A door slammed somewhere in the cathedral, jolting Aunn to his feet. He shook his head to clear it and looked down at the mosaic. Tira’s face in colored tile seemed to smile back at him, urging him on his way.
“I am yours,” he whispered, “and if by my life or death I can make your flame burn brighter, I will.”
The noise had come from an open doorway across the sanctuary from where he’d entered, so he crept to that entrance and listened. A stairway led down, presumably to offices or storerooms, perhaps catacombs. He heard footsteps echoing in the stairwell, but they receded as he listened. He followed them, cupping his glowstone in his hand to light the stairs as he descended. At the first landing, he found a door, which he suspected led to another alley outside the cathedral—probably the door he had heard.
He felt as if he were walking in a dream, moving for the sake of moving without knowing why, with no idea who or what he was following. Was it some angel of the Silver Flame sent to lead him to what he sought? A criminal using the cathedral as a hiding place, drawing him down into an ambush? A haunting spirit? He had no idea, but he felt drawn to follow it, and the part of his mind that questioned why was not strong enough, or perhaps awake enough, to stop him.
Light washed over the bottom of the stairs, and Aunn pocketed his glowstone as he moved to the shadows at the outer edge of the stairway. A narrow passage stretched back under the cathedral from the bottom of the stairs, with doors every few yards on both sides, and at least one intersection where passages branched out in each direction. Everbright lanterns hung at intervals from the low ceiling, bathing the entire hall in bright light. And the figure turning a corner at the far end of the hall gave more credence to the haunting spirit idea—it looked like Kelas.
He felt a brief tingle of fear, but stifled it. After all, he had seen Kelas just the night before—for that matter, he had been Kelas. The figure in the hall was more likely to be the changeling, Vec, than some kind of ghost. And that suggested that he’d been right to come to the cathedral. Or at least, Vec shared his suspicion that Kelas might have kept useful information there.
Aunn started to pursue the shade or changeling or whatever it was, but he stopped just short of the doorway. The cathedral cellar looked like a labyrinth, a perfect place for an ambush. There could be Royal Eyes lurking behind every door in the hall, waiting for him to walk into their midst.
He hesitated for just a moment, then decided he had to take the risk. If Kelas had used the cathedral as a base of operations, then some clue to help Aunn unravel Nara’s plans might be in this cellar, and that was worth risking his life for. He slid his mace from his belt and stepped through the doorway.
The walls became the rocky sides of a blasted canyon surrounding him, the floor was strewn with rubble, and the low ceiling turned into a smoky red sky far overhead. He was in that other Labyrinth, with the demons of the Wastes a very real and present threat. He could feel the presence of the shapechanging fiend that had attacked him there, wearing first his own, new face, then so many other faces in quick succession—Vor’s, Dania’s, Kelas’s, and the shape of a demon bear. But he also felt the presence of the Silver Flame, the presence that had driven the fiend from him in the Wastes. He felt a surge of magic, like a knot in his chest suddenly loosed, and the illusion vanished in a flash of white light. The cellar was just plastered walls and tiled ceiling again.
“What is going on here?” he muttered.
Clutching his mace, he hurried as quietly as he could to the point where the second passage crossed the one he was in. No unseen assailants leaped from doorways, and as he peered down the crossing passage he saw no sign of danger. He stepped through the intersection and down to where he’d seen Kelas turn the corner. The only footsteps he could hear were his own, as much as he tried to soften them.
A door stood open halfway down the corridor, and Aunn could see a shadow cast into the hall from a light in the room beyond. He cursed his new armor and boots, which creaked as he crept down the hall. As he drew near the open door, he heard the rustling of papers, drawers sliding open and banging closed. Perhaps the other visitor was making too much noise of his own to hear the sounds of Aunn’s approach.
He was only three steps from the door when the noises from inside the room stopped.
“Who’s there?” a voice called from the room. It was not Kelas’s voice, but a woman’s. Familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
Aunn’s mind raced. His first instinct was to put Kelas’s face back on, to swagger into the office full of bluster and rage, and he actually felt his face begin to change before he reminded himself to stop. “My name is Aunn,” he said, addressing himself as much as the woman in the room. He slid his mace back into his belt and inched toward the open doorway.
