just taking in this scene, but voices reminded me we weren’t alone.
In the room’s center, a massive firepit provided the lion’s share of warmth for the great hall. A large iron ring, scorched black by the heat, surrounded the pit and provided a barrier against stray sparks. Tables also circled the firepit, each home to courtiers and nobles—who were all watching us. Most of the dinner guests looked Yoran compared to the “normal” Quuros coloring. Yoran complexions were often white, but also pale blue, violet, or gray. These guests wore their pale hair long but braided up into tall topknots. The men wore beards, braided and decorated with jewelry. And they all preferred to dress in light colors. By comparison, Senera had given me a dress guaranteeing I stood out like a flame burning its way across paper.
If I had hoped to blend in, I put those hopes behind me. Clearly, Senera meant for me to draw attention.
An old woman, who made Dorna look like a callow youth, tended the firepit in the room’s center, next to a pack of—no. Not wolves. They were hyenas, but white-furred and blue-eyed. The old woman whipped around to stare at me as soon as I stepped foot in the hall. She narrowed her eyes and gave me a scowl, suggesting she’d be tempted to hurl burning logs if I wandered too close. Then she threw me a toothy grin that resembled a dog baring its fangs more than a smile.
I’d never seen her before in my life.
“The god-king’s throne sat up above,” Senera said, pointing toward a staircase that echoed the angles of the wall and continued through a small door in the far-off ceiling. At the staircase’s base, several dozen women sat together at a single, long table.
“Who—?” I started to ask.
“The Hon’s wives,” she said. “Don’t worry. We won’t have to sit with them.”
“His wives?” I blinked. Senera had mentioned the Yorans had no problem with polygyny. Indeed, neither do the Joratese, but our partnerships consist of smaller groups, fully polygamous. Three people. On rare occasions, four. “Just how many wives does he have?”
“One from each of the forty-eight tribes.” She gestured toward the main tables. “Let’s go meet the others, shall we?”
Senera led us around the tables until I saw brighter colors than Yoran pastels, worn by men and women with Quuros skin tones. These people wore vivid colors in homogeneous hues. Colors denoting royals, I realized, feeling startled and disturbed. In theory, these people shaped the empire. So why would they share a table with the man so notorious for his hatred of the same?
Then I heard a familiar laugh: Sir Oreth.
He seemed to be fitting in just fine.
Guests had started drinking in advance of meal service. Servants made steady and regular passes around the tables in an unending quest to keep the glasses full.
Sir Oreth saw me staring and grinned nastily. He nudged the next man over, who wore head-to-toe blue. The other man grinned back and made a salacious gesture with his hands.
I looked away and wished I had my weapons.4
Relos Var walked over. He’d been sharing a table with two more royals—although these wore black instead of bright colors. They couldn’t have looked less similar otherwise; one looked sick and pale by Quuros standards, while the second man reminded me of Dango, if the muscled bandit had decided to shave off all his hair.
Relos Var took Senera’s hands and kissed her on the forehead. “The Hon is on his way. How are our guests behaving?”
“Janel’s been good, but I’m worried about the Vishai priest. We had to leave him in the room. There’s something wrong with him.”
I returned my attention to Relos Var, determined to have some input in the conversation. I never had the chance.
“Well, well, what bit of spice have you brought us today, Icicle?” A man jeered behind us. “I’d love a handful of that with dinner.”
And someone grabbed my rear.
I had meant to behave. Don’t forget I still felt weak after Senera had drawn her mark on me. The last thing I wanted was a fight. But I still had my pride. In my dominion, certain behaviors earned an immediate reaction. And this person hadn’t just given me a cute pat on the butt—he’d dug in, fingers curled in to touch places where they were not invited.
So I turned around and punched the man behind me as hard as I could.
In hindsight, I overcompensated. I no longer possessed supernatural strength, but I could throw a punch. Unfortunately, I hadn’t a clue how to do so safely.
I felt the cartilage in the man’s nose give way, and at the same time, something in my hand snapped. The pain was excruciating.
The man I’d hit had light brown skin, ice-blue eyes, and dark, curly hair. He’d just started to grow a Yoran-style beard, still too short for braiding or jewelry. And he hadn’t been expecting me to hit him.
