“What makes you think he’s incapable of leaving? We’re talking about Patch. Now get going, Lapis!”
“What if he’s injured? His family—” She trailed off at the hard glint in her brother’s eyes, then firmed her lips. She would not leave Patch to suffer under his family’s evil hands. She turned, straining; she needed to race to the rescue, but Faelan needed to release her wrist, and by his tightening grip, that would not happen anytime soon.
Flashes of light came from the tunnel on their right. The five of them buried themselves as far into the corner as they could, turned off their lights, and covered the reflective metal with their shirts and jackets. Brander and Jetta drew knives and crouched, waiting. Lapis set her free arm across her chest; she would fight, to protect Faelan and Caitria.
Her heart thudded a lively tune in her ears as she held her breath, expecting discovery. Scenarios of tech beams burning holes in her raced through her brain, and she reminded herself that she won previous encounters by cutting the tips off the weapons. She would do so again.
Gangly shanks streaked by, uncaring about anything but escape. They carried a nasty scent with them, the same odor that rose from the burnt keltaitheerdaal. They disappeared down the tunnel, the stench lingering behind them.
“That stuff is disgusting,” Caitria murmured, cupping her nose in her hand. “I wonder if there’s some sort of impurity in the keltaitheerdaal that causes it.”
Brander motioned to the opening with his knife. “We’re too exposed here, and the next batch might not be shanks. There’s a larger room not that far. It has a lot of pillars and dark corners.”
“Let’s go,” Faelan said.
Screams and shouts echoed down the passage and grew louder as they raced to the hiding place. Lapis jumped at every one, and no amount of silent chastisement overrode her fear. Relief flashed when they reached their objective without encountering anyone, though a small part of her had hoped they smacked into Patch.
The space contained tall, smooth sandstone pillars and more godly carvings. Robed figures paraded between half-sized, nude ones bearing food bowls, musical instruments, torches and spears. The procession proceeded to the left and ended at an old-fashioned mound Lapis had read about in histories. The Jils, during the ancient ceremony now celebrated as Fools and Ghouls, poured communally collected blood to solidify kin and community ties, a practice outlawed by the Taangis Empire because they saw it as barbaric.
Words hovered over the robed figures’ elaborate headdresses, which ranged from ungulate horns to sophisticated long hats worn by landed gentry. The lights cast odd shadows, making the text unreadable—as if she could understand such ancient words.
They moved to the left-hand side, stuffing themselves into the corner behind a pillar twice her width. Just in time, to avoid another group running from the destruction. While difficult to tell in the jiggly torchlight, yellow dust coated them, and all of them hacked hard enough to stagger. Dammit. If that dust hung in the air in the room, rescuing Patch became more dangerous. Who knew what the long-term effects of breathing it might be?
Brander nudged Faelan. “I can scout ahead,” he whispered. “It just depends which way you want to go. We can follow those shanks back out and hope no one runs up our ass. If we go the grate way, we’ll be swimming.” Lapis winced; paddling in dark waters held no appeal. “One of the ways Lady Thais mentioned intersects a Beryl syndicate tunnel. I’d rather not deal with them. And then there’s the room you just blew up.”
“Mighty fine choices,” Jetta said, glaring at her lover. Faelan raised an eyebrow, then glanced back into the room as a slower group entered; shanks held tech lights, which illuminated the ground and faces. Lapis gritted her teeth; she glimpsed The Gods’ Hands, limping along with four men who looked like they wore Dentherion tech armor, Damara between them.
“Surely you conducted inspections?” she gulped, her shrillness echoing painfully off the walls. “How could you not?”
“Lady Damara—”
“Do you know what my father is going to do to you?” she demanded, tears thickening her voice.
“The ropes were fine this morning!” a resentful man protested. He sounded like the craftspeople who hailed from the Reeds. “Everything oiled, nothing worn. I don’t know why they snapped!”
If no one below noticed Faelan’s shot, that worked in their favor. The enemy would have no reason to search for someone with a tech weapon, and the explosion probably obliterated any evidence to the contrary.
“Do you know how much money those crates were worth?” Damara yelled, overwrought. “Do you? You’re lucky the cradle crystals survived. Do you know how much money he would lose on those?”
Caitria looked away from the pillar, staring into the room, her mouth open in abject shock.
“You should thank the stars he is not here. He would have left you splattered across the crates.”
