Chapter 17
Syla sat on a toolbox in the loft and told Aunt Tibby everything. Down below, Fel leaned against the door jamb, giving them their privacy for the conversation but insisting on keeping an eye on Syla.
Since Tibby had shooed Vorik outside, he hadn’t attempted to return to the machine shop, but Syla kept her voice low, reminded of how much he’d heard when Fel had spoken to her in the kitchen.
“You saw it in detail?” Tibby asked at the end. “The shielder under the castle?”
“Yes. It looked very destroyed, but I sensed… the faintest of magic about it. I thought it might be possible for a qualified engineer to repair it.” She gazed at her aunt.
Tibby blinked. “I am an engineer, but… I’ve never been invited to work on one of the shielders. I’ve never even seen a schematic.”
“I don’t think they’ve previously needed working on.
It’s not like there’s a note on my mother’s desk with the address of a shielder repairman she had summoned on a regular basis.
” Syla regretted the flippant words as soon as they came out.
It was too soon for jokes involving her mother—anyone who’d passed—and it had only been minutes since she’d informed Tibby of their relatives’ deaths.
Tibby had, however, taken that without surprise or much of a reaction at all.
She’d either already known, or she’d suspected.
“I suppose not. They’re reputedly sturdy. I’ve never been invited to look at any of them though, not even the one under the castle.”
“I don’t know anyone else who could help.”
“I don’t suppose you brought me a schematic.”
“Sorry. I don’t know if such things exist.”
“They’d be on your mother’s desk.” Tibby smiled sadly. “Or in a cabinet, anyway. Maybe framed and pinned to the wall.” She touched her chest, as if to say that was what she would do with such a schematic.
“My mother mostly has—had—maps, spreadsheets, and notes related to enemy movements up there.” For all the good that last had done her…
“May I see your thoughts?” Tibby lifted the back of her hand, showing her moon-mark, and pointed to Syla’s.
“Pardon?”
“Telepathically. Just related to what happened in that chamber. If I can see what you saw, it might help me to guess if the shielder can be repaired.”
“I didn’t know anyone but dragons could speak telepathically. Or share experiences through a mental link.”
“You’ve never moon-linked with your siblings?”
Syla shook her head.
“Hm, I did with mine when we were children. I thought all of the family knew about that.”
“Maybe they did with each other when they were young. The difference in ages between me and the others… Well, they didn’t play much with me when we were children.”
“Hm. Here.” Tibby pointed at Syla’s hand.
“You don’t have to do anything. Just don’t try to block me.
It sounds like going to the castle would be dangerous, both because of enemies we might meet along the way—if not on this very farm—” she glanced toward the front doors, though Vorik and his dragon weren’t visible at the moment, “—and from those who would imprison us in the castle for our own good.”
She’d been sympathetic when Syla had shared that. Aunt Tibby wasn’t one who would put up with being locked in her room—or a dungeon cell—either.
“All right.” Syla didn’t know what to expect but held her hand out toward her aunt.
Instead of clasping it, Tibby angled hers so that their birthmarks came to rest back-to-back.
She closed her eyes, and, a moment later, Syla sensed a tingle of magic.
First, it felt like it was on the surface of her skin.
Then, it flowed into her and up her arm and toward her head.
Like healing magic but lighter, it brushed her nerves, and she sensed that it wouldn’t alter her brain or body in any way.
Had an enemy been doing this, she would have been alarmed, but she’d known her aunt all her life and trusted her.
The magic tickled her thoughts, stirring up some of the events of the trek through the tunnels.
Tears flowed from her eyes as she, once again, experienced walking into the chamber and finding her sister’s body.
Tibby leaned over and squeezed her shoulder but didn’t stop sifting through Syla’s memories.
Time seemed to slow during the moments when Syla had been investigating the shielder, even freezing at one point when she’d gazed into its innards.
“Hm,” Tibby murmured, letting time flow forward again.
The link started to fade, but Tibby paused when the stormer warrior sprang out of the sarcophagus, and she watched the ensuing battle, including the arrival of Vorik, before pulling away. After the two enemies had been killed, the memories stopped playing in Syla’s mind.
Tibby leaned back, gripping her chin and studying the wooden floor of the loft.
“It may have an inkling of magic in it, but I wouldn’t begin to know how to repair it without a schematic.
