Chapter 33
After lunch, Ankaret requested the room, and though her advisors and generals were reluctant to leave, they could hardly disobey. Her return was miraculous, a sign that perhaps the tides of war would shift in our favor.
Soon the seven of us were alone. I faced the others, relieved and almost giddy. Finally my body was allowing me to do something besides lie abed in pain.
“Tell me everything,” I said. “Everything I’ve missed. Where is Neave? And the goblet—someone from Gareth’s team told me they’d found the goblet.”
Gemma drew in a deep breath and leaned forward. “Well, first of all—”
“Wait, no, I’m sorry.” Ryder held up a hand. He was sitting back in his chair, his posture deceptively relaxed. “Gemma, love, we all adore you, but time is of the essence, and you have a tendency to digress.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, slumping a little. “I could already tell I was going to ramble. I blame Talan for waking me up so early.”
Talan looked at her fondly, an amused smile toying at his lips. “I was only following Farrin’s instructions, my love.”
“I know, I know. The meeting started at eight o’clock, and it’s wartime. I’ll never be able to sleep in again at this rate.” Gemma snatched up one of the last remaining sandwiches and waved it at Ryder before taking a hearty bite. “Go on, then.”
Ryder stifled his smile and sat forward in his chair.
“Gareth’s team did find the goblet. It’s now in safekeeping with the crown and the key.
A team at the university is ready to begin dismantling all of them, which we think is essential to slowing down Kilraith’s army.
” He cocked an eyebrow. “Assuming, that is, that it’s possible to dismantle them.
Gareth believes it is, and that we’ve learned all we can from them. ”
I glanced at Gareth, who nodded reassuringly at me. “More on that later,” he said.
“Once this is done,” Ryder continued, “and since Ankaret destroyed the egg in Mhorghast, there will be only one anchor left—of course, we still don’t know where or what that is.”
“No leads, then?” I asked.
“Not a one.”
“We should send teams back to Lake Voroth. It has to be there. The visions you gleaned from studying the anchors, the image of the black lake under a full moon…the details are identical.”
“Already done,” Ryder said. “Joint squadrons of Roses and Gareth’s trackers are searching there as we speak. So far, nothing.”
I sat back uneasily, pushing thoughts of Rosewarren to the back of my mind. But I felt the presence of the Warden nevertheless, as keenly as if she were standing over my shoulder, glaring disapprovingly at us all.
“The sooner we can begin dismantling the anchors we do have,” Ryder said, “the better. With Kilraith’s power diminished—which we hope it will be—the spread of the Mist might slow. It has now flooded so far south that its border is only ten miles from Ivyhill.”
“It’s taken Derryndell, then?” I said, stunned.
“Nearly,” Farrin replied. She looked back worriedly at Ankaret, who was pacing by the window. “Father left Wardwell to evacuate Ivyhill. I received a letter from him before we left for Vauzanne. The household staff, the refugees they’ve been housing—they’re all fleeing to Fairhaven.”
I couldn’t help but imagine the Mist creeping across Ivyhill’s grounds, consuming every fountain, every stable, every room of the house. The thought turned my stomach. I could barely bring myself to look at my sisters.
“General Pallien has moved the Lower Army to this southern front,” Ryder went on, with a quick glance at Farrin. When their eyes locked, he gave her a grim smile, and she returned it bravely. He reached out for her hand; she took hold of it at once, and his touch seemed to settle her.
“But their numbers are diminishing, and there aren’t enough soldiers to maintain a presence from coast to coast,” Ryder said.
“And the Olden hostiles who attack the front aren’t strays accidentally tumbling out of the Old Country.
They’re organized. They constantly probe for weaknesses.
General Haldrin has had to reassign Upper Army squadrons to reinforce the southern front, which leaves the northern front even more vulnerable.
” He paused, his jaw tightening. “But more people live south of the Mist. I can’t blame them for resorting to triage. ”
A terrible thought occurred to me. “Has the northern front reached Wardwell?”
“Not yet,” Ryder said, “but it’s only a matter of time.”
