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Fortiss shrugs. “Maybe skrill, maybe not. But something was on the move. At first the attacks were easy to ignore, marauders killed at night on the road between the Eighth House and Merrivale. Deaths that were unwitnessed and unremarked upon. Mostly, the villagers and Eighth House residents alike attributed it to the acts of the Savasci. They’re known to the point of legend around here, and Daggar treats them as a rumor unsubstantiated.

Something to be avoided, but handy in the case of dead bodies that he doesn’t want to explain.

But there have definitely been more deaths than usual—enough that Daggar is now officially concerned. ”

“But the Savasci were at the First House, or at least a solid chunk of their party were,” I say. “Were they somehow able to get word to the women here? How?”

He grimaces. “That’s something I don’t yet know, and something else I need to find out.”

“What do you mean, women?” Tennet asks. “Who are these Savasci?”

I smirk at him. “What, you mean there’s something that Caleb hasn’t told you?”

“They’re not our focus right now,” Fortiss insists.

“I’m willing to concede that this prophecy chamber may simply be an old man seeing things in the dark, but the rest of his tale needs investigating.

We’ve got to get into Daggar’s inner chambers and read the books we’re missing—and we need to find these talonstones. ”

Tennet shrugs. “Unless Rihad already took everything of value. If there was any book in Daggar’s inner chambers or in this secret vault of talonstones that was a threat to him, he would have destroyed it.”

“Maybe—but maybe not,” I say. “If there was a book that was truly valuable, but too noticeable to be moved, Rihad would simply ignore it until he needed it. Especially if he could somehow access it through magical means. Better to keep it here, locked up tight under the very nose of someone who doesn’t know enough to understand when it’s being accessed, until he was ready. ”

Fortiss nods. “I think so too. Rihad thought he would have plenty of time. I suspect he fully planned to return to here after the Tournament of Gold, officially breaking down the borders between the Protectorate and the Western Realms and drawing a dark army of skrill to him to sweep back east.”

“Uh-huh. Have you told Lord Daggar any of this?” Tennet asks.

“I have, yes. I’ve told him everything. Rihad laid the foundation of his actions through secrecy and cunning, but that’s not how we’re going to overthrow him. If anything, we need to be more forthcoming among the houses, more honest about everything that we do, everything that we’re thinking.”

As Fortiss speaks, he swings his gaze to me, holds my eyes as if we are the best of friends and he can trust me with anything.

I’m sure my cheeks would burn with uneasy self- awareness if I wasn’t already reeling from the idea of Rihad using the Eighth House as his personal treasure chest for all things dark magic.

“He said something else about you, Talia. You really set him off—first in a way that he seemed to fear, and then…I don’t know.

He asked a lot of questions about your role in the tournament. ”

I grimace. “Look, I didn’t?—”

“‘The dark shall draw the dark.’” Fortiss cuts me off, narrowing his eyes at me. “You ever hear that before? I don’t think Tennet said it.”

“I…” I wave my hand, at a loss. “I don’t remember that, no. He said that about me ?”

“I don’t care what he said, we need to lock Daggar down—whether through fear or camaraderie, whatever works,” Tennet announces.

He’s moved closer to me without me realizing it, which sets off an entirely new spurt of panic.

But he doesn’t seem to notice as he continues speaking.

“You should recruit him to your cause, Fortiss, recruit all the houses to your cause if you can. Those that were attacked in Trilion certainly would be willing to listen, I should think. Beyond all that, there are settlements along the western border that would understand the threat that’s long loomed over the Meridians and certainly agree to fight on your side to keep it knocked back.

With every house you visit, you’ll get more followers.

And if the time it takes to travel to each of those houses merely requires a tour through the Blessed Plane…

you could reach them all quickly enough. ”

“But we’ve already tried that.” I sigh. “Our Divhs can’t just hop from house to house like traveling bards. Warriors need to summon them or Divhs need to be returning a warrior home. “

Tennet turns to me, his brows lifted in challenge.

