52: THE BREAKING OF CHAINS
Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since Talon’s team won
“I wonder if it’s all of them,” Kihrin mused.
“What was that?” Qown asked.
“If all the dragons are children of the Eight Immortals. I mean, I spent four years stranded on Thaena’s sacred island because her dragon son, Sharanakal, didn’t want me to leave. And then there’s Aeyan’arric and—myself—”
Qown frowned. “What about Aeyan’arric and you?”
“Uh, never mind. My point is, I wonder if that will prove true of all the dragons?”
“Wow. Uh, now that’s a conversation I never thought I’d be having,” Ninavis said.
Janel looked at Brother Qown. “I think it’s possible. Maybe Relos Var’s fondness for going after family goes right back to the beginning.”
“Man’s got some issues,” Dorna commented.
“It changes things,” Kihrin said. He remembered comments from both Relos Var and the dragon Sharanakal. They’d recognized him not from his physical appearance, but by the “color” of his soul. If all dragons shared such an ability, then Aeyan’arric might well recognize him.
But was that good? What if Aeyan’arric hated her father?
“Why does it change anything?” Janel asked. “She’s still an angry dragon Relos Var is using to trap us here.”
He paused and waved a hand. “Keep going with the story. I need to think about this.”
Qown’s Turn. The Ice Demesne, Yor, Quur.
Brother Qown learned he could even spy on a god, when he realized Tya didn’t sense him.1 He’d been following Janel since she left, using her distinctive higher core temperature as his heat source. It proved unnecessary after she entered the Spring Caves. The stone monolith ran so hot Qown couldn’t stare at it lest he blind himself; it burned with the heat of an open forge.
Like Relos Var, like Janel, Tya ran hotter in temperature than a normal person. Much hotter, and Brother Qown made a note to see if he could find a connection between tenyé and heat levels. Did tenyé have a tangible energy impact? What did this physiological difference signify?
Then Janel was crying and Tya was crying, and Qown wished he didn’t have to keep watching. Much more embarrassing than spying on sex, which he’d forced himself to do more than once for fear he’d lose information otherwise.
He watched, anyway. And he watched as mother and daughter defeated Aeyan’arric together.
Brother Qown exhaled. Whatever else happened, Janel would be fine. Her mother would take her away.
She’d made it.
Then something pushed him, knocking Worldhearth from his hand.
Senera loomed over him. “Watching anything interesting?”
“What? I—”
She grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him from the chair. He looked around and saw her soldiers filled the room. The soldiers were patched and bandaged, as if they’d just come from a fight.
Which they probably had.
“What’s happened?” Brother Qown asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Senera said. “Will you walk, or should I have the lieutenant carry you?”
He stood, straightening his agolé as he picked up Worldhearth. “I’ll walk.”
Together, they marched from the main library, heading upstairs to the great hall. Brother Qown felt his stomach squeeze tighter with each step. They’d been discovered. They’d been discovered far too early. Everyone at the palace must have witnessed the fight outside. And no one—not Duke Kaen and certainly not Relos Var—would be happy to see Aeyan’arric slain. The Yorans would probably kill Qown, but he’d known that would be the price.
He’d always known.
But when he stepped up into the giant crystal trapezoid, he saw a scene he’d expected and two additional details he hadn’t.
What he expected: Duke Azhen Kaen stood there, furious and mighty, looking like he had been roused from bed and had not yet had time to decorate his beard. His wife, Xivan, stood next to him, as well as his son, Exidhar. Wyrga sat at her normal place by the fire, accompanied by her pet polar bear cub / ensorcelled husband. The Spurned spread out like an honor guard, dressed in full armor and holding shields and swords. Qown didn’t recognize the robust blue-haired Yoran man standing just to the side of the duke, but that wasn’t shocking. Most of the Yoran nobles wanted nothing to do with him, and the early hour meant a great many of the normal faces were absent.
What he hadn’t expected: Janel Danorak lay on the floor next to Relos Var, unconscious. Her arms had been forced behind her back and were held together by a giant metal band, molded around her hands. And before Duke Kaen, beaten and bloody, stood someone Brother Qown hadn’t seen in years but remembered well.
Ninavis.
She was bound with rope. Ninavis also sported a bruise on one cheek, and blood trickled from her split lip.
“Ah, good, everyone’s here now,” Relos Var said.
