She exhaled. “I see your point. If I were one of the chieftains—” Senera scoffed. “Kaen’s having a hard enough time keeping his dominion united as it is.”
“Exactly. That would have been tossing oil into a fire. Now I think I know who’s behind this, but I don’t want to go to Duke Kaen without proof.”
“Ah, so here’s the favor. You want me to use the Name of All Things.”
“Yes. I want you to use the Name of All Things.”
“I make it a point not to use the stone for every damn random question someone asks me. I would never sleep.”
“This isn’t any damn random question, though. All I want to know is if Wyrga was the one who taught Veixizhau how to worship Suless.”
Senera paused, mid-sip. “Wyrga? But why…” She trailed off. “Huh.”
“Wyrga’s more than she seems. She knows things she shouldn’t. And I’m not sure why Kaen seems to trust her as much as he does, but I don’t think he’s being wise.”
“What motive would she have? She has no protector if he loses power.”
“What motive does she need? This is a woman who tried to feed me foal meat, just because she knew the idea would sicken me. I think she loves to stir up trouble for its own sake.” I rolled my eyes. “Honestly, she trains the damn snow hyenas the palace uses for patrols. Weren’t those animals sacred to Suless?”
Senera pursed her lips. “That’s true. And your question is answered with yes or no. I prefer those.”
“So will you?”
“And what do I get for helping you?”
At least that wasn’t a no. “Well, for one thing, you get the satisfaction of helping women who are treated as little better than slaves.”
She rolled her head back, giving me an amused look. “Oh, so I’d be contributing goodwill and camaraderie? And here I thought I was on the wrong side.”
“Wyrga could end up in a lot of trouble?”
Her gaze sharpened. “Hmm. That’s more tempting. Relos Var hates Wyrga.” She pulled the Name of All Things out from her bodice. “There’s very few people he hates, you know. She’s on an exclusive, short list.” She concentrated on the stone, licked her finger, traced a word on the wooden tabletop.
No ink this time. No paper. Those things were performative. She was using the waxed surface of the table to read the result.
“Yes,” Senera said. “She did.” Then she concentrated again and wrote out another word.
Also yes.
“What did you just ask?”
“If Wyrga ordered Veixizhau to dedicate you to Suless.”
I frowned. “Xivan said in the old days women would sacrifice their daughters to gain favors from the witch-queen.”
“What she was doing isn’t technically sacrifice,” Senera amended. “Dedication, not sacrifice. The women never saw their daughters again, but Suless didn’t kill them.”
“That’s what Xivan suspected. That Suless trained them as her priestesses, as witch-mothers.” I leaned over the table. “Senera … is it possible that Wyrga is a priestess of Suless? A witch-mother?”
“The Quuros killed all—”
“Is it possible?”
Senera bit her lip. “Let’s ask.” She concentrated again, wrote out another one-word response. I didn’t have to be close to see that it was no.
Senera shook her head. “Well, it was an interesting hypothesis. But no, it’s more likely that Wyrga’s just a nasty old woman who knows enough old stories to lure a bunch of gullible young wives into trouble. She probably did it for a lark so she can crawl back into whatever hole she sleeps in at night and cackle about it to that stupid bear cub of hers.”
I startled. Of course. “The bear cub. Ask about the bear cub.”
Senera raised an eyebrow. “What about the bear cub?”
“It’s just—” I waved a hand. “Someone told me the bear cub doesn’t age.”
“What?” Senera laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure she keeps a cub until she’s killed it and then switches it out for another cub.”
“Check for me?”
She scoffed. “Okay, now we’re getting into silly territory. I don’t answer silly questions.”
“Just ask the age of Wyrga’s bear cub. That’s a simple question, right? Harmless? It’s not a yes or no, but the answer is precise.” I was grasping at straws, but damn it, I knew something about Wyrga was wrong, from her knowledge of prophecies to her insistence that she’d known my mother, Irisia.
And the fact that my mother is named Irisia. Wyrga had known that information before I had. How many people knew the Goddess of Magic’s birth name wasn’t Tya?
Senera rolled her eyes as she asked the Name of All Things one more time.
We both watched as she traced a number on the table.
A large number.
“Is that minutes? Months?” I was confused. It couldn’t possibly be years.
Senera’s eyes widened. She ignored me and ran to her desk, pulling out paper and graphite before bringing both back to the table.
She concentrated again and wrote out a single word: voras.
That didn’t clarify matters. “What does that mean?”
Senera looked exasperated. “I thought Thurvishar was supposed to be educating you lot.”
“Don’t lump me in with the spurned wives,” I snapped.
“Back before the Quuros Empire,” Senera explained, “many years before the Quuros Empire, there were four immortal races: the voras, the voramer, the vorfelane, and the vordredd. Each race except for the vorfelane has been forced to give up its immortality in order to keep Vol Karoth imprisoned. The voras were the first; they became human.”
“I’ve never heard of the vorfelane.”
“That’s because we call them vané now.” She waved a hand. “You’re missing the point. The cub wasn’t born a polar bear. It was born human, or the immortal equivalent of a human. It was born voras.” Senera wrote down the large number sequence a second time, this time with charcoal on paper. “Those are years.”
“Over fourteen thousand?” I said. “How can a polar bear cub possibly be over fourteen thousand years old?”
“It can’t. That’s why I asked what race the cub was when it was born.”
“What’s its name? What’s its birth name? I don’t know what Wyrga calls it, but I’d have to assume she’d lie if I asked.”
“I almost can’t bring myself to ask.”
“Do it, anyway.”
Senera concentrated on the artifact in her hand and then wrote out a single word. “If I’m right…”
Cherthog.
Cherthog, the Yoran god-king of winter.
We both stared at the word.
Senera said, “Fuck.”
* * *
After that … everything was quiet.
I don’t mean to say nothing happened. We continued training. I kept looking for how I might safely pass through the poisoned stone caves to recover the spear. Duke Kaen started asking for my opinion on Joratese strategies, giving me access to his war room and plans. He slowly began testing my loyalty, which wasn’t always pleasant.