I almost gave up and started forming a HELP sign from pebbles so Qown would see it when he checked in. Then I saw a very golden glow reflected against the cave wall before me.
And Khoreval, when I had seen it last, had glowed golden.
I inched my way forward until at last I saw the same break in the rocks Xivan had warned me about, a few years before. Beyond it, I saw the Spring Cave’s blue smoke and toxic stone terrain.
Dealing with the smoke was the easy part.
The armor covered my entire body. Then a thin sheet of glass (well, it looked like glass) covered my eyes. Truly, the House D’Talus armor smiths had created a masterpiece.
My strength made climbing easier, but I still worried I might break off a handhold and plummet. Fortunately, on closer inspection, the cliff resembled a sharp incline rather than a straight drop to the main cavern floor.
But bones littered the floor, glimpsed through gaps in the blue smoke.
Small, warty yellow-orange pieces of razarras ore protruded from the otherwise black stone floor. Some of the chunks had broken underfoot too, leaving powdery residue. I began to understand what Qown had meant about destroying any traces of razarras clinging to my suit. Any dust kicked up into the air and breathed in would prove fatal. I walked toward the dais where the spear sat.
For the first time, I wondered if there might be traps.
A large black boulder stood in the cave’s center, near the spear. The stone was … hot. Red hot, radiating a heat I felt through the armor. I saw no reason for the heat; the boulder didn’t sit near lava or a volcanic vent, and no one had lit a fire near it. It just glowed hot.
Then I realized the same symbol marked on my back had been carved into the stone.
I stopped.
The presence of that symbol meant Senera had been here. That meant, as I had once suggested to Qown, Relos Var almost certainly knew how to neutralize the poison here. Yet he had chosen not to, for his own purposes.
But what purpose did the stone serve? Why that symbol?
I pulled the rolled-up skin—my skin—from the satchel. There had been no time to treat or tan it, so it was still a grisly souvenir of my stay with the duke—one I’d also have to destroy.
Although I didn’t much care if it turned poisonous, considering what I planned to do with it.
As I looked closer, I saw the two symbols were not identical. Close, but a few marks distinguished them. They seemed to be variations on a common base glyph. I didn’t understand what either meant.
I shifted my sight past the First Veil and saw what the Spring Cave had to show me. Not much, to be honest.
The most insidious feat the Quuros had performed was transforming these caves in a way that required no magical maintenance, in a way that couldn’t be overcome by a snap of another wizard’s fingers. Their poisonous metal ore wasn’t magical at all. But the blue smoke? Yes. Magic had powered it, and finally, that magic had begun to fade. If the smoke in Mereina faded at the same rate, well, then, in a few centuries, Mereina would be safe to occupy again.
There had to be a better way.
The large black boulder, nearly an obelisk, held astonishing amounts of pure tenyé.
If Xivan ever came down and found that boulder, she’d never need to execute another Yoran prisoner in order to feed. The boulder contained enough tenyé to power spellcasting of such strength … well …
Who had created it? Relos Var? Perhaps. Certainly, the presence of the sigil carved deeply into its side suggested Senera’s involvement and, in turn, Var’s. And as for the sigil itself?
Brother Qown had told me the sigil on my back hadn’t just been suppressing my strength but had been siphoning off tenyé to another location. I had a good idea where that tenyé had been going. Three years’ worth, stored up right there before me.
My tenyé.
“Actually, mine.”
I whirled around in the room and saw my mother, Tya, standing before me.
I didn’t even jump.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her as she walked past me, over to the spear.
“Breaking the rules,” she said, sitting down on the dais. “But as a wise man once said to me: fuck the rules. Is that human skin?”
I looked down at what I held. “Yes, but it’s all right; it’s my skin.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s not as reassuring as you may have intended. You don’t seem injured.”
“Qown healed me.” I took a deep breath, not wanting to talk to Tya at all. Not wanting her here, even though logically she could be very helpful. “How could Relos Var pull tenyé from you?” I shook my skin. “This wasn’t your back.”
She winced at my demonstration, which had splattered gore onto my armor. “Relos knew I wouldn’t let him kill you. Which would have happened, if I hadn’t lent you enough power to withstand that glyph. So for the last few years, he’s been draining the tenyé I’ve been feeding you and storing it away for a rainy day.”
“So you made the same mistake twice?”
“It wasn’t a mistake,” she insisted.
I scoffed. “You’re giving our enemies succor and aid! Xaltorath exploited me to gain favors from you, and now you’re letting Relos Var do the same thing. Why?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I just explained this.”
“No!” I almost pulled the helmet from my head in protest, torn between the certainty she’d protect me from the razarras metal and the overwhelming desire not to rely on her protection. “Horseshit. I’m not worth you giving in to Relos Var or to Xaltorath. I’m not worth letting them win! Why do you people keep using me as the excuse to lose?”
I wanted her angry. Oh, angry would have felt nice. Instead, she looked sad. “But you are. Janel, I love you.”
“No! You don’t even know me. You don’t know anything about me. How can you love me? I don’t even love me!”
I don’t remember removing the helmet, but it had vanished when I found myself in my mother’s arms. She smoothed my hair and kissed my forehead. “I love you,” she whispered. “I have always loved you. I loved you when you burned your harp on the Blight’s edge and prayed for me to guide your path. I loved you when Valathea sacrificed herself to help you free S’arric’s soul. I loved you when you marched into Khorvesh, newborn baby in your arms, and demanded no woman would ever be sold to a man there again. And I loved you even more the first moment I held you in my arms, still bloody from your birth—and I screamed so hard no mage on this planet could hear for three days when I had to give you up. I love you enough to humble myself before my enemies so you might live.” She leaned away from me for just long enough to look me in the eyes. “But when all is done, when this is all over, I’m not going to lose. I’m not going to lose, because my daughter doesn’t lose.”
I wiped my eyes and sniffled, choking back an inelegant knot of phlegm. “Three days?”
Her smile turned mischievous. “They call it the Great Silence. They’ve never been able to figure out what caused it.”
“How … dramatic.”4
She smiled. “I was in theater when I was younger.”
That made me laugh, even as I still cried. “Apparently, I was too, in another life. Seriously, you couldn’t put me in a body who can carry a tune? I can’t sing at all.”