“Do they, though? Before this morning, I wouldn’t have thought it possible to travel to the Blessed Plane for any other purpose than banding to or training with a Divh.

Maybe we simply haven’t figured out the right way to travel through their plane easily. ”

“You’ve asked Ayne?” Fortiss asks, but Tennet dismisses that with a frustrated wave of his hand.

“I’ve tried, and he’s tried to answer me.

But he speaks in riddles and half statements that seem perfectly obvious to him.

What about your Divh—any of them?” He redirects his intense gaze on me, and there’s no strange and dangerous intimacy in his expression, no recognition at all of what we just shared—whatever that was.

Clearly, he’s moved past it, and so should I.

“You have a different bond with yours, and a newer one. A changed one, yes? Gent was banded to Merritt and by all accounts was nowhere near the size he became after he banded with you. You’re a woman; you shouldn’t even be able to band with Divhs according to all our laws—and no, don’t bother arguing with me.

A month ago you wouldn’t have thought it possible either.

But it was. It is. Light, today you banded a Divh to a woman— another woman—who’s not even a warrior.

She’s a learned, respected sage, but sages don’t band to Divhs, or so we thought. ”

Fortiss grunts in agreement. “Unfortunately, Miriam’s not taking to her banding so well as you did, Talia. She’s pretty ill.”

I frown at that. “She just needs time. Caleb and I were both sick for days after we first connected to our Divhs, we just had the space to work through it. Miriam will recover quickly enough—maybe more quickly, since she’s not banded to a battle Divh.”

Tennet makes a face. “You make the assumption that they’re not all battle Divhs. Too many assumptions, when what we need are answers.”

He says this last as a muttered aside, and Fortiss piles on.

“Tennet’s right, though. Your connection with Gent is the key factor in all of this.

You were able to succeed in the Tournament of Gold due to that connection, and you were able to do things that none of us even considered because of it as well.

What does he have to say about travel, connecting with the other houses, and drawing the other Divhs to our cause? ”

“I mean, we did it once before, right?” Tennet turns to me, his mood finally shifting to real interest. His eyes have widened slightly, his mouth cutting into a grin as he rolls up on the balls of his feet.

“Back during the Great Conflict, at the dawn of the Protectorate? It’s not like the Imperial army came marching in to find the Divhs propped up against these mountains, waiting for them.

There had to be that moment of first connection, the point at which the Divhs agreed to lend their aid to the Imperium. How did we manage that?”

I lift my hands in defeat. “I have no idea. To your point, I was never trained formally as a warrior. I never thought I was going to be a warrior until a few weeks ago. And it’s not like that sort of training was given to the women of our house as a courtesy.

You two should be the ones to know it, not me. ”

“Well, my father wasn’t big on fairy tales,” Tennet says wryly.

“To him, Divhs were less a sacred mystery and more a self-contained army that could be summoned at a moment’s notice—a big club to wield if and as necessary, for a very specific purpose, and then relegated back to their magic box until they were needed again. ”

“At the First House, it almost went too far the other way,” Fortiss says.

His voice takes on a distant, contemplative tone, as he replays decades of memory and finally sees them for what they truly are.

“To us, the Divhs are creatures of power and legend, but more than that, they’re a sacred trust. Other than in the visceral and bloody pageantry of the Tournament of Gold, they’re spoken of only by bards and priests, not by soldiers.

We know, of course, that there are common men banded to Divhs of lower station, but there’s always a condescension to that acknowledgement, that this was a sop that we long ago provided to the masses to give them a hint of why they should treat us all with veneration.

Because we’re the ones with the powerful connection, we’re the ones with the warrior-level Divhs.

But it’s both too much and not enough. Rihad could have taken a stand on this, and he didn’t—no one has. ”

I shoot Tennet a confused glance, but his eyes are trained on Fortiss.

