She knew what that meant. There would be no resurrecting him; his memories would not be preserved with his brethren.
If Bashaliia dies out there, he will be gone forever.
It was why she had come down here. She lifted his chin and stared into his eyes. You must not follow. While her heart quailed at the thought of being away from him, the possibility of losing him forever was too much to bear.
His eyes glowed back. He keened with sorrow, experiencing her fear and agony as much as she did his senses. Still, his strands wound tighter to her. He refused to leave her side, to abandon her again. She sought a way to convince him, to argue against his coming.
But another had had enough.
Up from within the dark well inside Bashaliia, a black wave struck out at them. Fiery eyes flashed from that shadowy darkness, clearly taking significant effort to reach this far. Still, the command was cold and resolute, veiled in threat.
NO.
Then that enormity vanished from them both, leaving a hollowness that chilled. Bashaliia pressed closer. She knew she could not ask this of him again. Instead, she leaned over, touching and singing him calmer, until her heart settled, too.
Finally, the press of time squeezed them apart.
“I must go,” she whispered.
After a final few touches of reassurance, she left and headed back through the series of tunnels. She moved leadenly, weighted down by her worries and fears. Still, before long, she reached the proper door and heard voices behind it. She was clearly very late. She took another breath, then opened the door and pushed into the warm chamber.
A stone hearth glowed in a corner. Atop a table in the center, a jumble of platters and mugs separated stacks of books and a spread of charts and maps. Everyone seemed to be talking at once.
Graylin was bent between Frell and Pratik. “When you reach the Klashe, seek out the Razen Rose. Something tells me that secretive order knows far more than they let on.”
Graylin straightened as she entered and waved to an open chair, then returned to his conversation with the group due to depart to the south. Kanthe caught her eye and shrugged with a shake of his head.
From the neighboring seat, Jace shifted her chair back.
She crossed to it and sank down.
Her friend leaned closer. “You missed most of it,” he said. “I think everyone’s questions have been answered as best they could be.”
She stared around the table, ignoring the cacophony. Shiya sat quietly across from her, with Rhaif on one side and Darant on the other. The two men leaned forward and spoke across Shiya’s nose as if she weren’t even there.
Nyx knew what that felt like.
Shiya’s eyes glowed at her, unblinking. Nyx sensed there was a question the bronze woman was waiting for someone to ask. As Nyx stared back, she heard a faint song, of distant drums.
Shiya’s crystal cube sat on the table, framed by her fingers. It glowed softly, while above it shimmered a tiny globe of the Urth. Small crimson and azure blips shone more brightly across its surface. Nyx knew the blue dot deep in the Southern Klashe was where Kanthe and the alchymists were due to head. Angst at the prince leaving spiked through her.
Their group had only recently been forged, but already it must break again. Still, she read the determination in each face. It united them all. While they might be separating in different directions, they all knew their ultimate goal, to stop what seemed unstoppable, to keep the moon from crashing out of the sky—which first required discovering a way to fire up the Urth’s forges and set the world to turning once again.
Jace tried to say something more, but Nyx lifted a palm and waited. Slowly the room quieted. One by one, they noted her sitting silently, a hand raised.
“I have a question,” Nyx finally said, and nodded to the cube, to the glowing globe of the Urth. She focused on the green marker shining deep in the ice on the dark side of the world. “Where exactly are we headed? Was there ever a name for this place?”
Shiya’s eyes glowed brighter. She shifted higher and gave the smallest nod to Nyx. “Yes, it has an ancient name.”
All eyes turned toward the bronze sculpture poised at the table.
Shiya continued, “From a language older than the Elder tongue. The name is meaningless, perhaps, but it roughly means where the winged protectors gather.”
Nyx pictured Bashaliia and the rest of the M?r horde. Those winged guardians had looked upon the world for ages on end. Did that mean there were others out there like them?
Ever the scholar, Frell drew a sheet closer and lifted a quill in hand. “I’m curious. What is that name in this ancient tongue?” he asked.
Shiya looked across at Nyx, her eyes aglow.
“The City of Angels.”
63
IN THE BOWELS of the Shrivenkeep, Wryth leaned over the shoulder of his fellow Iflelen brother. Skerren sat at a narrow table, its surface covered with rusted bits of arcana, twined copper, vials of caustic compounds, crucibles of both metal and stone, and items that defied Wryth’s own considerable knowledge.
Skerren had summoned him here to reveal a discovery, something his brother believed was significant enough to interfere with Wryth’s own schedule this morning.
Wryth glanced back into the depths of Skerren’s personal scholarium. It stretched off into a maze of chambers, closets, and sealed rooms. Wryth recognized a tall stack of curved copper sheets leaning high against a back wall. They were part of the copper shell that had preserved the bronze artifact deep in Chalk’s sunless tunnels. Skerren had spent the past two moons carefully dismantling and shipping it from the mines.
The laborers had been killed afterward. None could know what the Iflelen had discovered, what they hoped to learn from it. Wryth suspected Skerren’s discovery came from that same collection.
“Show me,” Wryth said.
Skerren reached to a leather cloth that hid something beneath. He slid the covering away, revealing a wonder that drew a gasp from Wryth. It was a perfect cube of crystal, veined through with copper threads. But what squeezed Wryth’s breath was the mass of golden fluid at its core, pulsing and undulating.
“I found it in a hidden chamber behind the copper shell,” Skerren explained.
“What is it?” Wryth came around for a closer look.
Skerren leaned possessively over it, his eyes narrowed. “I think it serves like a tiny flashburn forge. A source of unknown power. I’ve performed some tests with intriguing results.”
“What tests?”
Skerren waved absently at the two halves of a glass sphere resting atop his table. It was all that was left of the instrument that Wryth had used to track the bronze artifact. The cracked orb had been drained of the clear oil, and its tiny copper-wrapped lodestones were meticulously lined up in a row.
Skerren explained, “I believe, with this tiny forge, I can build a more powerful version of the instrument that I gave you before. The new device should be capable of detecting emanations from the bronze artifact over a far greater distance.”
Wryth breathed heavier, desire burning through him. He could barely speak. He did not know if anyone had escaped the ruins of Dalal??a, but he was plagued by the sight of a swyftship diving into the clouds as he fled.
With such a new tool, I might learn the truth.
“Do it,” Wryth ordered. “Set aside all other inquiries except for this.”