Brother Qown nearly threw up, right on the spot. Relos Var had warned Qown that one day the wizard would have to choose whether to continue supporting Duke Kaen or turn instead to Janel. It looked like Relos Var had finally made his choice.
He studied Relos Var’s face for any clue that this was somehow not what it seemed, that Var had found some way to keep Janel and Qown—and possibly Ninavis—alive. Var’s face was carved from stone.
“You realize she’s coming back, right?” Brother Qown said.
A guard stepped forward to hit him, and Qown fixed his gaze on the man. The guard hesitated.
Relos Var turned around. “Who’s coming back?”
“Tya. Did you think Janel killed Aeyan’arric by herself?”
Duke Kaen gave Relos Var a look. “I’m beginning to think killing a dragon isn’t as difficult as you’ve led me to believe.”
Relos Var shook his head. “Aeyan’arric isn’t dead, Your Grace.”
“She killed her,” Brother Qown volunteered. “I saw it.”
Relos Var sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, you did. But such a death isn’t permanent. She’ll return.” He smiled at Qown. “Janel missed a step.”
Brother Qown folded his hands over his arms. “What do you mean?”
“You see, what you failed to take into account—” Relos Var stopped. “Why don’t we save the class lecture for another day? Much as you know I love to enlighten the uneducated, you’re right. I’m not sure this palace would survive a reunion between myself and my favorite student.”
Qown blinked for a moment, confused as to why Relos Var would reference Senera when she stood right there. Then he realized Var meant something else entirely.
The goddess Tya had been his “favorite student.”2
“So what are our options?” Duke Kaen asked. “Kill Janel Danorak? Send her to Shadrag Gor? And what about our Black Knight?” He gestured toward Ninavis. “Are you seriously expecting me to believe you couldn’t track down one middle-aged woman responsible for all the trouble we’ve had in Jorat? When this is the Black Knight?”
Kaen didn’t notice the glare Xivan gave him.
Ninavis raised her head and grinned as she licked blood from her lips. “And I have to say, you lot sure did make it easy. But your man is wrong; I’m not the Black Knight.”
The blue-haired man spoke. “She is, my Hon. I know what I saw in Jorat—”
“Or should I say, everyone is the Black Knight now? Killing me isn’t going to change a thing. We knew you lot were looking for armies, so we never formed any. We knew you lot were looking for leaders, so we made everyone a leader. We knew you lot would try to find the Black Knight, so we made everyone the Black Knight. Me? I’m just a thief who’s good with a bow. Killing me is like taking a cup of water from the sea and thinking you’ve stopped the tide.”
“Shut her up,” Relos Var said. “She’s just trying to delay—” He paused, and his eyes widened. A dozen emotions seemed to cross his face: anger, shock, outrage, and fear the most identifiable. Brother Qown thought he looked rather like someone who had just been stabbed or poisoned by a good friend, who had just realized how thoroughly they’d been betrayed.
Or maybe Qown was just conflating Var’s emotions with his own.
“What’s wrong?” Duke Kaen said.
“Someone just killed my brother,” Relos Var said.
Then he vanished.
Everyone hesitated. A beat of silence filled the room, and then Duke Kaen turned to his wife. “Did you know he had a brother?”
“I didn’t think he was the sort to have a family, to be honest.”
“Hmmph. Fine. And now that he’s gone—” Duke Kaen drew his sword and advanced on Janel’s unconscious body. “I will not tolerate traitors.”
“Azhen,” Xivan said, “we don’t yet know what happened.”
The Hon whirled back to face his wife. “We know she’s a traitor. We know she disobeyed at least one of my orders, freed prisoners I’d ordered executed, sent them into Jorat. She killed my dragon! She clearly knew who the Black Knight was the entire time and hid that fact from me. I know all I need to know. I had hoped I could trust her. Now I know I can’t.”
Qown stared at the blue-haired Yoran, who was biting down on a knuckle, eyes haunted. Now that Qown looked closer, he didn’t think the man a noble. The man was dressed in simple Joratese-style clothing.
“I agree we will need to do something,” Xivan Kaen reminded her husband, “but if we kill Janel, won’t that just send her to our enemies?”
The duke paused, consternation in his expression. He had forgotten the reason they made a point of not killing certain people.
Senera gestured. “If you like, I could, um, an enchantment might, uh—” She licked her lips, looking nervous and upset. “I mean, I—”
Qown had never seen Senera lose her composure before.
