Chapter 10
TEN
As Vivia read the letter from the Empress of Cartorra, she forgot entirely that she stood in a magically lit stairwell in the middle of a crumbling, ice-filled mountain.
For Queen Vivia Nihar: I write to you to offer my assistance in reclaiming your throne from your father.
In return, I ask only that you send your current forces east to aid me. You will see a map below with the best route north via sea and river to Poznin, and your recently acquired Dalmotti cannons would be of great assistance against the Raider King.
The rest of the letter was a detailed description of how the Cartorran Empress would use Vivia’s Foxes in direct battle, followed by how Safiya would in turn help Vivia reclaim her throne.
It was absolutely mind-boggling, and it took all of Vivia’s mental power to simply remain upright with the letter held toward the light. The Empress seemed to fare no better.
“By the waters of the Fire Well,” Vaness swore several paces away. Then, with an almost breathy laugh, she told Vivia, “According to this letter, Safiya already has an agreement with General Fashayid to return my throne to me. No fighting or armies are necessary.”
How? Vivia wanted to ask. How is that even possible?
And suddenly, it was all too much. Vivia was inside a blighted mountain having run into two lost Hell-Bards after sleeping ice nearly ate her and a quake opened up a direct path to them. And on top of that, these Hell-Bards had been actively seeking Vivia and Vaness.
There are no coincidences.
Except when there are.
It felt as if the stairs had flipped and the cavern was opening wide beneath her.
Vivia dropped the letter and sank to her knees, trying to breathe.
Now was not the time for an attack. Now was not the time to let the oppressive weight of an entire mountain haul her down. Be a bear, Little Fox. Be a bear.
“Majesty,” Cam murmured, sitting beside her with worried speed. “Majesty, are you all right? Let me take the pack. I’ll get you water. Food.”
“I’m fine,” she tried to say. “I just … need…” To breathe. Her chest felt like storm clouds. Her mind felt like hurricanes.
A second person sat on her other side. The Empress’s scent of citrus and iron tickled against her. “Breathe,” Vaness said in Marstoki. “Breathe, Vivia.” Her fingers laced into Vivia’s. She held fast.
And Vivia breathed. One, two, three. Then she pulled on her mask and became a bear. “You … have a map.” She dragged herself to her feet. Her fingers were still woven into Vaness’s, and the Empress rose with her. “Give it to us.”
The woman, Lev, immediately obeyed, pulling a thick vellum scroll from a tube on her belt. But rather than accept it, Vivia glanced at Cam: “Take it. You know this mountain better than anyone else here. See if you can find a way out of this place.”
“Hye, Majesty.” A sharp salute. Then he snatched the map and scurried toward the nearest Firewitch sconce.
The Hell-Bard Lev’s lips pursed, like she was biting back a laugh. And some of Vivia’s mask became real; some of her protective bear instincts flared hotter. “The boy,” she said in Cartorran, “might be young, but he is one of our best.”
“Oh, I believe it,” Lev replied. “Because he reminds me of this guy”—she cocked her head at Zander—“when he was first starting out.”
The giant only smiled. Of everyone in the stairs, he seemed the most serene. The least worried or unsettled by the total darkness and endless stone surrounding them. Air spiraled down from the hole in the ceiling, exhaling frost every few minutes with a low, almost imperceptible sigh.
Vivia turned away from him and joined Cam beside the sconce. It was an ancient lamp, the glass warped and bubbled. The wick within requiring no fuel to feed it. And around the flames were more of those triangular shapes Vivia had first seen carved on the magic door into the mountain.
“Majesty,” Cam whispered in Nubrevnan as she joined him. “I don’t like this.”
That makes at least two of us.
“It just feels too easy,” he went on. “The hole opening up, us finding the Hell-Bards—and even this map.” He tapped a part labeled the Way Below. “This isn’t what it looked like before, when I was here with Ryber. And not just because the mountain’s changing right now—I mean, it’s all different.”
“How so?” Vivia frowned, first at the map. Then at Cam’s puckered face.
“Look. See all these doors drawn here in Paladins’ Hall?
There are nine doors in that cavern. But these seven here—they’re the magic portals that lead across the Witchlands.
This one is the portal we took, and it even says Nubrevna.
” He tapped at one on the right edge of the map.
“We were supposed to go through this one labeled Lovats, but we got sidetracked over here.”
“Hye,” Vivia said, eying the room labeled The Past. “And I assume this spot labeled The Future is the tunnel you spoke of? With the ice inside and frozen Sightwitches?”
“Exactly. And look, right here, in the middle of the Future.” The urgency in his voice suggested Vivia was missing something obvious.
“It looks like more doorways.”
“Hye, magic doorways. They’re drawn the same way as the ones over here, and they’re labeled too. This one says Windswept Plains and this one says Contested Lands.”
“All right,” Vivia answered slowly. “And those magic doorways are not supposed to be there?”
“No, they’re not. I went in that tunnel with Ryber, remember? And there were no portal doors. Not to mention, I know where the original seven go. They’ve never led to the Plains or to the Contested Lands.”
“I still don’t understand, Cam.” Vivia lifted a helpless shoulder. “What does it mean if there are two new doorways? You said yourself, the mountain is changing right now.”
“Yeah, but not like this. The mountain can’t just make new doors.
The first portals were built a thousand years ago by Paladins!
” His voice had risen. He hastily yanked it back down to a whisper.
“That’s what Ryber told me. She said only a powerful witch can do the necessary magic.
It also requires big stones and Threads and … and complicated stuff.”
“I see,” Vivia said on a sigh—and she did. “You think someone is building new portals.”
“Exactly, Majesty. And then they’re putting those portals on a map.”
“Could it be Ryber?”
“Maybe,” Cam acknowledged, but the slant to his brow suggested otherwise. “But I just … I feel it in my gut that it ain’t. I know I’ve led us wrong once today—”
“Please stop blaming yourself, Cam.”
“—and I don’t want to do that again. But really … I’ve got a bad feeling about this map. And”—he dropped his voice to a mere exhale—“I’ve got a bad feeling about those Hell-Bards.”
Hye, Vivia agreed. Me too. Aloud she said, “Thank you, Cam. I appreciate your insights. Now if you could pick a direction to get us off these stairs, then we can get moving before all this standing still leads me to madness.”