The alchymist straightened with a nod. “From her story, the bats must have sensed their milk was tainting the child, blinding her, and so returned her to her own kind.”
“Which suggests a level of intelligence far superior than anyone ever imagined.” Ghyle grew silent as she contemplated this, then spoke again. “Is it possible that they poisoned the girl a fortnight ago on purpose? Reawakening her—both in sight and knowledge—to serve as a vessel of warning to the greater world? Do we dare place such reasoning and cunning upon those winged beasts?”
The alchymist rubbed a finger in the crease of his chin. “I reviewed several texts after receiving your missive, to better understand the venom that had afflicted the girl. Justoam’s Anaticum Plenary. Lakewright’s Historia Animalium. Even the oft reviled Klashean tome Fhallon’s Dialogues of Biologica Variations. We know other bats—like the eyeless fruitwings that inhabit the shadowy depths of Cloudreach—navigate somehow via their near-silent cries. Surely the M?r bats must do the same, experiencing the world in such a manner. A handful of alchymists suspect these kings among their kind also use their high-pitched calls as a means of communication, binding one to another, like bees in a hive, ants in a nest. Perhaps even magnifying their entire genera’s intelligence.”
“The whole greater than its parts,” Ghyle said.
Frell nodded. “Fhallon’s Dialogues goes so far as to conjecture that their knowledge, shared and communed, might go back generations, farther than our own histories. We also know other genera of bats, especially those in the dark western fringes of the Crown, prefer the dark of night, as if binding their behavior and patterns to the cycles of the moon. If so, surely our M?r bats would be equally sensitive to changes in the moon.”
While Nyx was lost by most of this, Prioress Ghyle’s eyes narrowed with intent on her former student. “Frell, are you suggesting the bats have somehow intuited what your research has shown?”
He nodded. “That the moon has been growing larger over the centuries, and more quickly now.”
Nyx put herself back on that accursed mountaintop, watching a moon swelling, crashing toward her, its edges on fire. “Moonfall,” she whispered.
Frell turned toward her. “Mayhap that is what they were trying to show you, to warn you in their own way.”
Nyx knew his explanation did not illuminate everything. Her vision atop the mountain had been too detailed. Even now screams echoed in her head. She remembered the name shouted from her own lips. Bashaliia. Still, she set aside such mysteries for now and addressed a question that had been plaguing her since that nightmare-riven day.
“Why me?” she asked, glancing over to Jace, then back to the two scholars. “Why am I the one beset by their calls?”
Frell shrugged. “I think it’s obvious.”
Nyx frowned. Not to me.
Frell explained, “You lived your first six moons under their tutelage, when your mind was soft clay, still pliable, far from fully formed. Your brain grew while under a constant barrage of their silent cries. Under such persistent exposure, your mind may have been forever altered by their keening, as a tree is gnarled by winds.”
She glanced to Jace, whose eyes had grown even larger, shining with fear.
Of me.
Frell continued, “I believe, in some small way, that you joined the greater mind around you. And though grown now and diverged on a new path, you still remained attuned to that pattern ingrained upon your spirit.”
Nyx shivered, wanting to argue against the alchymist’s words. Still, she remembered those moments when she saw herself through another’s eyes, through her lost brother’s eyes.
Ghyle spoke up. “If Alchymist Frell’s suspicions are true, then it suggests your recent poisoning awoke more than just your eyesight. It opened an inner eye long closed since you were left in the swamp.”
Nyx swallowed, her stomach churning sickly and hotly.
Then what am I?
Jace must have sensed her distress and pushed through his fear to step closer. “Nyx, is that what you came here to tell the prioress?”
She stiffened, realizing what she had forgotten. “No,” she blurted out, and turned to Ghyle. “I had another visit from my lost brother.”
Jace took her hand. “I saw the bat, too.”
She looked gratefully over at him. She took strength from the firmness of his grip, fighting back tears at his simple gesture, at his show of support and friendship.
“I had another vision,” she said, and explained about the coming storm, an attack by thousands of bats to avenge the sacrifice about to happen. “We must stop the others from burning the creature they captured, or we’ll be attacked from the air.”
Jace’s brows pinched. “But how could the bats know what we intend to do here, when it’s not even happened yet?”
As much as it disturbed her, Nyx knew the answer. “If I know that greater mind, then perhaps they also may know mine.”
She again pictured the switching back and forth of her vision. She also remembered the fury that had grown inside her upon learning about the sacrifice and the fervent stirring to do something about it. It was a rescue that her normally meek self would never have contemplated or risked.
Where did that desire come from?
She lifted a hand and touched between her breasts.
Was it born of me? Or stoked by them?
Before she could decide, a ringing rose from beyond the walls, clanging louder with each heartbeat. She cringed at the sound.
The first bell of Eventoll.
She gaped at the others, her breath seizing in her chest.
I took too long.
It was already too late.
The prioress turned to Frell, plainly not giving up. “We must intervene, but I’m not sure my word alone can cast aside a king’s order.”
The alchymist nodded. “Then it may take that of a prince. If I can convince him.”
A prince?
Ghyle crossed and took hold of Jace’s arm. “Nyx has already drawn the king’s attention, and I fear her situation will soon be far graver. You must get her somewhere safe.”
“Wh … Where?” Jace stammered.
“Out of the school. It is no longer safe for her here.” The prioress looked at Nyx. “For now, get her back home.”
Nyx did not resist as the two of them were rushed toward the door, but an unsettling question chased her heels.
Where is my true home?
17
KANTHE SNIFFED AND rolled his eyes.
I thought I reeked of the swamp.
He shifted farther across the top of the school, trying to get upwind of the great shaggy bullock, but the cloud of flies hovering around the phlegmonous, farting beast buzzed after him.
Its caretaker—Bastan, the old swamper’s son—seemed oblivious, shifting within the muck of it all, checking the wagon’s leather traces and breeches. The young man kept his gaze away from the bundled cage atop the wagon. Having reached the ninth tier, the bullock was nearly done. It only had a few paces to go to complete its trek.
The plan was simple enough. The bullock would haul the wagon between the twin pyres atop the school, then the cart would be unhitched and left there. More kindling would be shoveled between its wheels and lit with torches. Then the wagon and wooden pen would be set aflame, briefly joining the two fires into one.