“Soon we’ll have to get Philippa to safety,” Farrin said. “Fairhaven would be ideal, though I hate the idea of having her, Neave, and the anchors all in one place.”
Gareth shifted in his seat, his knee bouncing restlessly. In his hand was the green book he’d been holding the day prior. He was thinking hard about something, his brow furrowed and his gaze distant, but he said nothing.
“There have been no sightings of Kilraith himself?” I asked.
Ryder shook his head. “The last definitive report we received was from our informants in Aidurra. They claimed he and an Olden army of hundreds had fought their way out of the Crescent of Storms and were advancing on the capital.” He looked grim and angry.
“That was the last we heard. All communication from Aidurra has ceased. We assume the capital has been overtaken.”
“As has Vauzanne,” Talan added quietly. “The Knotwood consumed Briarcourt and didn’t stop there.
As we sailed away from Rithia, we could see it roiling on the horizon.
This morning we heard from Kirsa, who escaped with her household on one of her merchant ships.
They barely got out in time. Oldens have completely overtaken the city. ”
I absorbed everything he said with a quietly mounting horror. “We’ve waited too long to destroy the anchors,” I said. “We should have dismantled them immediately, cut Kilraith off at the knees.”
“But we had to study the crown to find the others,” Gemma argued, “and then the key after that. Without the information we gleaned from them, Gareth’s team could never have found the goblet.”
She was right, of course, but that didn’t make any of this easier to bear. I looked at Ryder. “What else?”
He leaned forward, resting his forearms against the table’s edge.
“The body housing Neave—Lily’s body—is failing.
We can’t treat Lily properly while Neave is still within her.
And if we don’t find Neave another stronger host—and soon—we’ll lose her, either to oblivion or to Kilraith.
Which, I think you’ll agree, would be extremely unfortunate.
In the end, having at least two gods on our side might make all the difference. ”
His bluntness struck me like a fist. “And where is Caiathos in all of this? We still have no leads on him?”
Talan spoke grimly. “If those last reports from Aidurra were accurate, it’s very possible that Kilraith already has Caiathos under his control. They spoke of entire sections of the coast falling into the ocean.”
“Which means it’s even more important for us to secure Neave,” Farrin said quietly.
My eyes flew back to Gareth. “The transference procedure that you and your team at the university were working on. Are you prepared to begin it?”
“In every way but one,” Gareth replied. He dropped the green book onto the table and dragged a hand through his hair in frustration.
“I’ve spent the last several days going over my team’s notes and reading and rereading the volumes they pulled from the royal archives, but everything indicates the same conclusion: there is no power source great enough to fuel such a procedure.
We’d have to, I don’t know…” He gestured irritably at the window.
“Capture the power of the Mist somehow, or find an endless supply of Anointed magicians willing to sacrifice themselves, or harness the heat of the sun. Name any ludicrous idea you can think of, and it’ll be as good as anything we’ve got. ”
“You’ve found an artificer, then?” I asked, remembering back to when Gareth had first spoken of transference—weeks and weeks ago, in this very room.
“We have,” Gareth replied. “Or rather, General Haldrin has. An artificer requested asylum during a recent battle on the southern front.” His expression turned grim. “She has been thoroughly questioned, per the general’s rigorous standards.”
Talan cleared his throat, looking grave. “And even if she agrees to cooperate, it won’t matter if we don’t have a strong enough power source.”
“Correct,” Gareth said, “which means—”
Then he fell silent, and his eyes flew to mine. I saw on his face the same idea that had started brewing in my own mind.
“Wait,” he whispered. “Of course. Do you think that would work?”
Farrin sat up straight, clearly reaching the same conclusion as we had. “Absolutely not,” she said. “It’s out of the question.”
“But it is the only way,” Ankaret said, speaking for the first time since the others had left the room.
She sounded pleasant, even cheerful, and stopped pacing to face us all.
“I have been contemplating every other possibility. They are outlandish. I must fuel the transference. Neave will live, and so will Lily, and Kilraith”—her voice wavered slightly; shadows flitted across her face—“will sense what is happening, and he will come to me.” She tilted her head, looked at Gareth. “A lure, yes? That is the word?”
