What would Jarith have said, Kihrin corrected. Past tense.
“You’re sorry? You had nothing to do with it,” Janel replied.
He hoped that was true.
Janel’s Turn. The road to Atrine, Barsine Banner, Jorat, Quur.
Why slaughter a whole town and then freeze it? Demons could’ve hunted those slain souls in the Afterlife. But demons never passed up an opportunity to travel to the Living World, even if only by proxy. Except those demons had then been trapped by the ice. What did that accomplish?
That upsetting question lurked over a deeper chaos within me.
The flames I’d summoned.
I kept hearing Tamin’s words. We were both witches.
Preoccupied with my thoughts, I almost didn’t notice when we arrived at the falls.
“What’s that noise?” asked Brother Qown as we rode our horses down the main road.
Oh yes. We’d found horses again.
When Tiga Township had been attacked, the town’s workhorses had run. Not all of them. I’d been forced to put down demon-possessed horses as well as people, but we Joratese have never locked away our horses unless we’re sheltering from storms. Once the town lost its icy layer, we’d picked up tack and harness before coaxing some of those horses to return.
Sir Baramon looked surprised at Brother Qown’s question and clapped the Vishai priest on the shoulder. “Haven’t you ever seen Demon Falls before?”
“Demon—” The priest blinked. “I thought we were still a day away.”
“A few hours at most,” I corrected.
“But should we be able to hear it even now?” He seemed flummoxed by the implications.
I clicked my tongue and coaxed my horse forward. I’d decided to call her Ash Flower. While she was never meant to be more than a farm horse, I found her sweet, if a bit anxious. She deserved someone who would feed her carrots, call her beautiful, and take her out for gentle rides. Not me, but I promised myself I’d find her a worthy companion in Atrine.1
We crested the rise. I halted Ash Flower while I waited for Brother Qown to catch up.
He did, questions still sharp on his face. I pointed.
He followed my arm with his eyes, and then his jaw dropped.
“Demon Falls,” I said.
I’d been to Atrine many times, but since I’d always arrived by Gatestone, I’d never seen it from this vantage. I’d never seen the Great Steppe curve into the distance as Lake Jorat spilled over its side to form a giant waterfall, miles across.
Atrine, the flower of Jorat, sat on that waterfall’s summit, in the center of the dam holding back Lake Jorat’s waters. The city soared upward, a mountain of white quartz and blue granite, its palace and temples a series of high spires scratching a storm cloud sky. The city spread out in an enormous circle, protected by thick white stone walls looking delicate and dainty as porcelain from this distance.
Two bridges connected Atrine to the outside world, graceful lanes of stone lacework stretching from city to shore. In reality, the bridges spanned hundreds of feet wide and miles long, large enough to ride an army of horses across. From this distance, the scale distorted. Everything looked tiny and fragile: eggshell thin.
I frowned as I studied the scene. Something about the bridge looked wrong.
“What’s that smudge on the bridge?”
Sir Baramon blinked. “Smudge, Count?”
Dorna scrunched up her nose. “Ah, my sight ain’t what it used to be.” She shielded her eyes with a hand and squinted hard. “Are those…” She paused. “Are those buildings out on the causeway?”
“Who would build on the bridge?” I asked. “That’s bizarre.”
To my surprise, Brother Qown responded with indignation. “Cities are like rivers, Count. They overflow their banks, spread outside their borders. It happens everywhere.”
“Other cities,” I said with a dismissive snort. “The Capital, I’ve heard, overflows on a regular basis with human detritus, but there’s nowhere for anyone to go beyond the walls of Atrine. The city is an island.”
“That’s true, foal,” said Dorna, “but you’re forgetting how wide those bridges are. And anyway, the city’s empty most of the year. Plenty of room.”
Brother Qown said, “I don’t understand. Why would a city this size be empty?”
“Because it’s a trap,” I said.
At Qown’s astonished look, I shrugged and gave him what I hoped would pass for a sincere smile. “It’s not a trap now, mind you, but Atrine wasn’t built to be a city. It was built to be … a taunt. You see, Emperor Kandor had infantry and he fought the god-king of horses. Khorsal’s vast cavalry included thousands of centaurs, not even counting firebloods and all the other horse beasts in his service. Quur couldn’t win the war by engaging Khorsal on his own terms, so Kandor dammed all the plateau rivers, flooded the Endless Canyon, and built this city as a lure. Emperor Kandor designed Atrine to be a place Khorsal’s ego would demand he attack. He built Atrine to kill a god—occupying it afterward was incidental.” I pressed my lips into a thin, disapproving line. “There shouldn’t be so many people here their numbers would overflow onto the bridge.”
Sir Baramon gave a half-hearted, apologetic shrug. “Have you visited lately, Count?”
My jaw tightened. “We came here right before…” I paused. Before Lonezh Canton. Before Xaltorath. “It’s been a few years,” I admitted.
“Well, Count.” He scratched at the growing beard on his chin. “Things do change.”
I sighed. “Some things.” I edged Ash Flower back toward the main road. “Come on, then. The sooner we reach the city, the sooner I can warn Duke Xun about the danger to Jorat. This threatens his entire dominion. He’ll have to do something.”
“I ain’t in no hurry,” Dorna said. “You know Oreth’s waiting for you.”
“It changes nothing,” I said. “I have a duty, Dorna. The duke must be warned.”
“Fine,” she said in a sullen voice that made it clear she thought little about the situation fine at all.
We continued riding.
* * *
Atrine’s scale became apparent as one crossed the Merat Bridge connecting land to island. The city looked small in comparison to Lake Jorat, a vast inland sea terminating in an endless line of demon-mouthed spillways, spraying plumes of water. Scale made Atrine seem like a quaint pastoral castle, a god-king tale come to life. Then you saw people and realized the city’s true size.
It was as I’d remembered it from childhood.
Well, almost as I remembered it.
I didn’t remember the ramshackle shantytown squatting on the bridge leading to the city proper. Someone had built the shacks from wood and cob mud pulled from the lakeshore. I saw a dozen different styles of architecture, from western Quuros plaster to some sort of coiled mud structure resembling a beehive. Not one resembled a Joratese azhock.
“Marakori,” I said. I noted the sullen stares from the windows, the curtains pulled aside and then quickly shut. Glimpses of even skin, light brown to dark chestnut, dark hair, red or black. “What are Marakori doing here?”