Pleasant woman. Lapis strained to hear her ranting, but nothing more important than Damara’s overwrought whining and the snarly replies reached her ears. The light moved on, dwindling until the room fell into darkness.
“They’re a rare mineral once found in a handful of mines in Abastion. The Taangis Empire emptied most of them before they retreated to Pelthine. The crystals were ground into a powder and packed around aquatheerdaal. The combination triggered a reaction that generated huge amounts of energy; a fist-sized chunk of aquatheerdaal, coated in cradle dust, could power moving vehicles for a couple of years. It’s not used anymore because there’s only one active mine, in southern Abastion, near Estersjion. They spend more resources pulling the crystals out than they get in return, and the finds are small. Wealthy Dentherion backers buy it for jewelry, because of the beautiful, refractive violet color, and well, there isn’t enough to do much else with it.” She scrubbed her hands up and down her upper arms. “We’re lucky they didn’t interact. I never read anything about the reaction being explosive, but I’d rather not test it out.”
“So another depleted resource that’s back in circulation,” Faelan murmured.
“Yeah.”
“Did you bring any filter masks?”
“There were two already in the bag, and I didn’t think we’d need them, so didn’t pack more.”
“You want a sample?” Lapis asked.
“We need something to analyze, to make certain that’s what Damara’s talking about,” Caitria said.
“Brander, you know how to get to the room?” Faelan asked.
“Yeah.”
Lapis’s heart leapt and fell simultaneously. She desperately wanted to go, but if they only had two masks, she knew Brander and Caitria would don them. “You have to check for Patch,” she whispered.
“Of course,” the thief said, firmly enough the other rebel would have to hit him over the head and drag him away if she wished to leave before he did so.
Louder talking alerted them; a group of seven shanks hurried into the room, gloating. While also covered in yellow dust, they had cloths tied around their noses and mouths and carried boxes and bags, one so overladen Lapis thought he might trip over his own feet because he could not see beyond the stack. Three had torches for light, the flames flickering a saturated orange.
“Why’re yeh takin’ that?” Typical shank accent, someone from the Stone Streets. He smacked the loot, which wobbled, and the man holding it had to stop to adjust the balance.
“Weren’t tied down,” another hazarded.
“Pissed at Miss Snobby’s the reason,” a third grumbled as they headed for the opposite corridor.
“Blamin’ us fer Tomin’s shit,” the first agreed. “But Diros’s cruel. He’ll take it outta yer hide.”
“Won’t have the money t’ find me,” the loaded shank gloated as he juggled the armful of stuff. “This here shipment’s s’posed t’ fix some debts he’s got. Now it’s gone, an’ he’s goin’ t’ need t’ make sorry t’ someone. Keep him offen m’ back til I’s outta the city.”
“Iffen what you got’s worth anythin’,” the third said, sarcastic.
“They’s treatin’ it like glass!” the loaded shank protested. “It’s worth somethin’!”
His words coincided with losing control over the towering load, which crashed to the floor. Louder grumbles, and the men with him helped scoop up a jumble of glittery objects that Lapis thought might be gemstones back into the cracked boxes. They reloaded his arms, tucked the excess under theirs, and hurried after the first, who already fled the room and whose torchlight jiggled dimly down the corridor.
They waited until they no longer heard the prattle. Jetta clicked on her light, scurried to the place several broken pieces of wood lay, and scampered back.
She had retrieved a brown bag of supple leather, something the shanks could never afford. Faelan held out his hands, and she dumped the content into his palms; pretty purple chunks of an unknown crystal and what looked to be smoother yet not cut yellow and blue topaz and amethysts.
Caitria picked up a purple crystal. “This is a cradle crystal.”
“If the crystals fetch the same price in Jilvayna as they do in Abastion, then I can see Diros smuggling them in,” Jetta said. “He’s eager to make money, and something rare like this would send a lot of it his way.”
“Mercenaries with nasty tech guard the cradle mine,” Caitria shone her light through the stone; the surface glimmered with bright purple and blue refractions. “They inspect the workers after every shift. Someone would have to sneak the crystals out and get them into the underground’s hands without the inspectors noticing. And this is a beautiful raw crystal. No one could casually walk out with it.”
“That sounds like a syndicate-aided endeavor,” Brander said.
“Yeah. I don’t think average workers would risk their lives for a foreign noble.”
“Beryl got its name from gemstone smuggling.” Faelan reminded them as he dumped the items back into the bag. “And I wonder if that’s who the shanks plan to sell these to. Quite the payday, if so. I wonder how long it will take before they miss this bag.”
