19: THE CITY IN THE WAY

Thurvishar shook his head. “I don’t believe you’re in any position to say a word concerning your parents’ bedroom habits.”

Kihrin raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You had no problem describing your own physical arousal,” Thurvishar pointed out. “How is that any different from Therin and Khaeriel?”

“I’m not afraid of erections, Thurvishar. I just don’t want to imagine my father having one.”

The wizard reached for his tea as he shook his head. “I suppose. I just can’t believe I slept through that.”

(Therin’s story)

Therin suspected he was slowing Khaeriel down. As someone used to being one of the most powerful people in Quur—and therefore all the world—he didn’t enjoy the realization. But if he hadn’t been there, Khaeriel would have embarked on her schemes immediately, solidifying allies, renewing ties, implementing plans to retake the throne. Instead, she’d taken the time to give Therin a crash course in voral, the vané language, as well as the simplistic spells every vané knew. These spells included ways to see in the dark, discourage insects, and save oneself from a messy death if one happened to stumble off a high bridge. Vané seldom visited the jungle floor—the whole reason Khaeriel had kept a safe house there.

And if he hadn’t been there, their next trip wouldn’t have been necessary at all.

“It is called the Well of Spirals,” Khaeriel explained to him. “You might consider it a holy place. It is where we train our children.”

“And why are we going there?” Therin asked. “Last I checked, we didn’t bring any children with us, even if we have been practicing making more.” He could make that joke now. The news Kihrin wasn’t dead had lifted a weight Therin had only identified by its absence.

Khaeriel smiled at him over her shoulder. “That is not the well’s only purpose. All will be made clear soon enough.”

Opening a gate was impossible due to something called a barrier rose, so they were riding a velsanaund, which looked a lot like a horse-size iguana. Velsanaunds had been specially bred to more easily navigate their jungle home’s tree-filled environs; Therin could only imagine how terrifying they would be in combat.

Of course, they didn’t actually have a velsanaund, although Khaeriel had warned him feral velsanaunds did exist in the jungle.

So they were riding Talon.

Therin was trying not to think about it.

The dappled yellow-green light he had grown used to at the Manol’s edge rapidly darkened as the tree canopy closed in overhead. The ground cover grew scarce as the sunlight dimmed, until they were running in a maze of trees, dark, elegant towers jutting from the ground all around them. The scent of flowers, loamy earth, and a smell he could only describe as “green” wrapped around them, occasionally punctuated by the resin spice of tree sap. Therin never noticed the tree roads begin. One moment they were still running on the floor, and the next minute the giant lizard—Talon, he reminded himself—had leaped up and around onto a series of branches he could only assume had not grown so conveniently by chance.

After that, they were never less than thirty feet above ground, which rapidly became never less than thirty feet above water as they entered flooded jungle. The air felt sticky, riotous with wildlife. Few creatures in the Manol lived at ever-flooded ground level—everything either survived underwater or made their homes in the canopy.

That included the vané.

When they finally reached the vané city, it dazzled. The canopy had been manicured away from tall, thick trees, so sunlight flared like gold against the sculpted green leaves. Wrapped around the trees, webbed through the branches, a lacy network of buildings lay like jeweled bracelets against perfectly sculpted arboreal limbs. Stained glass windows blazed ruby, emerald, or amethyst in the afternoon sun, while floral scents, bright insect shells, and butterfly wings crafted a tapestry too complex and wondrous to take in all at once.

“Gods,” Therin said, stunned.

“This is a small city,” Khaeriel told him, “and not what we’re here to see. Unfortunately, it’s in our way.”

“‘Unfortunately’? What does that mean?” Dread clenched Therin’s stomach, but he didn’t understand why.¹

As if in answer, a wall of violet energy manifested across the bridge. Talon came to a screeching halt.

A vané with dark green skin and lighter ombré green hair stepped from a building. Therin couldn’t tell if they were male or female.

“Stop,” they said in voral, which Therin barely understood.

Khaeriel dismounted, still holding the harp she’d been clutching to her like a child. “It’s good to see you again.”

The person narrowed their eyes, then widened them again. They started speaking too quickly for Therin to follow.

Therin dismounted as well. He may not have understood the conversation, but it didn’t seem to be a welcome home with open arms.

“Please,” Khaeriel said.

Therin knew that word, anyway.

The vané had an unpleasant expression on their face; it didn’t give Therin hope for a peaceful resolution. Then he noticed a building across the way start to glow from inside, followed by screams and a giant eight-armed spider creature emerging from the doorway.

A demon. A demon lighting the tree on fire.

The vané turned back to Khaeriel.

“I had nothing to do with this,” she protested.

Whether the vané believed her or not, they thought the demons a greater threat. With one last worried look in their direction, the vané ran off to fight the new invaders.