The woman laughed, high and musical, and Aunn finally recognized the voice. “Colonel Tolden?”
The laugh cut off abruptly. “Do I know you?”
Aunn took the last step into the doorway, hands in front of him, palms out. Janna Tolden sat behind a large wooden desk, with a crossbow cocked and pointed at his chest.
How did I mistake her for Kelas? he wondered.
Her hair was the same light shade of brown as Kelas’s, and that might have been enough to explain his mistake. She wore it only slightly longer than Kelas had, framing her face and brushing the lines of her jaw. She wore a bulky traveling cloak, so he hadn’t really seen her body, which was nothing at all like Kelas’s.
“We have met,” he said, “though you wouldn’t know this face.” No one would.
“Or the name,” Janna said. She scowled. “So you’ve lied to me before. Who were you pretending to be?”
“Ah, that’s a complicated question.” Answering it would be tricky. How much did Janna already know?
“No, it’s not. It’s a very simple question. Who did you claim to be?”
I’m through with lies, Aunn thought. “General Jad Yeven.” Her eyebrows rose. “The real general died at the battle of Starcrag Plain. From then until he was reported dead, I wore his face.”
Aunn watched as her eyebrows drifted back down her forehead, her eyes lost their focus and strayed to the side, and her brow furrowed. He imagined her thoughts, as she tried to recall every interaction she’d had with him, believing he was Yeven. There hadn’t been much, but she had always adopted a much more flirtatious manner in private with him than he would ever have suspected her capable of, judging from her more public persona.
“That explains a lot,” she said, bringing her gaze back to him. “So who are you really? A Royal Eye?”
“Yes. Or at least, I was until recently.”
“You worked for Kelas, then.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Kelas?”
“Dead.”
“At the Dragon Forge?”
“Yes.”
Janna sighed and pushed a drawer in the desk closed. Had she been looking for something Kelas might have brought back from the Dragon Forge? Gaven’s shard, perhaps?
“So what are you doing here?” she asked.
“I might ask you the same question.”
She laughed again, and her grip on the crossbow finally relaxed. “I wondered when you were going to turn the tables on me.”
“I hope I’ve demonstrated that I want to deal honestly with you now. I’d hope for the same in return.”
Janna smiled. “I don’t know. I think I still owe you some lies.”
“I can’t argue with that. I’m sorry that my mission required deceiving you.”
“You are a very curious Royal Eye. I’ve never known such an honest spy.”
“I’m no longer a Royal Eye.”
“And what? Leaving the Eyes made you suddenly honest?”
“Something like that.”
“So what are you doing here?” Janna repeated. Her eyes narrowed and one corner of her mouth twisted in a smirk. She was playing with him, dodging his questions while barraging him with her own. He already suspected that they were here at cross purposes—he to foil Kelas’s plans and she to further them. If that was the case, he didn’t want to answer her question, at least not while she still had a crossbow pointed at him.
At least, he didn’t want to answer her completely. He could say much of the truth without revealing all of it. “I came here hoping to find any notes that Kelas had left behind. Just as you did.”
Janna’s face brightened. “Kelas’s death doesn’t have to mean the end of his vision for Aundair,” she said.
So Aunn had been right. Janna had come to the cathedral to see if she could pick up where Kelas had left off. She seemed completely unaware that Nara was still working to carry out the plan, which had been hers all along. And now she thought that Aunn was a fellow conspirator. Of course, he’d encouraged that misapprehension—he’d fallen so easily back into his life of lies.
Aunn stepped into the room, closing the distance between the door and the desk in two quick steps before she realized what he was doing. He knocked the crossbow from Janna’s hand, sending its bolt clattering harmlessly to the floor. Janna pushed the chair back from the desk and sprang to her feet, drawing her sword as she rose.
“What are you doing?” she said. Fear and confusion twisted her face.
Aunn spread his arms wide again, showing her that he wasn’t reaching for his mace. He took a few steps back, so he wasn’t in easy reach of her short, heavy blade. “I didn’t want your crossbow pointing at me when I told you that my purpose here is actually the opposite of yours. I’m here to ensure that Kelas’s plan does not get carried out and his vision for Aundair never becomes reality.”