“They looked to have plenty of other things,” Jetta disagreed. “All stuffed into boxes. I doubt they know what they took, and just grabbed the nearest containers small enough to carry. They won’t come searching for it.”
A low thrum rocked the air, vibrating the pillar, the wall. Small bits of stone and dust rained down, and a larger chunk of rock broke free from the opening Diros’s people fled from. It landed in the center of the way with a dull thud, kicking up dust and cracking in half. Rough commands echoed to them, shouting about something something tech. Brander hissed to catch attention and scampered from the hiding place. Faelan and Caitria followed close, Jetta taking the rear and blocking Lapis from racing to the collapsing tunnel.
Dammit, they needed to get to the smuggling room! She did not care if the ceiling fell or who else came from that way!
The thief took a side entrance after they passed the room with the ceiling tunnel, and into a long, long corridor with gaping square holes on each side that led to small, undecorated rooms. Nothing in any of them, which Lapis thought odd. Some shank or syndicate should use them for storage, and if not, they made a perfect, out-of-the-way spot for those without a home.
They encountered no one else as they trotted over the dusty ground. Lapis found that strange; dozens worked in the hideaway before the explosions. They must have taken other ways out—or not survived. Her stomach churned; desperate shanks accepted meager pay from criminal enterprises like this, and they did not deserve an explosive end because they attempted to pull themselves up from the Grey and Stone Streets.
Neither did Patch.
Jetta’s hand settled on her back; she looked over her shoulder at the woman.
“Patch is fine,” she said. “I know he hasn’t told you much about some of the missions he’s done for Faelan, but trust me—this is sweet berries compared to it.”
That did not make her feel better. Grumbling internally did not help her mood, and the darkness sank into her, pulling her deep into the despair she hated.
What was she going to do if her partner, her lover, was gone? She dreaded he might become injured during stakes, and she worried about his death when she knew he completed the more dangerous ones without her, but facing the prospect of him already dead . . .
He had kept her from hopelessness after her family died. He guided her back to a semblance of normalcy when she wandered through a mental wilderness of helpless pain. A foundation, a rock, someone who gave her stability when she needed the prop. She clutched at her necklace, the edges digging into her palm, knowing the distraction of physical discomfort would not remove her fear, but it might keep her tears where they belonged—behind her eyes.
“There’s a light,” Brander said, slowing his step. “A green one.”
Green?
The deep thrum echoed around them, and Lapis thought the ground shuddered in response. Faelan clapped Brander on the shoulder, and they moved on. Lapis did not remember him being so proactive; caution described him. Caution once described her, too, but ever since her brother re-entered her life, the meticulous chaser she had become crumpled into dust as she reclaimed the adventurous spirit of her youth.
They reached a larger room intersected by three corridors. The green light came from the right-hand wall, peeking out from numerous tiny holes in the rock and spraying the room with blooming-flower green.
“Have you seen this before, Brander?” Faelan asked as he stopped to study the sight.
“I’ve felt the thrum, and seen white beams with sparkles in other places, but nothing like this. The rays are much brighter.”
The air vibrated to a lower sound, and Lapis winced, clutching at her chest. Her body shook, and she fought to breathe until it dissipated.
“Warmth is coming from the wall,” her brother said, shuffling towards it.
“Faelan!” Jetta hissed.
Another low thrum, and the green rays jiggled in a nauseating way. Stone rattled, and Lapis thought the light peeked out around long slits that formed door edges before disappearing. Tiptoes of fear inched up her spine as Faelan touched the rock.
Nothing happened. “What do you think is causing that?” he asked.
“Definitely tech,” Caitria said. “Those kinds of deep vibrations can wiggle eyeballs, and make people think they’re seeing things moving, like walls and pillars. If there’re ghost stories about these ruins, I’m betting that’s responsible.”
They heard shouts from behind; Jetta hissed, and Brander ran to the opposite corridor. They streaked through just as another thrumming erupted, and the green brightened. Dust filled the air in cloud puffs. Concerned the ceiling might collapse, Lapis shone her light up; she saw nothing but a large black pipe running the length of it, shuddering in time to the vibration.
She hustled her step and hoped to the non-existent gods that stars’ luck followed Brander’s footsteps, because it never caught her.