“No, not you.” Kaen looked displeased. “I placed my faith in you and your master once. I no longer believe you’ve been steadfast in your loyalty. First the Black Knight and now Tya. Tya? This should never have gone so far.”3
Senera bowed. “As you say, Your Grace.”
“What about my family?” the blue-haired man interjected. “You promised that you’d reunite me with my family.”
Kaen stopped and looked at the man.
“I mean … I … please. My Hon.”
Kaen said, “Wyrga, take the prisoners and our new friend here down to the Spring Caves. I want you to make sure they can’t escape. If anyone tries to remove them without my permission, I want you to destroy them.”
“What? But I told you everything!” the Yoran man protested.
Qown had his own reasons for disbelief. He was reasonably certain Duke Kaen had no idea Janel and her mother, Tya, had rendered the caves safe. So Kaen had—or rather, thought he had—just sentenced them all to a terrible and slow death. Indeed, Kaen’s vague instructions didn’t prevent Wyrga from killing them either, so long as she kept their bodies in the caves. But he’d also made life difficult for her, since the duke had effectively demanded Wyrga kill Tya if the goddess showed up to free her daughter.
And Qown didn’t think Wyrga was anywhere near powerful enough for that.
Wyrga must have realized as much. She threw a murderous look at the duke, but he either didn’t see it or didn’t care.
“Husband, what are you doing? This can’t—”
“Don’t cross me!” the duke screamed. Then he motioned to the guards, who didn’t realize they too were being sent to their deaths. “Take them downstairs.”
“You’ve lost weight,” Ninavis said as they were marched downstairs toward the caves.
“Nice to see you too,” Brother Qown snapped.
“No, I mean: Are you eating enough? You look like they’ve been starving you. I liked the baby fat. It was cute.” Ninavis glanced around, looking for some way to escape, looking for some opportunity.
“You did?” He shook his head. “No, no. I just … I forget to eat sometimes.”
Ninavis threw him a concerned look.
They walked down five flights with a guard carrying Janel slung over his shoulder. Then they heard a voice from an adjacent hallway, yelling for them to wait. Senera appeared.
She’d either opened a gate or she’d run. Possibly both.
“How many floors down are we going?” Ninavis asked out of the corner of her mouth.
“You don’t want to know,” Qown said. “It’s a large building.”
“Wait,” Senera said, holding her side as if she had a stitch. “The duke forgot to have me spell you.”
Ninavis groaned. “Oh, it’s you. I hate you.”
Wyrga turned and looked at Senera, smiling sharp-toothed and vicious. “Is that so, little girl?” The old woman motioned for Senera to come forward with a crooked finger.
That smile made Qown pause. He recognized it. He looked from Janel’s sleeping form back to Wyrga again. How much time hand Janel been spending with Wyrga, anyway? But he had no time for that distraction.
Senera straightened her back. “What do you want, Wyrga?”
Wyrga grabbed Senera by the neck and brought the Doltari woman down to her eye level. “You’ve always been one of mine, haven’t you? Fake marriage vows may fool the men, but I know one of my daughters when I see her.”
Senera ground her teeth. “Let me go.”
Wyrga grinned. “Call me Mother, darling.”
“Let me go, ‘Mother,’” Senera repeated.
Wyrga released her.
Senera walked forward. She had the Name of All Things in one hand, filled with ink, and her brush in the other. “This will just take a moment.”
Wyrga cackled.
Wyrga knew the duke hadn’t “forgotten” to have Senera protect them against the poisons in the caves. Indeed, the duke didn’t know such magical protections existed.
Brother Qown shook his head. “This isn’t necessary,” he whispered as Senera approached. Senera didn’t know the dangers had already been neutralized.
“Shut up,” she said, looking over her shoulder toward Wyrga. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?” Qown looked at the pale-skinned woman and wondered just how much this would cost her. He also wondered if she was attempting to save their lives for Relos Var’s benefit or because she didn’t want to see them die herself.
She marked the air glyph on everyone’s forehead and then added an unfamiliar second glyph. Qown studied the new sigil, memorizing it.
When she finished, Senera said, “All right, let’s go.” Evidently, she’d no intention of staying behind.
Which meant she too had caught the loophole in the duke’s orders to Wyrga.
