“No.”
Jarius sighed before his hand ceased its movement.
“Tell me of Elyria,” the old man demanded.
“The Crystal Mines are destroyed.” I winced with that admission. Jarius had not seen that in any of his visions, the Last Keeper’s rebels somehow moving without either of our knowledge. The loss of the mines debilitated Elyria both economically and militarily, and recovery would be difficult. I’d sent a small retinue of Mages from the Academy to recover whatever, and whoever, remained, but the mine shaft was so well collapsed that there was little hope of any rescue of note. The crystals they returned with were barely enough to support the few Mages we had in the Academy who were unBonded.
It was a clusterfuck.
Jarius grunted in response.
“The Borderlands are in turmoil after the fall of Isrun. Hestin and Lishahl are holding onto our alliance by a thread—I’ve not heard from Lord d’Leocopus in weeks. I’ve long suspected that various territories in the Northern Alliance are no longer loyal. Hestin’s harboring of rebels was unseen yet not unpredicted.” I scratched the stubble on my jaw in thought. “The south is even quieter than usual. My intelligence networks seem to think thatthere are two rebel forces now; one in the north somewhere and another in the south.”
“A war on both sides,” Jarius said.
I nodded my head once.
“It appears it’s devolving that way, yes,” I admitted. The weight on my chest pressed harder.
“And your wife?”
I hummed quietly. “I tasted her blood in an effort to see if our hypothesis was correct”—I drummed my fingers absently on the table—“but there was nothing in her blood. No truths, no lies, no memories. It was oddly devoid of everything.”
We were silent for a moment, both of us lost in thought.
“I don’t envy your position, Truthsayer,” Jarius said wryly.
I hummed noncommittally.
“I’m running out of time, Jarius. With more questions than answers at this point.”
Jarius tapped his fingers against the table in a steady beat as he sucked his teeth, mulling over my words.
“At best guess you have six months, probably less, before Kaos and Solace are at your doorstep. My advice, Truthsayer? Shore up your defenses. Prepare the city for war. Gather as many into your army as you can. It’s been made abundantly clear that Solace will be moving against the Borderlands soon, if she hasn’t already. Use that chaos to harbor refugees, but insist they join your Academy in order to receive food and lodging. Bond as many of them as you can. It’s the only way I can see even a glimmer of hope for Elyria.”
I pushed the heels of my palms into my eyes, rubbing hard at the ache in them. Jarius admitted months ago—at the death of the Last Matriarch—that Solace’s visions were tainted with her own desires, which rendered the visions impure. Jarius was gifted a true, undiluted vision from Fate upon the Matriarch’s death—much of what he’d seen was contrary to the visions he’dbeen fed for years, and it sent us scrambling trying to plug holes in our plots that were suddenly revealed.
He’d apologized for his inadvertent misdirection, but apologies didn’t resolve the issues I now faced.
Jarius’ voice interrupted my musings for a final time. “And, above all else, Alois, you must determine if your wife really is who, and what, you think.”
Chapter 26
Solace
The glass of wine I clutched tightly in my grasp shattered against the wall of the semi-permanent structure I had theblessingof calling mine for the foreseeable future. The deep-plum alcohol stained the maps tacked haphazardly to the walls, soaking the parchment to the point of obscurity.
They were useless now, and not just from the wine that saturated the pages.
Therewasno southern alliance as the map indicated.
No territories to call upon. No Mages and Vessels to recruit.
Just two cities—Alivar and Iluul, neither of which had any interest in joining the ragtag bunch of misfits that my last descendant’s generals left here. Yes, those who stayed were loyal sycophants. But they were loyal to a crazed extent—almost unusable in their desire to prostrate and defer.
It was annoying.
I needed pliable idiots, not religious fanatics.