They eventually came to a train tunnel lit by dull white tech lights to the left. The shanks carting the boxes stood with a dozen others bearing tech weapons, showing off their bounty with gleeful descriptions of the explosion. Two makeshift rails crossed the tunnel, and barbed wire filled in the space between them and the wall.
Brander slipped around the corner and between the wall and a row of metal rectangular somethings that had a purpose before Dentheria invaded, but now only gathered black gunk. The rest of them followed, after making certain the shanks were involved enough in their loot to ignore happenings outside the illuminated area.
They crept to the back, which had a crumpled rectangle half-blocking the way, hunched down and crowded close, careful not to brush the ick. Thin slits between the edges allowed a tiny view of the boisterous group, so no one had to wait at the front as a lookout.
“Those are Beryl,” Brander mouthed. They all nodded; the tattered pennants hanging from the ceiling, with a blue background and an overlarge emerald, gave it away. “This tunnel is a free runway to Blossom. If they’re trying to bully in and get undershanks and syndicates to pay a toll, they’re going to find out the hard way underbosses dislike their business interrupted.”
Wonderful. How many blockades did they have? Would that prevent them from traveling through Diros’s territory? She blinked tears away, realizing that the group would not reach their original destination, and her thin hope cratered into a bottomless hole.
“The shanks know them,” Jetta said. “They’re laughing and joking together.”
“Just more evidence the Beryl and Diros are working together,” Faelan said. “Danaea wrote about cracked jewels and their court dud, and I can’t see where she was wrong.”
“Court dud? That’s how she viewed Diros?” Lapis asked, shocked. Her experience with the underground in relation to the scheming noble was one of fear.
“Lord Adrastos isn’t the only courtier not enamored with him,” her brother said. “Many of the older families dislike him because they think he’s uncouth. Despite trying for decades, he hasn’t wormed his way into the good graces of upper court, and while he might have the eye of the king, it hasn’t translated into courtly power like he planned. Ruthlessness has barbs, and not everyone wishes to get pricked for minute gain.”
“People in the Grey Streets are scared of him.”
“I’m certain he terrifies a shank or two to prove a point. That’s easy to do when you threaten to take away what’s left of a disappointing life. But gloating over a guttershank isn’t the same as having true influence in court and a sympathetic ruler’s ear. He’s still the cruel and disgusting man he was when Patch knew him, and that earns him scorn rather than accolades.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“Yes. He was always visible at Jiy events, especially ones where he could show off his offspring and perhaps get an influential marriage brokered. He tried that with Damara and me. Mom told him to fuck off. He took exception, she scratched his face. He still had the scars, last I saw.”
Lapis forced her mouth closed. While most rebels had accepted Alaric’s outrageous antics, her mother’s vim astonished those accustomed to her polite façade. “How many other stories like that do you have?”
“Lots. I don’t know most of them, because Uncle Ulfrik and Midir and Varr are silent on them. I do know Lord Adrastos hovered over us like a mother hen the few times we attended a function afterwards. There weren’t many, just weddings, because everyone knew Dad and Krios had a close friendship, and no one expected him at a Jilvaynan court power event.”
“There are intercepting doorways all along this tunnel,” Brander said. “I don’t know where half of them lead. But if the Beryl have this route blocked, some of those might be—”
Screams and shouts and the acrid smell of burning keltaitheerdaal gauntlet assailed them. Lapis stuffed her nose against her lower arm and choked as a shank hefted a flaming ball from them; it rolled in the bare earth before rocking to a halt at the tips of a pair of nice black boots, the flames struggling to remain viable through the dirt now coating the object.
The new arrivals wore typical syndicate undershank untucked shirts and pants, but they carried tech weapons that did not look like the cheap red Dentherion make. They did not wear identifying badges or patches or colors, just grungy brown attire and shiny black boots.
The argument down the tunnel halted as the boot reared back and kicked the gauntlet to the side, orange dust erupting from the spinning object. Lapis edged back, hoping none of the powder reached her.
“Leave that be!” a shank from the Beryl shouted in annoyed anger.
“You threw it away first.” Black boots chuckled, tapping her weapon against her thigh.
Lapis had a bad feeling about the confrontation. She peered through the cracks to the right, trying to count the number of new arrivals, and froze.
Patch. His shadowy figure stood in the back, hooded, his tech mask dangling from his neck, as bored as he could be. Her heart beat a little happy tune of sodden relief before she folded her arms and glared unhappy little daggers in his direction. He frowned, rubbed the back of his neck, and looked at her hiding place. His quirky little smile before glancing away infuriated her joy.