Janna laughed again and lowered her blade. Aunn found himself warming to her ready laugh, despite himself.
“I must say,” she said, “your honesty is refreshing. What was your name again?”
“Aunn.”
“Aunn. So did you know I was here, or did you suspect someone else of planning to carry on Kelas’s work? Or did you just come to destroy all his notes and make sure no one ever could?”
Aunn scowled. She was flirting again, quirking her lips and looking sidelong through her eyelashes, as if he were back in Yeven’s face. Toying with him, trying to extract as much information as she could. “I wanted to be honest with you, Janna. But I have to draw the line at giving you information that might help you in pursuing goals that I’m opposed to.”
She laughed again, feigning delight at his words, but he saw it in her eyes. She realized exactly what he’d just told her: someone else was already carrying on Kelas’s plans. Frustrated, he walked out the door before turning back to Janna.
“Listen,” he said. “As a Royal Eye, I promised to give my life in service of the queen. Her Majesty is hardly blameless in all that’s happened, but I will not stand by and watch a thousand years of Wynarn rule get tossed aside so she can be replaced with the likes of Jorlanna d’Cannith, Arcanist Wheldren, and you. If you continue to pursue Kelas’s schemes, you will make me your enemy.”
Janna’s smile became a wolfish grin. “Oh no,” she sneered. “Perhaps you’ll bore me to death with your speeches.”
Anger boiled in his chest, and he suddenly couldn’t believe he’d ever harbored a pleasant thought about this woman. “Don’t underestimate me,” he said. “Kelas didn’t die in the storm at the Dragon Forge—he died at my hand.”
“Was that a threat? Why not fight me now, Aunn?” She stepped around the desk, sword at the ready. “I’m not going to turn back. I’ll find the others, and together we’ll finish what Kelas started. Are you going to stop me?”
Aunn pulled his mace from his belt. “I am.”
Her demeanor changed so quickly that he thought for a moment he was facing the changeling after all, but it was still Janna before him—the laughing, flirtatious Janna of a moment before. She toyed with the hilt of her sword as she took a step toward him, looking coyly up at him.
“But why?” she said. “Why do you care so much for the queen? Why cling to your old loyalties when Aundair could be so much more?”
Aunn knew she was trying to distract him as she advanced within reach of him, but whether she meant to or not, she had struck a nerve. He had admitted it himself—the queen was not blameless in this whole affair. She hadn’t ordered the construction of the Dragon Forge, but she had willingly accepted its use in destroying Varna. She had been goaded into attacking the Eldeen Reaches—largely through his own actions—but she had only done what she had always wanted to do. The barbarian invasion just gave her a pretext. In short, the queen was already a pawn of the forces that wanted control of the nation, which begged the question of why Nara wanted to overthrow her at all. Why replace a government she already controlled with an illegitimate government that would draw the ire of the rest of Khorvaire?
Only two possible answers made sense. One possibility was that Nara wanted to reignite the Last War, probably believing that Aundair could win it this time—that a new ruler could govern not just Aundair but all of Khorvaire. That had been Haldren’s goal, after all, and when Janna spoke of Kelas’s vision for a glorious Aundair, he suspected that’s what she had in mind.
But if that was what everybody seemed to believe, then in all likelihood the other possibility was the real truth: it was all about the Prophecy—which, as always, made his head spin. But he was finally beginning to glimpse the still center of that whirlwind.
Janna watched his face with evident interest, as if she was trying to guess the thoughts running through his mind. She was close enough to strike with her blade, but she hadn’t yet, perhaps waiting for some kind of answer to her question.
It was Aunn’s turn to laugh. “You won’t sway me, Janna. Kelas’s vision wasn’t what you think it was. Pore though his papers—see if you find anything about the Prophecy, or any clue who he was working for. I’ll bet you won’t. Go ahead and chase the dream he sold you, and play right into their hands.”
Janna’s brow furrowed. “Whose hands?”
“When you figure that out, you find me.” Aunn turned his back on her and strode back around the corner, down the main passage, up the stairs, and out of the cathedral.