Page 30 of The Cradle of Ice

Frell touched the crook of his left arm. “Still unknown. After the questioning, they leeched blood from me, then left, saying they would inform me of their judgement later.”

“I imagine the bloodletting will be used for an oracular reckoning,” Pratik explained. “To further judge you. Did they offer no other hint of their assessment?”

Frell paced the edge of the pool. “At the conclusion of the questioning, Zeng consulted with the other two Dresh’ri, who hadn’t spoken all morning long. I overheard one phrase, only because it was repeated twice, once by each of the elders before they left.”

“What phrase?” Pratik asked.

“If I made them out correctly, it was Vyk dyre Rha.”

Kanthe scowled. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Frell admitted. “But one elder spoke it like a curse. The other whispered it reverently.”

Pratik had shifted straighter in the water. His eyes had gone huge, showing too much white. “Vyk dyre Rha,” he whispered.

Frell focused on the Chaaen. “You know those words?”

Before the Chaaen could answer, a low rumble rose all around them. The waters of the bath trembled and shook. The lanterns overhead swayed. They all held their breath until the disturbance settled.

“Another quake,” Frell whispered dourly. “It’s the third since we arrived on these shores.”

Kanthe knew what worried the man, what the alchymist believed this portended. Frell had shared his worries with them: that the gradual approach of the moon to the Urth was the source of these disturbances, a sign that moonfall was growing ever nearer.

Kanthe tried to discount it. “I asked Rami about it. He said the Southern Klashe suffers such shakes with fair regularity.”

“Not with this frequency,” Frell countered. “I reviewed stratigraphy archives at the Bad’i Chaa. Going back centuries. The quakes have been growing stronger and more often. Even the recorded tides seem to be rising higher, especially over the last two decades.”

Kanthe shook his head. Whether Frell was being paranoid or not, there was nothing to be done about it. He returned to their prior discussion, facing Pratik. “Back to this Vyk dyre Rha that Frell mentioned … what do you know about it?”

Pratik remained quiet. He had to swallow twice before answering. “It’s a name. In ancient Klashean. It translates as the Shadow Queen.”

Kanthe and Frell let the Chaaen collect himself, sensing he needed a moment.

“I … I only heard it spoken once before,” Pratik said, his gaze far off. “By a scholar at the Bad’i Chaa. He was my mentor, an alchymical historian who studied the Forsaken Ages. One day, he drew me to his private scholarium. He claimed he had come across a single mention of a god-daemon in one of his alchymical texts—the Vyk dyre Rha—but the creature was not part of the Klashean pantheon of gods.”

Kanthe pictured sailing through the Stone Gods out in the Bay of the Blessed, each atoll carved into the likeness of those celestial beings.

“My teacher believed he had made an important discovery and consulted with the Dresh’ri. He went down into the Abyssal Codex to continue his research—and was never seen again. Later, his name was stricken from the House of Wisdom, as if he had never set foot there.”

Frell frowned. “Strange. What did your mentor’s text say about this Shadow Queen?”

“Little beyond terror. It is prophesied the daemon would gain flesh and form and bring about the fiery end of the Urth. But I’m convinced the Dresh’ri know more, that they lured my teacher down into their librarie to silence him forever. He must have kept quiet about sharing this knowledge with me. Or else I would’ve surely suffered the same fate. Since then, I’ve listened discreetly but learned nothing more. Just rumors that the Dresh’ri worship a god—one that bears no sigil or symbol. The name is never spoken, so I can’t be sure, but I’ve long suspected—”

“That it’s this Vyk dyre Rha,” Kanthe said.

Pratik nodded and stood. Despite the heat of the bath, his skin prickled with cold bumps of terror. He faced Frell. “You must not go down to that librarie, even if you are invited. Refuse. Say you’ve decided to pursue another angle of study.”

Frell remained silent, but Kanthe knew his mentor. If anything, this story stoked the alchymist’s curiosity. The Abyssal Codex would lure him—as surely as a fly to shite, to use the alchymist’s earlier words.

But considering Pratik’s warning, Kanthe knew a more apt analogy. No matter the danger, his teacher would be drawn there …

Like a moth to a searing flame.

16

FRELL PACED HIS sanctum afforded him by the emperor. Beyond the chamber, he shared the larger spread of rooms with Kanthe, but this space had become Frell’s private scholarium.

After the discussion in the bath chamber, the three had gone their separate ways. The prince had left to seek out Rami and attempt to win the young man to their accelerated timetable. Pratik had disappeared to see if he could glean anything further after Frell’s interrogation by the Dresh’ri. The Chaaen had connections throughout the sprawling citadel, ears who listened for him.