“I will kill him,” she vowed. The rest followed her gaze, and her brother nudged her with his shoulder, reflecting her angry joy.
“You goin’ through?” the shank asked, “It’ll cost yuh.”
“Nah. But I have a message from Double Catch.”
Yeah, this was bad. She had no want to be caught in a battle between the Beryl and the Ram Syndicates. Why was Patch helping them? He would have mentioned something, if he accepted their stake.
The shanks working for Diros hustled behind the syndicate men, eager to leave the confrontation behind. Lapis wanted to follow; she did not think things would turn out well for the pissy men facing a woman high enough in a syndicate to issue messages from her underboss.
“This has been a free route forever,” the woman continued. “You annoyed Double Catch when you sidetracked our last courier, so he’s issuing a complaint. You can take it to Targ, can’t you?”
“Nope,” the shank said. “He’s in the Pit, and I ain’t goin’ there.”
“Is he now?” she asked. Lapis glanced at her brother; his surprise concerned her. Patch watched the proceedings with a glower, but by his shifting stance, she knew the news bothered him, too. Why had no one heard that the Beryl terrboss had died?
“Natural, too,” he continued. “Heart gave out, after havin’ one of them real greasy meals. Klow’s in charge.”
Lapis’s joy in seeing Patch plummeted to its death. Did that explain the hunters after her?
“Klow, eh?” Boots snorted. “Quite the change.”
The Beryl and shanks smirked.
“Doesn’t matter. Double Catch as a message for Klow, then. Pick up, move. Now. And he’ll still have a syndicate to run.”
“You think Klow’s scared of yer syndicate?” the shank asked, his smirk rubbing Lapis the wrong way.
“He ran away from Shara,” Boots reminded him. “So yes, I think Double Catch scares him, too. You’d do well to accept the warning and move.”
Lapis expected the attack, and so did the Beryl; two shanks holding square objects bounded in front of Boots and planted them on the ground; a tech shield rose, deflecting the red-tinged shots that came from the Beryl blockade.
Beams tore through the rectangles, and her group ducked, covering their heads with their arms as small bits of debris pelted them. The metal to their rear screeched; Patch held the crumpled mass as they scurried under his straining arms and into the dark tunnel proper.
Boots jerked her chin at Patch. “We’ll get the pay to Sewri,” she said.
“Good. Make sure you see a Minq doctor before you head back to Double Catch.”
“It’ll take more than a yellow mist to take me down,” she said before turning her attention to the enemy.
Jetta streaked past them, grabbed the gauntlet, and ran back to them, firm-lipped, pleased. The animated shanks hated the theft, but with the Ram in the way, they could do nothing about it.
Patch grabbed her hand, which startled her. People other than rebels watched! But he took off and she spent her energy keeping his step, rather than worrying about his uncharacteristic behavior.
Faelan sat in the chair facing the window of the primary parlor, chin in hand, staring at the tree branches wavering in the icy night breeze. Jetta used the arm as a seat, one hand loosely clasping his, the other held by Slaine, the Blue Council’s personal doctor, who checked the bandages. The gauntlet’s orange powder had burned her fingers, and the caustic injury required a tech healing. Lapis had not seen Slaine since her battle with Perben, but she was a quick call into the basement away.
She needed to pay more attention to the remodeling happening in the House. She had not realized a functioning doctor’s office with surgery was in the works. Jarosa’s influence, no doubt.
She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and hunched down. The warm room’s cozy environment held an underlying chill of fury, her brother’s directed at Patch, her partner’s directed at the rest of them.
Both intimidated, when furious.
Patch’s annoyance bubbled on high, when she refused to return to the mansion without stopping by Lord Adrastos’s place so his aunt could speak her mind at him. Lady Thais gave the most polite infuriated scolding Lapis had ever witnessed, and she had received her share from her exasperated parents. His stony, mute acceptance said much about his love for his aunt.
She expected him to snarl at her on the way to the House, but he remained silent, and even sat with her on the long couch. Whatever he saw in her expression, kept him quiet and close. She was not in the mood to navigate upset Patch and fight her own fury at his sneaking out to deal death to his family, so his reluctance served them both well.
“I’ve never seen cradle crystals before,” Jhor said, adjusting a tech monocle as he stared at the stone between his fingers. Sanna draped herself over his shoulder and regarded the object at nose tip, a low, disquieting hum drifting from her.