The old woman scowled but didn’t protest. The group continued until they reached the tunnels underneath the palace. Wyrga clearly knew the way.
Senera took one look at the large monolith in the main cavern and turned back to Janel’s sleeping figure. “She removed the sigil from her back.”
“I did,” Brother Qown confessed. “She mostly just lay there.”
Wyrga smirked at him.
Brother Qown felt himself turn red. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
The old woman walked around the room, seeming to stand straighter with each step. She tsked at the bodies on the ground even as she swept her gaze from side to side like an industrious maid with a broom. “The razarras ore is gone. The smoke is gone. Who’s been cleaning my house?” She set her cub down—Cherthog,4 Qown reminded himself—and the little beast immediately began chewing on a corpse’s thigh bone.
“Tya removed all the dangers,” Brother Qown said. “Earlier.”
Senera met his stare. “It’s not necessary,” she repeated Qown’s earlier warning to herself, and then sighed.
A guard lowered Janel to the ground. “Do you want me to wake her?”
“Good luck with that,” Ninavis said.
Senera walked over to Janel and frowned. “Relos Var must have her under another sleep spell.”
“I doubt Relos Var had her under a sleep spell after the duel in Atrine,” Brother Qown said. “She’s … hard to wake once she sleeps.”
So naturally, Janel woke right away.
Qown and Ninavis exchanged looks. It was still night. Janel normally wouldn’t—couldn’t—wake before dawn.
“Hard to wake, you say?” Senera raised an eyebrow at Qown. She gestured to the guards. “Get her up.”
Wyrga ignored them as she ran her hands over the stone monolith, muttering to herself.
“Janel,” Qown said. “Are you all right? The situation is a bit, uh—”
“Everything’s screwed,” Ninavis finished.
Janel blinked as the guards hauled her to a standing position. “Hey, Ninavis. It’s been a while.”
“You too,” Ninavis said. “You know, I’d started to wonder if you were a ghost haunting Arasgon from the afterlife. Looks like I owe Dorna twenty thrones.”
“Oh, you know me. Hard to kill.” Janel looked around the cave, noting the people present. Her gaze stopped at the blue-haired man. “Why do I know you?”
He swallowed and looked away.
Janel made a face. “You were one of the prisoners I freed.”
The man didn’t deny it. “I just wanted my family back. I’m sorry, I thought—”
“You thought all would be forgiven if you gave us up to the duke,” Janel said. She glared at Wyrga. “You must be loving this.”
“Oh, I am,” Wyrga agreed.
“We should’ve switched to fake names,” Ninavis mused.
Janel said, “Did Tya come back? Where’s Relos Var?”
“He … left,” Senera replied.
“Who fixed the walls?” Xivan Kaen stepped into the cave. She wore full Khorveshan armor and carried the spear Khoreval. She turned back behind her and shouted, “Don’t come in! It’s not safe yet!”
The soldiers straightened and bowed to their duchess as she entered the cavern complex. She must have left the Spurned back in the tunnels. And since Xivan had recognized the cave walls and floors no longer posed a problem, the caves could only be dangerous because of two people: Wyrga and Senera.
“Hello, vampire,” Wyrga said. “I’m not receiving guests, so leave.”
“I plan on leaving,” Xivan said, “but I’m taking your prisoners with me. I don’t trust you not to hurt them, and my husband isn’t thinking. I don’t want him doing anything rash.” She smiled. “I know how well that works out.”
Wyrga sighed. “You don’t have Azhen Kaen’s permission.”
“No, I don’t.”
Wyrga just stared at the woman, lips drawing back from her teeth, fangs showing.
Qown realized Duke Kaen must have ordered Wyrga never to harm his wives, his family, himself.
But Kaen had also just told her to destroy anyone who tried to rescue the prisoners.
Wyrga couldn’t obey both commands. If she attacked Xivan, the gaesh loop started, and the moment Xivan left with a prisoner, it also triggered.
Xivan looked over at Senera. “Are we going to have a problem?”
Senera cocked her head. “Not unless you object to me leaving with you.”
“He’ll never forgive you,” Wyrga growled. “Your husband already feels betrayed. He already doesn’t trust his friends.”
“Your doing, I think,” Xivan said.