Even then… the engineering the gods did is nothing like what humans base everything on.
I’m daunted at the thought of… tinkering. ”
“But you will try, right?” Syla asked.
It wasn’t like it could get worse.
“Yes, but I think the other part of your plan is what we should pursue next.”
“Retrieving a shielder from one of the other islands?”
“Harvest Island makes the most sense. It would be a shame to remove the protection from all the farms, orchards, and fisheries, but, thanks to the oft-smoldering volcano, it’s always been lightly populated when compared to the others. Fewer lives would be at stake.”
“We get our cantaloupes from there.” It was a silly thing to think of, but the melons were Syla’s favorite fruit, and she didn’t want to imagine hordes of Voriks descending upon the fields to harvest them while dragons denied the farmers access.
No, Vorik had at least paid for what he’d taken.
It was the other stormers she imagined being less fair.
And what if they and their dragons wreaked havoc in addition to taking the crops?
As they’d done to the capital and the castle?
“Fewer human lives would be at stake.” Tibby smiled faintly.
“Yes, of course. I only meant that it’s a shame we’d have to leave any of the other islands unprotected. I do agree that it’s for the best.”
“With a working shielder to study, I might have better luck repairing the first, so it’s possible it would be temporary.”
“Ah?” That was encouraging, and Syla nodded.
“Do you know how to find the shielder on Harvest Island?” Tibby asked.
“I know where they all are. My siblings and I visited several one summer, and memorized maps and instructions on how to reach the others. Mother made sure we could recite precise instructions, and I haven’t forgotten. We went to Harvest Island personally.”
“Good. None of the rest of us, those who weren’t direct heirs, were told the locations.
I always thought it was foolish that so few people knew, since exactly what happened could happen—assassins could have taken out the entire family at any point.
But… if what you were thinking is true, that Venia betrayed our people… ”
“I don’t think it was on purpose,” Syla hurried to say.
She hadn’t said she thought that might have happened, but Tibby must have seen it in her thoughts.
“Even so,” Tibby said, “it shows how dangerous it is for people to know the locations. Maybe it would have been better if the gods hadn’t shared that knowledge with your ancestors before they left.
If nobody had ever known, there wouldn’t have been a secret to lose, and the shielders might have gone on working undisturbed for another thousand years. ”
Syla could only spread her hand.
“All right.” Tibby pushed herself off a stack of drop cloths on which she’d been sitting. “We’ll have to get to the harbor and hope there are ships about—ships that haven’t been destroyed by dragons. We’ll need transport to Harvest Island.”
“I… think someone right outside might transport us.” Syla pointed in the direction they’d last seen Vorik. Specifically, the dragon. Agrevlari.
Tibby arched her eyebrows. “I was going to ask what your plan is to get rid of them, not suggest we ask them to fly us to another island.”
“It would be a fast way to get there, whereas a ship…” What were the odds that they could even find a ship right now?
From what Syla had seen, the dragons had targeted all the vessels docked there.
“I saw the harbor. It’s not in good shape.
The ships… The ships are in worse shape.
I don’t think we’d find one capable of taking us over there. ”
“Well, we’re not riding with your spy.” Tibby pointed toward the door. “Especially not when we’re planning to go to the secret location of a shielder. That’s probably why he’s lurking here. To learn where the other shielders are so that his people can destroy them.”
Syla opened her mouth, thinking to go into more detail on the faction and how many times Vorik had come to her rescue in less than a day, but didn’t she yet have reservations about him herself?
“How else would we get there then?” was what she asked. “Look, I don’t know if he’s lying to me or is what he claims to be, but… unless one of your tractors can float, we don’t have another way to reach Harvest Island.”
Tibby pushed her spectacles higher on her nose, lifted her chin, then crossed her arms over her chest. “The aquatic weed harvester is waterproof and can dredge the irrigation canal.”
“Sounds very seaworthy.”
“As long as the shielders are still protecting the other islands, a dragon wouldn’t be able to take us there anyway.”
“Not… all the way, but they can fly to within a mile of the shoreline. We’ve always seen them out here, fishing and keeping an eye on us.” Syla waved in the direction of the sea.
“So, a mile away, the dragon would dump us into the ocean and tell us to swim?”