I’d knocked him back into the lap of the man next to him, who I would later realize had been the man who’d actually spoken. A too-vain, too-egotistical creature with a handsome face, whose bright blue eyes managed to outshine his embroidered blue silks.
Even though we stood in a room full of warriors and wizards with hardened battle reflexes, nobody seemed to know quite how to respond. Everyone stopped talking. Even the musicians stopped playing.
I cradled my broken hand to my chest, tears in my eyes.
Silver flashed as Senera returned to my side. She grabbed my arm, trying to draw me behind her.
The young man I’d punched stood back up, mouth gaping, his hand going to his bleeding nose. “How dare—!” I think he’d have said more, but his broken nose affected his speech. He must have realized he sounded ridiculous.
Then he reached for his sword.
“Exidhar, what’s going on?”
The young man’s eyes widened in horror, while everyone else—even the royals—stood. And I recognized his expression: a guilty boy about to be dressed down by a parent before all his friends. The way those friends suddenly found the mountain view fascinating, the way they’d all jumped to their feet, told me said “parent” wasn’t a random guest.
Which meant I was in trouble.
I blinked the tears from my eyes, tried to focus past the pain, and took my first good look at Azhen Kaen, Duke of Yor.
Azhen Kaen was the most perfect example of everything a Yoran man should be I’ve ever seen, before or since. He stood tall, with broad shoulders and skin so white he made Senera look tan. Diamonds sparkled in his gray beard braids like ice crystals, the same color as his eyes. He was an older man, but still handsome, still powerful.
He also had a laevos.
That unnerved me to no end. His gray laevos had been coaxed into a standing position, either by magic or glue. I reminded myself that just as Quur had conquered Jorat using soldiers pulled from Khorvesh, Yor had been conquered by Quur using soldiers from Jorat.
The first governor of Yor, later the first Duke of Yor, would have been Joratese. A footnote that would have occurred less than a hundred years ago. He’d have been Duke Kaen’s grandfather or great-grandfather at most.
Exidhar Kaen looked like he planned to crawl under the table. “I was, uh … I mean, I—” He pointed at me with one hand, still clutching his bleeding nose with the other. “She hit me!”
Of course, it came out more like “She hith may!”
Duke Kaen raised an eyebrow at him, glanced at me, and then turned to Relos Var. “Am I correct in assuming my son just grabbed your newest wife’s ass?”
Behind Exidhar, the royal in blue cleared his throat and started paying attention to his wine. I ground my teeth, wondering if I had in fact punched the wrong man.5
Mind you, I wanted to punch them all, but that wouldn’t help me in the long run.
Relos Var seemed unconcerned. “I believe she’s already satisfied any demands of honor.”
“Two minutes,” Senera muttered. “We’ve been here less than two minutes.”
The royals sitting at the same table as Exidhar started laughing, clearly considering the whole encounter delightful. From the way Exidhar Kaen blushed, he didn’t think it was quite as entertaining.
Relos Var acknowledged the laughter with a chuckle. “My apologies, Your Grace, for the excitement. Let me present you with Janel Danorak, my newest wife.”
I managed not to roll my eyes. The pain helped. I didn’t even correct Relos Var about my name.
Duke Kaen smiled at me. “I’m charmed, of course.” A frown crossed his face as he stared at me. “Are you all right?”
I suppose he had noticed the tears.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Is that so?” He reached out and grabbed my hand.
I gritted my teeth and kept from screaming. Barely.
“You seem to have broken your hand,” the duke said.
“Have I? I hadn’t noticed.”
He stared at me in wry disbelief. Then he started laughing too.
Turning to Relos Var, Duke Kaen said, “I am charmed. Tell me you’re leaving her here.”
“With your permission, of course.” Relos Var rubbed his nose with a knuckle. “I should warn you she’s rarely on her best behavior.”
“The good ones never are.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the pain to distract me from saying something rash. I hadn’t been prepared to be treated like I wasn’t even in the room, someone who could be talked around rather than talked to. Someone who would stay politely silent while the adults discussed important matters.6
I didn’t have a hard time understanding why Relos Var had insisted on removing my strength. I’d have torn out every heart in the hall otherwise.
“Please, let’s eat. I don’t know about you, but I could eat a horse,” Duke Kaen said, still laughing. He gave me a quick glance, just to make sure I’d appreciated the joke.
