“Thank you,” she said, and started to leave.
“Janel—”
She paused at the doorway. “Yes?”
“We should talk about what’s happening in Jorat.”
Her smile turned … feral. It gave Brother Qown a creepy feeling. Where had he seen that smile? Not on Janel’s face.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. Now you say that I can use dense metal to protect myself from this poison ore. I assume you’re not talking about a shield…”
Qown shook his head. “It would need to be encompassing. A suit of armor, perhaps. Something custom built … and expensive.”
Janel chewed on her lip, her expression thoughtful.
Brother Qown sighed. “Do you really think you can learn to transmute razarras ore?”
She met his eyes. “Thurvishar will know how.”
Qown leaned back, feeling spectacularly stupid. “I … stars. You’re right. He probably will. That didn’t even occur to me.” He raised his hands. “All right. All right. You see about enlisting his help to learn that spell, and I’ll see what I can do about acquiring you a very special suit of armor.”
It was Janel’s turn to look surprised. “How in all the heavens do you plan to do that? Did you take up smithing while I was elsewhere?”
Qown grinned. “You’ll see.”
51: DRAGON HUNT
Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since most of the Blue Palace guards were animated from the dead
When Qown paused, he looked around, expecting someone to make a comment or have a question.
But instead, Kihrin simply gave a significant look to Janel. “Well?”
She chuckled and took her turn.
Janel’s Turn. The Ice Demesne, Yor, Quur.
Suless proved to be far more invested in magics that dealt with living creatures than inanimate ones, but no one becomes a god-king without being extraordinary at magic on a general level, so she did have pointers on what had to be done.
As I predicted, Thurvishar had more.
Still, it was nearly three more months before I felt ready to make the attempt. Then I was waiting on Brother Qown to come through on his end of the plan: the armor needed to protect me.
I’m sure you can imagine my relief when Qown sent me a message. When I arrived at his room, I discovered a suit of complicated, intricate plates, sewn to thick, pliable material, lying on his bed. Brother Qown stood next to it.
“Qown? What is … what is that?”
“Your armor,” he replied. “Well, not armor. Remember how I said metal provided excellent protection against razarras? This is it.” He waved a hand toward the suit as though presenting a prize. “I scribed the air sigil on the inside. Between that and the metal, you should have enough time to make your changes to the ore, before the razarras poisoning begins to affect you.”
“How did you ever manage—” I tried to pick up the suit and found I couldn’t.
It must have weighed several hundred pounds. I wondered how he’d managed to transport it. A team of servants? Some magic spell?
“What is this made from?”
“Lead, mostly.”
I just stared at him in disbelief. “I’m not sure where you managed to find this, but I’m even less certain how you thought this would work. I can’t lift this, let alone wear it.”
“Ah, well, in fact,” He cleared his throat. “The fine smiths at House D’Talus made this, on orders from High Lord D’Talus. Or at least, that’s what the paperwork the deliverymen brought with them says.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do I wish to know how you managed such a feat?”
“The less you know about that, the better. As for wearing the suit, that’s easy. Only a few years ago, you would have been more than strong enough to wear that. So the solution isn’t to design a different suit, it’s to restore your strength.”
I walked over to him and put my hands on his shoulder. “How? The gaesh—”
He gently put his hands on my wrists and pulled my arms away from him. “There are loopholes. I haven’t been ordered not to take the sigil off your back. And as it happens, Relos Var asked me to help you. Clearly, this is helping you.”
“Relos Var?” I stepped away from Qown.
“Yes. A few years ago, truth be told. He never rescinded the order, so here I am, still helping.” He grimaced. “Unfortunately, I can’t promise this will be easy. In fact, removing the sigil may hurt a great deal.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
“Well, it depends. If I can erase what Senera wrote, then it’s easy. The difficulty comes if I can’t. Then my options for removing the mark become … painful. And surgical.”
My stomach tightened. “Are you suggesting skinning my back?”
He made a face. “Maybe a little? Just a few layers. I’ll heal any injury afterward. I’m much better at healing than I used to be. But there’s one other complication.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know what this sigil does. I mean on an intrinsic level, I just don’t know. I can’t find it in any books. Then I realized Senera doesn’t need books. She learned this from the Name of All Things, so she’s the only one who understands that sigil’s meaning. It drains your strength, but what if it also does more? We don’t know its purpose, only its symptoms. So I don’t know if Senera will be notified if we disrupt this mark, and I don’t know if removing the mark will have some other catastrophic effect. I realize you haven’t looked at your back through the Veil—”
“That would be difficult, yes.”
“Right. The sigil pulls tenyé off you and shunts it elsewhere. Which means if we stop the flow, someone may notice.”
“So you’re saying that when we do this, we need to be fast.”
“And we need to do it soon,” he confided, “because someone at House D’Talus will start asking questions—for example, about why they delivered a custom lead-lined suit of shanathá armor to Yor.”
“You’re going to be in trouble, aren’t you?” I found myself feeling a guilt I hadn’t felt in years, a reminder that Qown was only here in this mess because of me. And if everything went as planned, I’d very likely be doing exactly what I’d promised I never would.
Namely, abandoning him.
Qown grimaced. “I’ll be fine. I’m useful. Relos Var likes my work. Don’t worry about me. You have more important things to do.”
“I can’t leave without you,” I said.
“Who said anything about leaving? You just want to explore some caves under the castle, don’t you?” He gestured toward the armor. “And if you find any god-king’s buried treasure down there, bring it up, would you? Kaen won’t be happy when he receives the bill for this. Do you have any idea how much shanathá costs?”
I laughed, feeling the humor like a stab wound. In the years since we’d been brought here, it did indeed feel like Qown had been a part of the Yoran intelligence-gathering community, someone who earned his keep. But he also stood as hostage to my good behavior, and what I proposed was anything but good behavior.