“Rihad didn’t go far enough in either direction.

He didn’t push to understand more,” Tennet says, as if he and Fortiss are having a conversation I’m not privy to.

“He did just enough to cement his role as leader, but not enough to actually lead the Protectorate forward.”

“He didn’t have to do anything more,” Fortiss agrees. “And he didn’t want to—probably the same as every lord protector before him.”

Understanding finally hits me. “Rihad has the ability to band Divhs. That means he could have banded the Divhs as easily as I just did to someone other than a warrior. I mean, the Divhs that he’s banded to house soldiers are every bit as capable as Kreya—and she’s every bit as capable as them.

So, he could have chosen to band lower-level Divhs to other leaders in other trades.

He didn’t. Why? Did he think it would have cheapened the connection? ”

“It certainly would have made it harder to control the Divhs, sure. Warriors understand the process of command,” Fortiss says. “A scholar? Maybe not so much. That could be a problem.”

“Well, maybe—but why not try it out? Why did it take me trying to save Miriam’s life to come up with this idea?”

“Don’t look at me,” Fortiss returns ruefully. “Like Tennet says, you’re the one with the deepest connection to your Divh, a pathway already forged. Use it. Ask Gent.”

“But I…”

“Here.” Tennet reaches for my hand and pulls me back through the large doors and out onto the stone overlook.

I should be panicked again, but it’s as if Tennet’s already forgotten what happened out here, moved on like a galloping horse to a new adventure.

Between that and the view before me, a wide vista of dwindling forest leading down to open plains, I find myself no longer worrying about him but about what he wants me to do—which he explains in short order.

“Summon your Divh and let’s see. Caleb said you could call him on a moment’s notice, no rituals or pageantry required. ”

“It’s broad daylight,” I protest, chewing on my bottom lip. I feel unreasonably nervous about performing this simple task, like I’m on the edge of a discovery I don’t particularly want to make. “Everyone will see.”

“Then you go to him,” Fortiss prompts. “You’ve done it before.”

I swing my gaze from Tennet to Fortiss, irritation finally sparking within me. I no longer want to talk to either one of them. I no longer want to do anything other than reconnect with Gent to unravel this mystery. To stop with the questions and the wondering and just know .

I pull away from Tennet and move out into the center of the overlook.

I open my mind, my thoughts, and reach out—straining without straining, reaching without yearning, connecting without the need to touch.

Far off in the distance, I hear the delighted howl of my Divh, awakening to my murmured request as if he were born into the Blessed Plane for only that purpose.

“Gent,” I murmur, and then I’m moving. Distantly, vaguely, I hear Tennet’s startled shout, register Fortiss’s sharp command, but they are nothing to me, not anymore, not in this moment.

I race forward, leaping up onto a chair, and then onto the low wall framing the overlook.

Then I’m in the air, soaring over open space, reaching out my hands as my vision blurs and my eyelids droop and breath is stolen from my throat.

I leap because it’s easier than standing still. Easier than waiting and wondering what’s possible. And, blood and stone, easier than arguing another moment with two men who value different pieces of me—but who may never be able to accept me in full.

I leap.

And…then I start to fall.

For a terrifying, paralyzing half-second, I feel my trajectory shift, my ascent arc into descent, and for the first time I notice the sun playing across the slithering, shivering grass, the wide empty plain of sun-warmed earth. I’m falling, falling?—

With a heart thudding wrench, I’m ripped sideways and thrown into the air.

Only it’s a different air, a different world.

I’m surrounded by the blue, blue sky and distant deep emerald hills of Gent’s home territory, the water glistening off the shore like liquid emeralds, everything rich, vibrant, verdant with promise.

Giants roar all around me as I’m swept back into Gent’s embrace, my enormous Divh clutching me close as he plummets down to carry me to the safety of the rolling hills of his beautiful home…only…

We’re heading straight for the lake.