I started to pull out an empty seat when I felt Senera’s hand on my shoulder. “Not that one.”
“Please,” said the blue-eyed man. “Sit with me. I’d be delighted to look at you during dinner.”
As soon as he made the offer, I recognized his voice. He had been the one who’d said he wanted me “with dinner”—not Duke Kaen’s son.
“Darzin—” Senera warned.
“Yes, ‘Lady Var’? I just want to heal the young lady’s injury. Is that a problem?” He blinked at Senera, daring her to object.
I studied his blue clothing. I only knew that color’s significance because of Brother Qown’s license fees. House D’Mon, the royal family who controlled the Blue Houses and the Physickers Guild.
“Truly, your house is renowned for your healing skills,” I said, smiling as sweetly as I could manage around the pain. “So any succor you might give me, I beg you instead direct to the duke’s son. He did, after all, take the blow that belonged to you.”
Darzin laughed and confirmed who’d really grabbed me.
Senera’s hand pulled on my elbow, and we sat down opposite Darzin and Oreth, in between Relos Var and the two black-clad royals. Duke Kaen sat next to Var, and the seat I had tried to take next to his remained empty. Duke Kaen’s son, Exidhar, left his table for long enough to find the old woman by the fire; she healed his nose, not Darzin. All the while, she cast venom in my direction.
I wondered if she was Exidhar’s grandmother, but she dressed in little better than rags. Not the costume I expected for a duke’s mother. A bundle twitched in a fur-lined basket next to her, revealing itself to be—not snow hyena cubs—a mewling white bear cub.
“Let me see your hand,” Senera whispered as the servants came around with the first course.
I let her take it and tried to pretend I didn’t notice everyone staring. The servants were bringing out the food drip by drip, rather than putting all the dishes out at once and letting people choose what they liked. I also saw no sign of condiments: no pepper sauce, no pickles, no dried spices.
A servant set a bowl of blood before me. I found myself thankful Senera had insisted I eat earlier.
“I know it’s hard,” Senera whispered as she examined my hand, “but try to just smile and enjoy it.”
I met her eyes. “I’d rather stab myself with my hand’s broken bones a hundred times.” I leaned toward her. “Don’t even pretend you don’t feel the same.”7
A warm glow suffused my hand. “Everything about you is difficult,” she muttered. When Senera set my hand back down, I noticed she looked quite tired. She’d been sweating too.
Sir Oreth dripped his soup off the back of his spoon. “This … what is this?”
“Narwhal blood,” Darzin said. “Try it. It took a little getting used to, but it’s good.”8 He waggled his eyebrows. “Spicy. It’s a very special dish in Yor, reserved for the nobility. Reminds me of our new friend here.”
I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes.
Sir Oreth laughed and dropped his spoon back in the soup, so it splattered blood all over the white table linen. “Oh, don’t let her appearance fool you. Janel’s not noble blood.”
Senera moved quicker that time. Her hand closed on my arm before I could stand.
But Exidhar Kaen, returning from having his nose fixed, had no interest in keeping matters quiet, and considering what had just occurred, he had every motive to delight in gossip. “She’s not? I thought she was a Kolas? I mean, sorry, a countess? It’s countess in Jorat, right? How could that be true if she’s not nobility?”
“Sir Oreth, your recent experiences have done something to your mind,” I snapped. “You know my lineage.”
He gave me an evil smile. “Oh, I do. Better than you do, I’d wager. I even have proof. I was going to present this to Duke Xun at the tournament, but—” He shrugged even as he produced a sheet of paper from his coat. The paper looked old, folded and creased in a way that suggested it had been opened and read many times. “Anyway. If no one minds?”
“I mind,” I said. “I mind very much.”
“Your opinion doesn’t matter.”
Relos Var leaned over. “I don’t think this is the time or place.”
But Exidhar waved him off. “Oh no, Relos. I want to hear this.”
Still grinning, Sir Oreth snapped open the paper and began to read, “To my Markreev, Aroth Malkoessian, from your loyal herdsman, Jarin Theranon.”
I stiffened. Jarin Theranon was my grandfather.
“Dear Aroth, I beseech your help, for I’m distraught. With my son’s death I now face the unpleasant truth that my lineage is dead. I must therefore confess a secret I had thought to take to my grave: my granddaughter, Janel, is not my blood.”