Ryder rubbed a hand over his face. “Gods unmade. Could this actually work?”
“We can’t do it here,” Gemma said. “Not in Fairhaven.”
I agreed, thinking of the thousands of refugees currently safe inside the city walls. “No, we’ll need to go somewhere more remote.” I looked at Gareth. “Is it possible to relocate all of your equipment?”
“I should think so,” Gareth muttered distractedly, rubbing his chin.
Farrin shot to her feet—face ashen, eyes blazing. “I won’t let you do this. I won’t let any of you do this.”
“Dearest Farrin,” Ankaret said, taking her hands with a fond smile, “I am the child of gods. I contain an abundance of their power. If I wish to do something, I will do it.” She touched Farrin’s face. “No matter how fiercely you might wish otherwise.”
“But you’ve only just come back,” Farrin whispered miserably. “What if this destroys you all over again?”
“Then I will come back again, and again, until I no longer have to.” Ankaret looked around at all of us, fire skipping down her arms. “Well? Shall we begin? I am ready. I have always been ready.”
I could hardly believe what was happening. Suddenly it seemed that everything was unfolding at lightning speed.
“We need Kerezen,” Talan said, “and reinforcements from at least the Upper Army.”
I nodded. “And from the Order. I’ll handle that. The Warden can’t possibly refuse.”
My voice sounded much more confident than I felt.
I’d left the Roses in such a state, the violence of Gareth’s possession still fresh and raw.
And the Warden, I knew, could very well refuse our request. The memory of my last moments in her office tore through me.
I heard her voice as clearly as I had that night:
Do you think I’m oblivious to your many reckless ventures?
My stomach clenched uneasily. Fleeing Falkeron for Wardwell, then for Vauzanne, and finally for Fairhaven, all while sending her no word of my whereabouts? Certainly she would consider that reckless.
“I know where we can go,” Gareth said, bringing me back to the present. His voice was strange, carefully flat. I hadn’t heard this tone from him in ages, and it immediately put me on guard.
He raised his eyes to mine, then looked quickly away.
“Big Deep,” he muttered. “My home there. The house is big enough to shelter all of us, and well situated—easy to defend, difficult to attack. And I know those canyons like the back of my hand.”
Gemma pulled one of the many maps on the table closer to her. Talan peered over her shoulder.
“The southern front is a good deal north of there,” he pointed out. “At least we wouldn’t have to worry about fighting that battle as well.”
“How will we even fight this battle?” Gemma said. “Both times we’ve faced Kilraith, he’s managed to survive.”
Ankaret plopped down in a chair beside Farrin with a soft puff of flame and started scribbling eagerly on a piece of paper. “She has— I have some ideas about that very thing.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off Gareth. His face was completely closed off to me.
While everyone else buzzed around him, looking over maps and papers, their voices overlapping, he sat very still, staring blankly at the table.
I longed to go to him. Returning to his hated childhood home was a brilliant idea from a strategic perspective and a terrible one otherwise.
My mind raced, searching for an alternative, desperate to spare him this. But I could think of nowhere safer.
“So the question remains,” Talan said, pushing back from the table with a frown, “how in the name of the gods will we find someone willing to undergo the transference and be Neave’s new host?”
“Do not worry,” Ankaret said, still writing furiously on her paper. “I have thought of everything. She is nearly here. I sent for her just a little while ago.”
An instant later, the doors flew open, and Alastrina Bask strode in, wearing a long, loose black tunic, unlaced boots, and a highly annoyed expression.
Even in her disarray, she was as formidable a sight as ever—pale as winter, raven-black hair swinging over her shoulders, blue eyes bright and furious.
Just behind her was Gemma’s best friend, Illaria Farrow, who wore a more than slightly rumpled dressing gown and was trying unsuccessfully to stifle a smile.
Her warm brown skin glistened with a delicate sheen of sweat.
“This had better be good,” Alastrina muttered, glaring around at us all. “Your message interrupted a very pleasant lunch.”