Page 38

Gent stares at me another long moment, and I reach up a little further to brush the drop of wetness that has seeped over his lower lid. Then he swings his hand away, and a moment later, he lays it on the ground again.

Fortiss helps me off, supporting me when my legs are too wobbly.

“Miriam is still out cold,” he reports. “But she’s breathing, and nothing appears to be injured. Tennet is watching her. Marsh is exhausted, too—he’s also in a dead faint.”

He gestures and I can see the giant heap of a Divh through the gathering night. And that finally strikes me as a detail too.

“It’s night?” I say stupidly, staring up the sky. “I know there was a storm, but it was daylight when we reached the plane of the Divhs and barely dawn at the First House. How is it already so late?”

“Szonja said that time moves differently here—and has no meaning in the way that we mark it. After all—she’s served my family for as long as we’ve been keeping records in the First House. That’s not possible if she actually ages.”

“Yes, but…” my head is swimming again, and I lift my hands to steady it, wincing as my right shoulder protests. “The sandworm had babies. How does that…I mean…”

He laughs as I shake my head. “Light willing, we’ll have plenty of time to answer all the questions we have about the Divhs and all the ones we don’t even know enough to ask.

Right now, we need to get back to our own plane and pray that Szonja is correct about the passage of time there.

Caleb and Nazar are scouting the outer perimeter of the Divhs’ plane, which seems to end at that western range.

” He points to a track of mountains jutting up from the horizon, enormous even at this far distance.

“The closer they get to it, the more the winds churn.”

“That range is congruent with the Unlit Pass—the only known pass through the mountains to reach the Western Realms.” Miriam’s voice floats toward us, and I turn to see Tennet with his arm wrapped around the woman, helping her move forward.

Miriam’s skin is as white as bleached parchment, and she appears about thirty years older than she did when we left the First House this morning.

I jolt as a spurt of fear zips through me.

Miriam isn’t banded. Does time work differently for her in this plane?

There’s nothing wrong with her mind, though.

“We need to look for a collection of mountains all bunched together, as if they were pulled together by a child. In the domain of the Eighth House, those mountains formed a natural protection for the house despite its location so close to the pass, and between that and the protection of the Divhs, it’s survived unscathed these many generations. ”

“Unscathed?” asks Tennet, stepping away as she straightens and smooths down her robes. “How much contact does the Eighth House have with the First? Were they party to Rihad’s plans to overthrow the other houses?”

“They were not,” Miriam says sharply, turning to him.

Her voice comes out a little raspily, and she blinks, then lifts a hand to her throat.

She clears it and tries again. “You forget, not only was I born there, but I’ve traveled many times to the Eighth, though it’s been years since I saw it last. No amount of Rihad’s machinations could have pierced the heart that beats in that house.

It is Protectorate born and Protectorate bred.

They would never do anything that would lead to the end of our state.

I wager they’d rise up against the Imperium itself if it sought to impose its will against the will of those born here. ”

She blinks, as if startled by the severity of her own words, but they have my thoughts racing in a new direction.

“The Savasci,” I blurt. Fortiss and Tennet turn to me, but my eyes are on Miriam. “You were aware of them, that they’d come to the Tournament of Gold. You may have even known where they were hiding out.”

I glance at Tennet, seeing the obvious question in his eyes.

“The Tournament of Gold was harried by marauders of a unique sort, thieves of stealth and cunning who didn’t kill their victims, and who moved like the night.

They were a band of women, and they hailed from the mountains of the western border. Not exactly the Eighth, but close.”

I turn back to Miriam. “How well do you know them?”

“Well enough to protect them when I can—and ignore them when my attention would only cause them harm. Lord Daggar of the Eighth was aware of them too, of course. His father’s father tried to root them out when they first formed their commune in the mountains between the Eighth House and Merrivale.

But theirs was a movement that wouldn’t die.

Eventually, they came to an agreement—the Savasci could serve as hunters for the Eighth, and in return, they were not hunted. ”

“Hunters,” Tennet scoffs.

“Some of the fiercest you’ll ever meet, Lord Tennet,” Miriam says coolly, offering him a dismissive a wave of her hand. She completes the movement, but her glance alights on her fingers, and she goes still.

“Well, if they’re hunters, maybe they know a way up to the pass into the Western Realms.” Fortiss grimaces. “I confess I thought simply that I would give Szonja the instruction to enter back into our plane and it would be done, but she seemed…confused by that.”

“Confused?” Tennet looks back to where Ayne is soaring low over the churning lake, barely visible, but my eyes are on Miriam as she stares, dumbstruck, at her hands.

“What—what is happening?” she whispers, as if they are crumbling to dust before her eyes. And maybe they are.

I reach out to Gent, my mind racing furiously, and am rewarded with his short, delighted huff. The rest of us barely remain standing as he leaps to his feet, coming down with a mighty chomp. And then he disappears.

“What is that?” Tennet demands, rounding on me. “Where did you send him?”

Fortiss gapes at me too. “You didn’t just send him back to our plane, did you? It can’t be that easy.”

“I didn’t, and it’s not. Think about it, Fortiss. We’ve been moving so fast, we’re not remembering how Divhs interact with us. They interact with us . They’re connected to us . That’s the only way this works—the only reason why we can thrive here. But Miriam’s not connected.”

“But I was fine…” Miriam stutters, but the words are strangled.

“Time passes differently here,” I say—it’s my only guess, but I think I’m right. I hold up my left arm, glad it’s not my right. “Fortiss?”

He moves to me and unlaces my sleeve, stripping it away while Miriam goggles at us. My primary band is barely an inch wide, with two-dozen whisper-thin strands still stacked beneath it, each of them shimmering bright with their own, distinct movement.

“No,” she says, taking a step back. “I’m not a warrior, Lady Talia.”

“Not yet,” I agree, and flash her a grim smile. “But if you’re going to survive this place, you have to be.”

Gent’s howl fills my mind, and I step back abruptly.

“Give them room,” I order, squinting up into the stormy sky.

“ Them ?” Tennet demands. “Who’s them ?”

The air snaps tight around us.