I shook my head. “That’s a lie. You’re making this up—”
He turned the paper around so I saw the writing on the page and, worse, saw it matched Jarin’s handwriting. “I’m not. I found this among my father’s papers years ago. It’s a fascinating read.”
“Oh, I just love a good family scandal,” Darzin said, leaning back in his chair. “Please, keep going. I want all the details. Actually, let’s do one better—” He grabbed the paper from Sir Oreth.
“Hey!”
“Since I don’t know the names involved, it would be much harder to claim I’m making it all up, wouldn’t it?”
“Darzin, you ass,” Senera muttered under her breath.
Darzin just grinned. “I had always suspected. I loved my daughter-in-law, but I’m not a fool. After she tried for so long to bear a child without success, how could I ignore when she returned from their district tour with a babe Frena had never carried? She never produced milk for Janel. She never lost her maidenly figure. I knew my son had had difficulties giving Frena a child. I knew of their longing. So I didn’t question too much such a miraculous birth. They loved her, as did I.”
I felt dizzy and faint. The entire table had stopped talking to each other; they were all listening to Darzin’s reading. “Please stop.”
But Darzin didn’t stop. “But there can be no denying the child is not Joratese. I have been forced to go to House D’Mon—” Darzin paused. “Oh, hey, that’s me. Anyway, House D’Mon, accepting their outrageous fees—it’s true, we are expensive—to make sure the girl has proper horse markings. The cost left us in poor sorts when the Hellmarch came, and little in our coffers to help with the recovery after. Thus, I throw myself on your mercy and offer a possible solution. Though she’s of common blood, Janel is comely. She’d make your youngest son a fine wife. Thus, would Tolamer continue to be ruled by noble blood, as is right and proper. Signed with greatest respect, Jarin Theranon.”
“No,” I said. I felt a flustered sense of panic. Yes, I knew my grandfather had arranged the marriage with Sir Oreth. Yet he hadn’t protested when I’d announced I’d wanted nothing more to do with the idea. My grandfather had never treated me as anything other than his grandchild. He had never treated me as less.
It couldn’t be true.
“You should have just accepted destiny and let me marry you,” Sir Oreth said. “Instead, here we are.” He gestured around him and then paused. “I mean, no offense.”
“Oh, the look on your face, little girl,” Darzin said to me. “Your whole world just fell to pieces, right before my eyes.” He looked over to Relos Var. “Seriously, name your price for her. What do you want?”
“I want you to be smarter,” Relos Var snapped. “But it’s not a sum you’ll ever raise.”
Next to him, the bald man in black began laughing.9
I paid attention to their banter just in case Relos Var tried to sell me, but my attention was focused on Oreth. He’d started out laughing and sneering at my humiliation, but the longer Darzin read that damning letter, the more Oreth’s mockery turned to anger. An anger that, after all these years, I finally understood.
His actions had always been a mystery to me. We had danced around each other with the tender curiosity of two foals at play, knowing from an early age we were betrothed. But as the stories of Janel Danorak spread, it became clear I would grow up a stallion. His whole demeanor changed. He never showed me thudajé. He must have known about my parentage all along and thought it proof that he was better than I was. My common blood meant I was destined to be the mare to his stallion and never the reverse.
I had refused, for all these years, to know my place.
“Huh, well, that’s surprising,” Darzin said. “Here I assumed you just wanted a new flavor of young and innocent to corrupt, but I guess you might have feelings for her. Then again, Var, you do like marrying throwaways, don’t you?”
Next to me, I felt Senera tense.
“Enough,” warned Duke Kaen.
Relos Var raised an eyebrow. “Yes, yes. Janel’s real mother was a dancing girl, and her father was a Khorveshan soldier.” He leaned forward to look at Darzin. “Are you implying having a Khorveshan parent is an embarrassment? Wasn’t your mother Khorveshan?”10
I couldn’t help but notice that the eyes of those not focused on Darzin or Relos Var now looked toward Duke Kaen’s son. His clearly mixed-race Yoran son. Exidhar’s brown skin and black hair clearly suggested his mother hadn’t come from Yor.
Exidhar Kaen shifted in his seat, an embarrassed blush on his face. He saw me looking at him and schooled his expression into something haughty and malicious.