“Of course it was my doing!” Wyrga screamed. “He deserves nothing less!” She held out her hands, changing tack, her voice dropping to a more reasonable volume. “I’m helping him, defending him against all the things he’s too weak to understand are threats: trust and love and respect. Only when he understands his true enemies were his closest friends will he be ready for my truth.”
Ninavis edged over toward Brother Qown. “I’m guessing there’s some history here I don’t know.”
“Just a little,” Qown said. Then he blinked and put his hand to his chest.
Wyrga did the same.
Janel frowned.5
“Are you all right?” Ninavis asked Qown.
“I can breathe,” he whispered. “By the sun, it feels like I can finally get enough air. What is happening? Why—”
Across the cave, next to the monolith, Wyrga’s eyes widened with surprise, joy, triumph. “My gaesh is gone!”
Xivan grabbed Janel by the arm. “Run.”
They all heard Wyrga cackling behind them. Then the sound of large stones breaking battled with her high-pitched screams. Xivan led Janel, whose hands remained bound. Everyone else—including the guards—followed in her wake. No one wanted to stay and see what the witch-queen Suless would do, freed from her gaesh.
They exited into cold air at the mountain’s base. The sky wouldn’t see the sun rise for several hours. Tya’s Veil spread out over the sky as a ribbon of red, green, and violet above them, just bright enough to reflect off the packed ice and snow. A snow incline led up and away from the palace.
When they had reached the slope’s top, Xivan stopped. “We can rest here,” Xivan said. “I’ll do a head count while you catch your breaths. We’ll figure out what happened—”
A deafening roar shook the ground under their feet. Qown felt like he stood right next to a lightning strike as thunder rolled over the land.
“Holy shit,” Senera said.
Everyone looked back.
A fire column a hundred feet across tore up through the pyramid, from the bottom to the top, burning up into the sky. It turned every snowbank and mountaintop for a hundred miles orange red. The inferno seemed to pause for a split second …
And then the column of fire exploded outward.
The explosion surged, ripping right through the great hall.
“Suless,” Janel murmured.
Time slowed. Everything happened so fast, but to Qown’s perceptions, events crawled at a leisurely pace. He saw the delicate fire flower curl outward from the explosion. The shattered crystal walls flew out in a sparkling, deadly rain capable of shredding anyone standing too close to the palace—and they all stood too close to the palace. The exploding fireball looped up and out and then started to sink … heading straight for them. The blue-haired man and several of the soldiers started running.
“Duck—” What Ninavis would have had them duck behind, he didn’t know. Probably she didn’t know either.
Senera raised up her hands. Her spell kept the lethal shards and high winds from pouring death down on them.
But Qown didn’t think she could handle the wall of fire too.
As it turned out, she didn’t need to. The fire launched upward and away, melting the snow below them and scorching the rocks.
All over in seconds.
Senera turned around, looking as surprised as he felt. “Okay, who did that—”
Janel had been held tight in Xivan’s grip, but she’d fallen to one knee in a half crouch on the stony ground. It wasn’t clear if she’d wriggled her way free or if Xivan had let her go. But the duchess just stood there, mouth gaping, staring up at the devastated palace.
“If by ‘that,’ you mean saving you from burning to death, then you’re welcome,” Janel said. Steam hissed from the snow as molten metal fell from the band holding her hands behind her back. She stood and carefully pulled free of her restraints.
But after a few seconds, Janel’s gaze shifted back to the burning palace. Everyone’s did. Xivan’s mouth hung open, a look of absolute horror on her face as she stared at the devastated, burning remains of the Yoran palace.
Finally, the guards pulled out their weapons and began to walk forward toward Qown, Ninavis, and Janel. They might have still been in shock, but they still spoke the language of violence.
“Oh, come on,” Ninavis said as she noticed their behavior. “It is way too cold out here to fight. Those women look like they’re going to freeze to death.”
“They always look like that,” Qown said. “They’re Yorans.”
Ninavis waved Brother Qown off as she addressed the men. “Just hold a minute, will you? Let’s not forget we just left an angry—whatever that woman is—”
“Suless,” Janel provided. “She’s the god-queen Suless. And she just … she just blew up the palace. Who was up there?”
“Everyone,” Xivan said. “Everyone. They’re all dead. My family is dead.”
“No, they’re not.”
Everyone turned their heads at Senera’s voice. She’d pulled the Name of All Things from her bodice and crouched down, writing in the snow with a finger.