A tear in reality opened at the magical barrier blocking them from exiting the bridge, and a new demon emerged. Easily ten feet tall, a monster of a creature with the head of a massive tiger and giant eagle-like claws instead of hands and feet. If it had a gender, it wasn’t obvious, although the bulging muscles and size would be easy to interpret as “male.” It seemed … familiar, but then, there have been a lot of demons running around ever since the gaeshe were broken.

The demon spotted the two of them, seemed to do a double-take, and then diverted, heading in their direction.

**I KNOW YOU,** it snarled. **I MET YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS AT FEONILA.**

Khaeriel turned to Therin in confusion, which was when he realized the demon was speaking to him personally. At first, he had no idea what the monster was talking about, but then the memory clicked into place.

“Feonila?” Therin scoffed. “You’re that demon we killed…? It’s been thirty years!”² He scowled.

**I HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN.**

“Talk about holding a damn grudge…” Therin drew his sword. “Which one were you again? Fegasor?”

**BEZAGOR!** the demon roared.

“Whatever. Truthfully, you weren’t that memorable.”

Khaeriel made a tsking sound, which Therin was quite certain had probably accompanied her rolling her eyes at him.

The demon growled and extended its claws. Its bird feet made clicking sounds on the wooden floor as it ran forward at him.

Khaeriel summoned winds while Therin came forward with his sword. He swiped the blade through the air, and a red line opened across the demon’s stomach. Bezagor looked down at himself and snarled. The demon waved a hand; the wound closed.

Therin clamped down on his desire to grimace; he’d have remembered if the demon had been capable of doing that last time. “It’s not going to go any better for you this time than it did the last.”

**IT’S BEEN THIRTY YEARS. I HAVE FEASTED ON A THOUSAND SOULS SINCE THEN.**

As Therin focused on opening cuts on the demon’s body, a shadow stepped out of one of the doorways of the tree and darted forward. Therin didn’t notice it until Bezagor, knocked backward by one of Khaeriel’s attacks, stumbled. The shadow pounced on the misstep, sliding silently behind Bezagor with a curved sword. He carved away one of the demon’s arms as if it were made from paper.

Therin looked the man in the face and flinched. He’d expected a Manol vané, someone good at stealth and lethal with a sword. But this wasn’t a man at all; it was another demon. The shadows surrounding the man were literal, spiraling off him in umbral whorls, pooling at the demon’s feet as the creature took advantage of Bezagor’s distraction. His face was hidden by an eyeless ceramic mask. The shadow demon paused. He might have been staring at Therin, but it was hard to know for sure.

Therin would have expected gloating or insults. That would be normal for a demon. From this one, though? Silence. The demon gave him a single nod and then continued whittling away at Bezagor.

But Bezagor didn’t fall so easily. **I WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!** Bezagor screamed. Blue flame spiraled out from his body even as an arm composed entirely of fire sprouted from the stump.

“Therin, run!” Khaeriel shouted.

Just as Therin took a step back, the fire raced out to his position. He could feel an icy chill through the soles of his shoes, a sharp, numbing, frostbite-like pain. Then a screaming ball of scales and claws leaped at the tiger demon. Tentacle-like appendages sprouted from its back. Talon screamed, “Go now! This is your chance!”

Khaeriel grabbed Therin’s hand while she picked up the harp. “This way.”

Therin saw Talon was right; the magical field blocking their way had vanished.

He heard Bezagor let out a hissing scream. A second scream belonged to Talon, although he couldn’t tell if it was pain or pleasure. Therin felt a pang of remorse, quickly suppressed. He didn’t understand what would possess Talon to make a heroic gesture, but this wasn’t the time to question it.

The shadow demon never made any noise at all.

They ran up the wooden ramps placed around the city, darting in between buildings to avoid the rampaging demons. The whole city burned. Therin assumed the vané possessed some fantastic magics for dousing fires, but the fact the demons were killing anyone who tried complicated matters.

Khaeriel led Therin through a metal archway—the only metalwork he’d seen so far—and then the ramp began descending. In fact, he began to understand how the city might be “in the way.”

The city trees had been joined together so a hollow area—approximately forty feet in diameter—had been created in the center of the giant trunks. Silver gutters caught the rainwater and channeled it in a spiraling pattern around the inside area, while thick branches, wide enough to walk down, creating a ramp spiraling down to the bottom.

Khaeriel walked down without hesitation, clutching the harp. After a few moments, Therin followed.

As they walked farther down the ramp, the light dimmed again, until the glowing lanterns hanging from branches and walls provided the only illumination. Then too many lights glowed from the walls—too many to be lanterns. They looked more like stars. That resemblance became more pronounced the farther down they walked, until they reached the bottom. Then the stars began to move.

“Should I be concerned?” Therin asked.

“No, this will take but a moment.”

The stars began to whirl, faster and faster until they formed a wall of pure white light, searing blindness into his eyes before the stars fell away.

And then they were somewhere else.