Chapter 10
ROT
SAERIS
“YOU’RE SURE YOU’RE fine? You’re so pale.”
Fisher had been fussing like a mother hen for the past hour.
He’d heard me shouting Edina’s name. His mother’s name.
I’d considered making an excuse, some other reason to explain why I had been calling out to her—it seemed cruel to tell him what had happened without properly understanding what had happened—but that thought hadn’t fully taken shape before I’d dismissed it. Fisher deserved to know.
Edina had only told me not to tell him about the book, anyway.
I honored her request and kept that to myself.
I didn’t care about a mystery book. I was far more concerned about what she’d said regarding my runes.
The pain I’d experienced in Everlayne’s bedroom hadn’t been normal.
It had felt like it was burning my soul as well as my body.
As if the river of magic flowing through me had caught fire and was unmaking me.
It had been terrifying . . . and I did not want it to happen again.
“Yes, I’m sure. I’m fine,” I told him. “Just a little shaken, that’s all.
” We were gathered in Cahlish’s library.
Ren was still at Irrín, waiting for the remainder of the Yvelian forces who had fled the encroaching rot to meet at a rally point downriver.
Lorreth had gone to help him figure out shelter for the warriors whose homes had been lost during the attack.
Te Léna, Maynir, and Iseabail had been poking and prodding at me since Fisher had sent for them.
Carrion had already been in the library, lounging on a plush sofa by the fire and reading a book when we’d arrived.
He hadn’t moved an inch. The token concern he’d shown over my well-being had presented itself as a crooked eyebrow, a quick glance up and down, and two questions that were neither tactful nor kind: “Is she contagious?” and “She’ll be fine after she eats something. What time’s dinner?”
He’d been buried in his book ever since.
“I wish I knew more about all of this,” Te Léna said, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“It’s been a long time since I was this woefully uneducated on a subject.
Even dealing with the quicksilver inside Fisher was easier than this.
There are plenty of documented cases that speak of quicksilver contamination and how to try to remedy it, but Belikon’s men were thorough when they scourged the realm of information regarding the Alchemists and their power.
There’s nothing in the library here about it.
There’s nothing in the archives at the Winter Palace on the subject, either.
Maynir spent years trawling through the stacks there before we met.
He had a personal interest in the Alchemists and their abilities.
He’s always been fascinated by the lost arts.
He said that entire chapters were missing out of books that probably only mentioned the word Alchemy. ”
“What about you, Iseabail? Do you know anything about sealing Alchemical runes?” Fisher asked. His voice was tight. He seemed distracted. “Belikon didn’t raid your lands when he purged Yvelia of all the Alchemists’ texts. Do you think there might still be anything useful in Nevercross?”
I hated being so out of the loop sometimes. “What’s Nevercross?”
Iseabail herself answered the question. “It’s our political seat,” she said, in her soft, lilting accent. “A city unlike any other. Our buildings have stood for millennia, protected from the outside world. We school our children there. We heal the sick there.”
“And your histories are kept there,” Fisher added. “In the catacombs below the city.”
The redheaded witch scowled, implying Kingfisher wasn’t supposed to know this.
“Our histories are exactly that. Ours. There are no records of the Alchemists or their practices below Nevercross. And even if there were,” she said, holding up a finger and cutting Fisher off before he could interrupt her.
“Only Guild witches are allowed down into the catacombs. I couldn’t get you access to those death chambers even if I wanted to.
And I don’t. There are secrets down there that should never be experienced by outsiders. ”
“Experienced?” That was a strange way of wording it.
Iseabail nodded. “The catacombs are unearthly. I wouldn’t even go down there unless I had no other choice. And we do have other choices. Until we’ve exhausted all of them, it would be foolish to even think about petitioning for access.”
Fisher drummed his fingertips absently against the table.
Late morning light spilled through the window gilding his hair.
A few short hours ago, we’d been tangled up in each other, embraced by his glittering magic.
It had been blissful inside that silent velvet sanctuary.
Now he was troubled. Deeply troubled. It was almost as though I could feel his pain.
His chair creaked as he shoved back in it, balancing it on two legs.
Covering his mouth with a heavily inked hand, he sighed.
