Mikaen glared at the circle of vy-knights around him, ordered to protect him.
Like that’s even necessary.
Havensfayre was a dark tomb, framed by flames. A few lamps glowed through the pall of smoke, but no one was about the streets. The few townspeople spotted in the distance fled from the thunder of the knights’ horses and vanished through doors to hide behind shutters or down into dank cellars, hoping to escape the worst of the flames.
The air still burned, thick with smoke. Their party rode with damp scarves about their faces. Still, the wet cloths could not keep the stench from their noses. Throughout the streets, countless bodies lay broken, trampled, or burned. The legion rode over them and continued toward the heart of Havensfayre.
Their path followed the shattered bole of a huge alder that had crashed across a large swath of the town. Toppled on its side and buried in a nest of broken branches, it rose like a white wall to his left. As they continued along its length, flames appeared amidst the branches, scorching the white wood. When they finally reached its end, they discovered only a jagged, splintered ruin. The end smoldered and smoked, blotting out any sight ahead.
The knights at the lead vanished into that darkness.
Mikaen secured his scarf more firmly as he and his guards followed. The world vanished, and the heat grew scorching. His group followed the rumps of the horses ahead until the pall thinned enough to reveal what had blasted the giant alder.
A huge crater, twice the breadth of a tourney field, stretched ahead. It was half again as deep, all the sides burning and smoking. Mikaen gaped at the enormity of it, awed by the destructive power it represented.
From one Hadyss Cauldron.
He found himself smiling behind his scarf.
Then a figure trotted a tall piebald horse through his guards and over to his side. Though the rider was masked as they all were, Mikaen easily recognized Wryth by the leather bandolier of his cryst and the black tattoo banded across his eyes. Wryth had left ahead of the others with a few knights. The reason was clutched in the Shrive’s hand.
Wryth drew up alongside him, dancing his steed closer. He lifted the glass orb. Mikaen knew Wryth had used the tool to track the Shrive’s stolen treasure.
The prince stared at the crater before them.
Wryth had set off ahead of the others to search for some evidence of the bronze artifact’s presence. He announced the result. “I circled the entire hole,” the Shrive panted out, breathing hard, his voice muffled by the scarf. “Nothing.”
Mikaen enjoyed the bitter defeat in the other’s voice. “Then you’ll have to dig for your treasure.”
“So it seems. But it will take many moons. And with war pending, any success may come too late.”
Mikaen scoffed. “Fear not. My father will give you all the necessary resources to swiftly dig any answers out of this hole. And not just for the sake of some ancient weapon.”
Wryth glanced quizzically at him.
“Also for my brother,” Mikaen explained.
Wryth turned to face the sheer breadth of the blast crater. “Nothing could have survived that blast.”
Mikaen had his own set of beliefs when it came to his brother. “Until I hold Kanthe’s skull in my hand, I won’t consider him dead.”
Wryth slowly nodded. “That may be wise.”
Mikaen pictured his twin and the bronze sculpture, even the shadow of a half-sister he never met. He scowled his frustration down into the smoldering crater.
If they’re not dead, where could they be?
49
RHAIF TRAILED BEHIND Shiya as she limped down the length of the copper-lined tunnel. Where her bronze feet stepped, the metal glowed briefly brighter, then darkened as her toes lifted away. She also grazed her fingertips along one wall, leaving a trail of brightness in their wake.
The air of the tunnel smelled with the verve of a lightning storm.
Upon Xan’s insistence, Shiya led them. Still, Rhaif kept close to her back, ready to support Shiya if she should weaken or stumble. They had been trekking through the tunnel for over a bell, maybe longer, with no end in sight. But at least Shiya had not faltered so far.
Similar to the singing of the Kethra’kai woman, the alchymy of this strange metal infused some strength into her, but it appeared to be only enough to keep her moving and little else.
She still had not spoken a word.
Rhaif searched around him, ignoring the murmurs from the group of Hálendiians behind him. He examined the circular tunnel, testing the metal with his own fingers, running his tips over the seamless surface.
Not even a single rivet or nail.
He looked up. The arch of the roof rose higher than he could reach, and not even Shiya could extend her long arms to touch both sides. He squinted at the walls, recognizing when last he had seen such strange metal.
In the mines of Chalk.
He remembered where he had discovered Shiya. It had been in an egg of the same seamless copper, imbedded in the rock deep underground. He pictured her as he had found her then, standing in a glass alcove, surrounded by a web of copper piping and glass tubes bubbling with a golden elixir. She had been a perfect sculptural beauty, a sleeping goddess of bronze.
He looked at her now, with a crooked leg and the dents and scratches across her surface. Maybe you should have never left your egg. This world is too harsh for even a woman made of metal.
He sighed.
Pratik and Llyra followed behind him. The Chaaen looked about with wonder. Llyra simply kept her gaze fixed on Shiya’s bronze form. With each flare of light from the floor, the guildmaster’s eyes shone with avarice and calculation.
I’ll have to watch her closely from here.
Next to her, Pratik maintained his own particular fascination—but not only with Shiya. He kept glancing back, past the clutch of Kethra’kai surrounding Xan, to the group of Hálendiians at the back, who were stalked by a large vargr.
Rhaif knew who the Chaaen focused upon back there. In truth, he was equally intrigued by the mystery of the young woman, a girl of maybe fourteen or fifteen, plainly talented with a unique bridle-song. He remembered Xan’s words about who the king’s legion was looking for in Cloudreach.
Singers.
Du’a ta.
Which meant both of them.
He gazed from Shiya back to the one named Nyx.
Two singers—one of bronze, one of flesh—yet, he sensed a connection between them. But how could that be? One was as ancient as these lands, the other only a youth.
A shout from the rear called forward. “Can we stop for a few breaths?”
Rhaif searched back and identified the oldest among the Hálendiians, with ruddy hair tied in a tail, his cheeks and chin stubbled darkly. From the formal cadence of his speech and his slight air of authority, Rhaif suspected he might be a scholar.
The man waved to the young singer. In the lamplight of the Kethra’kai scouts, her face was pale. She leaned on the arm of a robust young man with bright red cheeks and an ax on his back. The girl was close to the point of collapse. Unlike Shiya, the young woman drew no strength from the tunnel here.
Xan lifted her staff and called them all to a stop. The group settled and slid down the curved copper to rest. The scholarly Hálendiian came forward with a young man who carried a bow and two quivers on his back. They examined Shiya as she stood with her feet atop glowing pools, a palm against a shining spot on the wall.