I hadn’t made a friend there.
Darzin seemed to realize his blunder. “Of course, I didn’t mean that. The Khorveshan bloodlines are the most honored in the empire. Anyway, despite young Oreth’s opinion here, your new bride’s not a commoner, not with those god-touched ruby eyes. Her mother must have been an Ogenra of House D’Talus, obviously.”
Relos Var reached for his drink. “Obviously.”
Beside me, Senera relaxed. People moved on to other conversational topics. Politics. Gossip. What might be done to undermine the empire’s control. I should have been paying better attention, but I couldn’t focus.
I felt sick. They had to be lying. I had grown up under Xaltorath’s tender care. I knew the sorts of lies that could be wielded like daggers to nick and cut and bleed. I also knew the truth could be used to rip open the same veins. And truth was a far easier blade to sharpen.
“Don’t let them see it bother you,” someone whispered.
I looked over. One of the black-clad royals had spoken. The bald one.
“They thrive on the pain they cause,” he said. “It feeds them. Don’t give them the satisfaction.”11
“They? Aren’t you one of them?”
His mouth quirked. “I’m nothing like them.” He wasn’t looking at me. The voices around us created a din. Yet somehow, I still heard his whisper. “My name is Thurvishar D’Lorus. I’ll try to help if I can, but don’t rely on it. My hands are tied in many ways.”
“Which house is D’Lorus—”
“Books. We run the Academy.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t say anything more. The Academy. A school, yes, but I’d been able to hear the capital letter. The wizard’s school in Kirpis.
I glanced at him sideways. I couldn’t tell his age. He had the sort of chiseled face that looks old when young and young when old. When he glanced in Relos Var’s direction, I saw his eyes matched his dress. Black, the color of mystery. Outside of Jorat, also the color of magic.
Whatever his Royal House colors, he probably just wanted to share the thrill of humiliating the newest addition to court. Thurvishar D’Lorus was just cleverer about it than Darzin D’Mon.
When Senera and I left, the men stayed to share drinks and swap outrageous stories. I didn’t notice the nasty old woman had vanished from her place at the fire.
But it wouldn’t have meant anything to me even if I had.
“It’s a little like eating with a pack of wolves, isn’t it?” Senera said later as we returned to the room. “They snap and wrestle and try to push themselves in each other’s way. They all want to be favorites when Kaen overthrows the empire, each with their own dominion to rule. Idiots.”
I didn’t respond. We kept walking.
She stopped in the hallway and turned to face me. “I’ve studied Joratese culture enough to understand ‘noble blood’ isn’t a requirement for ruling. Don’t your people always say the proof of blood is in deeds? Even if you’re adopted, it doesn’t change anything.”
I rubbed my lower lip, reminded myself temper tantrums wouldn’t help my cause—no matter how good they might feel in the short term. “You don’t understand.”
“I think I do.”
“If Oreth is right—if Relos Var is right—I’m not even Joratese. And that matters a great deal.” I paused. “How did Relos Var know who my parents were? My grandfather didn’t know.”
Senera pulled up the inkstone she wore around her neck and then tucked it back under her gown’s neckline. “It’s this. If you ask it a question and use the stone, what you write will answer your question.”
I stared at her. What a useful toy. Such a useful tool that I felt like a naked baby trying to fight off lions.
Did they already know my motives? Had they known the whole time I was only here to steal a magic spear and kill their pet dragon? To undermine their invasion efforts?
She smirked. “It’s not foolproof. Ask a bad question, get a bad answer. And it won’t answer opinions. It won’t tell you events that haven’t happened yet. And my personal favorite: once you start writing, the stone won’t let you stop until you’ve finished answering the question. So it’s rather important to ask unambiguous questions. It didn’t end well for the last person Relos Var let use the stone. He asked a question so sufficiently vague he was still writing out the answer when he dropped dead from exhaustion.”
“So you’re the one who asked about my parents.”
Senera nodded. “Yes.”
“Who are they? Are they still alive? I want names.”
She chuckled as we neared the doorway she’d locked earlier. “Maybe if you’re good, I’ll let you know. Right now, I think it should just be my little—” She frowned. “What?”
I turned to see what she was staring at.
The door stood ajar.
I rushed inside. Brother Qown was missing.