“All right. I can respect that. The witches deserve their peace, too,” he said.
“We’ll avoid traveling to Nevercross for as long as we can.
But this rot can survive ice and snow, Iseabail.
The mountains won’t stop it. Before too long, this corruption will make its way to your home, and it will become the Guild’s problem. ”
Iseabail inclined her head, the ends of her auburn braids coiling on the table as she accepted this truth.
“Unfortunately, my mother and her sisters will probably wait to act until that day arrives. I’ll tell them of what I’ve seen here.
But I wouldn’t count on any expedient support from the north, I’m afraid. ”
Silence reigned over the library for a time, all of us lost in our thoughts, doing our best to figure out how best to proceed. The quiet was disturbed by the door to the library bursting open and the arrival of Ren and Lorreth in a whirlwind of leather, soot, and war braids.
Fisher rose quickly. “You found them?”
Ren’s face was grave, but he nodded. “The vast majority of them were waiting for us at the rally point. We lost a thousand more warriors, though.”
“More feeders?”
Lorreth shook his head. “The rot. It infected them somehow. The same way it must have infected the feeders. It took them in an hour. Two at most. The other fighters had to put them down. Their friends. Family. It wasn’t good.
There’s a trail of bodies from the war camp all the way into the foothills. ”
“And where those bodies lay, the rot spreads and multiplies,” Ren said. “It claims any vegetation. Any creature, living or dead. It travels over snow and scorched ground without issue. We’ve yet to figure out a way to stop it.”
The color drained from Fisher’s face. His gaze met mine, clouded with worry, the thin strand of quicksilver banding his right eye flashing bright. We need to tell them, he said into my mind. Do I have your permission?
I gave him a small nod. I had described to him in great detail what had happened when I’d been pulled into the quicksilver back at Gillethrye.
I hadn’t left anything out. But Fisher had wanted to keep the full account to ourselves for a little while so as not to alarm the others unnecessarily.
But now it seemed as though alarm was warranted.
He took a deep breath and began. “Back in Gillethrye, Saeris wasn’t just pulled into the quicksilver. She was called by the gods.”
Five baffled faces turned toward me. Over the back of the sofa, Carrion’s head popped up out of nowhere, his auburn strands disheveled as if he’d just woken up. “What does that mean, called by the gods? Like, you found religion?”
“No. It means that I was summoned by them. Zareth was the one who yanked me through the—”
“Excuse me. Zareth?” Te Léna squeaked. “The Zareth. God of chaos Zareth?”
“God of chaos and change,” I said wearily. “He was very adamant about the ‘and change’ part.”
“You met with a god?”
“Yes. Three of them, actually.” I shrugged. “Bal and Mithin were there, too. Kind of.”
Te Léna looked like she might pass out. She pressed her index finger and middle finger to her brow with reverence. “What did Zareth say?”
“He said he was severing us from the tapestry of the universe. That the gods wouldn’t be able to see us anymore.”
“Wait,” Maynir interjected. “So you and Fisher . . . you’re not God-Bound anymore?”
Fisher shifted, absently rubbing the tattoos across the back of his hand that now matched my own.
“We are. If anything, the connection between us is even stronger. The gods are just blind to us now. Zareth felt that it would protect us. Some of the other gods aren’t too optimistic about what’s happening.
They’d rather birth a new universe than wait to see what happens with this one, so . . .”
“No. No, no, no.” Iseabail shook her head. “Impossible. The Yvelian gods aren’t real. They’re metaphors.”
Lorreth’s eyes narrowed imperceptibly. “But the Balquhidder gods are real, though, right? Those elemental spirits who whisper in your ears? The ones who tell you whether you should prevent or commit atrocities for ‘the greater good’?” He heaped sarcasm onto those last three words.
“Our deities aren’t myths, Lorreth. They’ve always been here, and their will cannot be questioned. If we don’t obey them, the consequences—”
“Enough.” Fisher didn’t raise his voice, but the command echoed around the library.
Frown lines etched deep grooves between his brows.
“The gods are real. They’re bastards, but they’re real.
I’ve met with them myself. We aren’t telling you this now to spark a debate about theology.
I’m bringing this up because of what they told Saeris. ”