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Jael moved past him and entered the main chamber. Too much light flooded into the corridor from the chamber beyond. The buzz of over-stimulated magic assaulted his senses. He eased deeper into the chamber, the hair on his body lifting as if raised by the siren call of magic. Almost all the runestones had blinked out. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of new Bifrost lines zig-zagged across the cavern; one especially large one even split the floor and divided the room in half. Jael approached it with caution, eyes widening when he realized the crack was at least two-hands-breadth wide.
“Rock and bone.” Math whistled behind him. “What would do this?”
Jael shook his head, wordless. His hands trembled as he kneeled and leaned to peer into the chasm in the floor. The Bifrost hissed and roiled, casting tiny sparks into the air. He could feel it seething—so angry, and perhaps afraid. He stared into the magic and wondered if he were in danger of losing himself to the intensity.
But there, deep down in the very heart of the line, he sensed something foreign. It teased the edge of his senses, like a shadow toying with his peripheral vision.
Yes, that was it. A shadow. A thin ribbon of shadow coiling through the Bifrost.
“Do you see that?” he whispered. “The thing in the Bifrost?”
Math’s breath heated his neck as the goblin lad leaned over him. “What is it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Do you think it’s causing the earthquakes and activity?”
Jael glanced over his shoulder, hating that his soul must be etched onto his alarmed features. This...whatever this was...this scared him.
“Leave me your pack,” he rasped. “I want you to return to Imenborg and get more runestones. We need all the runestones. And tell the other workers that we will be working rotating shifts. I want someone here at all times reinforcing the runestones. No, I want two here until we get a handle on this.”
Math straightened slowly. “You want me to leave you here alone, though?”
He exhaled slow and deep before giving the lad a curt nod. “I will be fine until you return. Just don’t dawdle.” He let a ghost of a smile touch his mouth. “Leave your book here.”
Math let his pack slump from his shoulder and hit the ground with a noisy thud. “I’ll go as fast as I can.” He caught up one runestone to light his way and jogged from the chamber.
Jael turned his attention back to the Bifrost and reached for his knife and the runestone at the top of his pack.
He had his work cut out for him today.
Chapter 13
The staff at Imenborg turned a large meeting chamber into a playroom for the children. Anrid had quickly surmised they would need something to do with them while they arranged for their long-term care. Letting them torment the cook in the kitchens wouldn’t do. And she wasn’t about to sit in a tiny bedroom with three dozen bored goblin children, either.
So, a playroom it had to be.
“This isn’t working,” Trap muttered out the corner of her taut mouth. She stood stock still, but her posture reminded Anrid of a predator waiting for its prey to step into a trap. “Prince Kora said he asked for supplies to be delivered, but it will take a couple days.”
Anrid held an ice-cold runestone wrapped in a towel against her sore shoulder. When Trap had seen the bruising Anrid suffered during the earthquake, she traced a symbol on the stone and gave it to Anrid to hold against her shoulder. It was even more effective than a handful of snow. Anrid’s braid, still damp from her bath, had left a wet streak on the back of her dress. She straightened her posture to mirror the goblin woman’s determination.
“Have they discussed what they plan to do with the children long term?”
“Not yet. Three dozen placements will take time to sort out.”
Crag streaked by, bellowing like a bull on a rampage, with his monkey clinging to his hair and three little ones pounding at his heels. It was good the maids had emptied the chamber of anything that might be broken or used as an instrument of bludgeoning. But finding something for the children to do...that was proving more challenging. They didn’t have any toys in the stone fortress.
This place was not intended for children.
The chamber reverberated with shouts and squeals of laughter as goblins tore around in circles playing a game that Anrid could only describe as Pinch and Run.
It wasn’t a very nice game, no matter how one tried to spin it.
“I don’t know what to do with them.” Anrid kneaded her lower back with one fist. When she had awoken in the lukewarm water of her bath, she’d discovered a dark brown dress waiting for her. It hung on her frame, intended for a larger goblin woman, but it was soft and clean. She had nothing else to wear, anyway, until her own clothes were cleaned. They’d even found her an apron to tie about her waist. “There are so many of them, all different ages...any activity that will engage a third of them excludes the rest.”
Trap snorted. “Anything but this.” She swept a hand to indicate the chaotic spectacle unfolding around them.
“Unfortunately, correct. I know nothing about training goblin children.”