“We called these noom kisc,” Path said, holding up one of the purple crystals. “The mine owners did not use them much because it was expensive to import them. They could only afford raw noon kisc, so had to crush them at the mines. They wanted Gedaavik to modify the big khentauree to crush them into powder without special equipment. Cuddle Bear crushed them.”
“Did they pad the aquatheerdaal with the powder?” Faelan asked, drawing his attention from the window.
“Yes. They made batteries. The batteries powered small things, because they could only get small crystals, which made small powder.”
“Gedaavik was interested in the reaction,” Ghost stretched his torso upward and puffed out his chest. “He thought to power khentauree with it. He did much research. We still run, based on that research.”
Jhor nodded and looked up. “He initially used noom kisc but transitioned to a mineral the Taangins called eredaalic, what we refer to as crystal grass. I’m sure you’re familiar with it if you’ve been to a rock shop. They’re the tall, needle-like green crystals poking out of a matrix. They’re found everywhere in western Theyndora, which is why he used them. While not as potent as cradle crystals, their ubiquity far outweighs the lack of power.”
“How much does Cuddle Bear know about cradle crystals?” Faelan asked.
“I do not know,” Path said. “But we should ask.”
“We have moved him to the workstation,” Ghost said. “If you want to speak to him, you will not have to visit the dark place of burning.”
Lapis shuddered; they burned people there. She never wanted to return to that part of the Ambercaast mines.
“Well, I know the two who I’ll send to ask.” Faelan regarded her and Patch; her partner stiffened, and she narrowed her eyes. Why did that sound like a punishment?
“He will like to speak with you,” Sanna said. “He was dark-sky lonely, a bad thing for Cuddle Bear. He is very talkative and sheepy.”
“Sheepy?” Lapis asked.
“Cuddly,” Jhor supplied.
“What do you know about the cradle crystal mines?” Faelan asked.
“They were secret places,” Sanna said. “Gedaavik wished to sneak in, because crystal mine owners were not so enchanted with his khentauree as other mine owners. They thought only of theft when pondering the unknown.”
“He took me and Duxe and Owlette to the Chirping Cricket Mine,” Chiddle said, his voice fuzzing in a sad lilt. He had sat quietly next to Brander and Caitria, hands folded over his tummy, watching his fellows study the crystals, and Lapis had thought him uninterested. Perhaps terrible memories kept him pensive. “Many men with weapons guarded the entrances. They had special suits for the miners, very tight, so they could not hide crystals in their clothes, and the miners walked through equipment to make certain they had not swallowed any. Gedaavik said we must dig for our own crystals. We infiltrated the khentauree and dug where they said to dig, but our crystals were small. They would not power things, like the batteries the mine owners built. We found enough for his research, and we returned to Ambercaast. He worried the mine owners would discover we were not their khentauree and harm us. They had better records than the mine owners around Ambercaast, and would know we did not belong.”
Faelan nodded. “What you can remember will help us, I believe.” He righted himself, squeezed Jetta’s fingers, and released them. “I’ve a few more things to check, but after that, Lanth, I’m sending you and Patch to Abastion.”
Lapis blinked, and Patch frowned. “If this is to get me away from—”
He held up his hand. “No. You’ll have a team, and you’ll investigate depleted aquatheerdaal and the cradle crystal mines, searching for Caardinva. Rebels followed the skyshroud until it crossed into Abastion, likely chasing Caardinva. We know they have an interest in aquatheerdaal mines, we know they have Gedaavik’s research. They may be searching for the cradle crystals to replicate what he did, if they don’t realize he found another source.”
“Then I need to go,” Caitria said. “I have contacts that will get us around without problems.”
“I don’t have a lot of trusted people to pull from,” Faelan admitted. “I’ll probably send the group who went to Ambercaast. You have experience others don’t.”
“I would like to go,” Chiddle said, his voice fuzzing. “You should have a khentauree, to meet other khentauree.”
“Thank you. We welcome your aid,” he said.
Lapis’s tummy twittered. She and Patch had traversed Jilvayna north, south, east, west, but she had never stepped outside its boundaries. All Theyndora had a common link, with Taangis and now Dentherion empire rule, but that did not mean other countries would greet foreign rebels warmly.
Patch slipped his arm around her shoulders and kissed the side of her head. Did she appear that nervous? Caitria winked, flush with cheerfulness, and she sighed. Another unexpected adventure, courtesy of her brother.