“What?” Xivan woke up. “I left my whole family up in the great hall.”
Senera shook her head as she tucked the stone back into her bodice. “I just asked. They were gone by the time the palace exploded. Your family is still alive.”6
“Of course they are,” Janel said. Disgust had replaced shock.
“What do you mean, ‘of course they are’?” Xivan brandished Khoreval, seconds from using it on Janel.
Janel exhaled. “Do you think Suless would give your husband—your son—a quick death? Does that really sound like something she’d do?”
Brother Qown’s stomach clenched. It didn’t sound at all like something Suless would do. He shuddered. Quur had a thousand stories about what the witch-queen Suless did with stolen children. Ten times as many existed in Yor about what she did with men. She’d always been a monster.
Xivan dragged a hand over her face. “How did this happen?”
“That’s the question I’d like to know too,” Janel answered.
Qown said, “Somehow my gaesh, Suless’s gaesh—they’ve vanished. I have no idea how. It should be impossible. Would you stop that?”
The guards had started advancing again.
“Stand down,” Xivan ordered. She motioned for the guards to lower their weapons. “Free the Marakori woman. I have no interest in taking prisoners today. Let them all go.”
The Spurned exchanged some looks, but no one protested her order. A woman untied Ninavis.
“Oh,” Senera said.
Janel turned to her. “Oh?”
“Someone’s finally done it. Fulfilled one of the prophecies. Destroyed the Stone of Shackles. That means someone’s found Godslayer—Urthaenriel. And so, all gaeshe have been broken, just as predicted.”
Xivan started to laugh, a wild, crazed sound. “Perfect. Just perfect. My husband looked for that damn thing for decades, and someone finds it now.”
Senera rolled her eyes. “Finally.”
Janel threw Senera a murderous look. “Finally?” Janel turned to Qown. “Didn’t you tell me, all the way back in Barsine Banner, that the only thing keeping every demon bound and unable to enter our world unsummoned was a gaesh?”
Qown’s eyes widened. “Oh no.”
“We anticipated that,” Senera snapped. “The prophecies made it perfectly clear. Why do you think we had Aeyan’arric freezing bodies after we killed them? Do you have any idea how many souls Thaena has been able to recover from demons because of us? How many demons she’s been able to destroy because we left them trapped for her to find?”
“I thought you hated Thaena,” Qown said.
“Oh, I do,” Senera said, “but I’ll still use her to destroy demons. She has to be good for something.”
“Don’t you dare,” Janel snarled through gritted teeth. “Don’t try to pretend what you did in Mereina had anything to do with altruism. You and Relos Var are not the heroes here. You did this to terrorize the region, so Duke Kaen could walk into Jorat—save the day—and be hailed as the new Atrin Kandor. You weren’t sabotaging a demonic invasion, you were waging war.”
Senera smiled. “This was always war. At least now we can to stop pretending it was anything else.”
“Enough!” Xivan Kaen said. “I don’t care about demons. I don’t care about my husband’s damn war! Tell me where Suless is, Senera. Tell me right now.”
Senera stopped smiling. “Your Grace, I’d be glad to help, but Wyrga—Suless—knows I have the Name of All Things. She knows what it can do. She’s not going to stop moving for long enough for us to catch up with her. And while you’re chasing her, what happens to your dominion?”
Xivan’s expression epitomized quiet fury. Her voice was soft. “Do you have family, Senera? Do you love someone?”
Senera blinked. “No.”
“Someday,” Xivan said. “Someday you will. And when you do, only then will you understand. In the meantime, trust me when I say I don’t give a fuck what happens to Yor. This place was my husband’s obsession, not mine. The only Yorans I give a damn about are my family and the people standing right here!”
As if on cue, several dozen women stood to attention. The male Yoran soldiers looked at a loss. Reality was starting to set in.
“Are we free to leave, then?” Janel asked.
“And go where?” Ninavis glanced over at Janel. “I hate to break this to you, but we’re not going to make it far without food, water, or winter clothing.” Ninavis glanced over at Janel. “Although I suppose you could keep us from freezing to death with that trick of yours.”
Janel turned to Xivan. “I don’t suppose you’d—”
Qown broke off reading.
Kihrin frowned. “What’s wrong? Why did you stop?”
But then he heard a noise behind him.
Kihrin turned around in time to see a gate open in the tavern’s center and Relos Var step through.