Thiece's answer was short. Two words in her language, then silence..
Vorn looked at me steadily. “She says she doesn't know. But she says whatever you find…” He paused. “You won't be able to leave it.”
She held my gaze one more time. Then she looked away, back at the fire, and the conversation ended as simply as it had begun.
I left her house with a word of thanks, but she never acknowledged it, and I knew she would not speak to me again.
Vorn left me shortly after, and I was uneasy about him knowing as much as he did.
I sat on the rock in the warmth of the valley and thought about
dams and water and the specific quality of magic that had been building in my chest for weeks, pressing outward, finding cracks.
I thought about the column in the dark beneath Iskaeld. About its slow, patient pulse, the way it had synced to something in my chest the moment I got close enough.
About the lid being lifted off the box inside me.
I needed to go back, not because Vorn had talked to me about it, and not because of anything Thiece had said.
Because the thing that had opened in my chest when I stood in that chamber hadn't closed when I left. I was carrying itwithin me, and I needed to understand what it meant before someone else decided for me.
I feared the Verei Kahn more than I feared any creature that might be lurking in the depths of Iskaeld.
I looked south, back the way we'd come.
It was a two-day walk, give or take. The question wasn’t whether I would go; it was whether I could do it without Vorn finding out and whether, when I got there, I could handle whatever would be waiting for me in the dark.
Chapter 29
I didn't sleep.
Not because of discomfort. Vorn's people had given me a sleeping space warmer than anything I'd had since Eirhollow, a low pallet close enough to a steam hole that its warmth reached me without being overwhelming. The valley held its own warmth through the dark, the mist drifting softly and constantly outside the low doorway.
It wasn't discomfort keeping me awake. It was me worrying about all the things I couldn’t change.
I lay on the pallet, looked at the ceiling, and thought about dams. About water finding another way through. About the column in the dark below Iskaeld, pulsing slowly and patiently, moving in rhythm with something in my chest the moment I got close enough, and about whether, when I arrived, I'd be brave enough to walk into the dark alone.
I thought about Nicco. About Baxley, Larana, and the others. I wondered if they were making it south okay. I wondered whether Larana would hate me for leaving her there, unconscious in the snow.
But my thoughts kept returning to Nicco, again and again.
I didn't want them to. I pressed the thought down the same way I pressed everything down, firmly, with the resolve of someone who had been doing this long enough that the action had become automatic. But it came back up the way things did when you were lying in the dark with nothing to do but think.
I got up off the palette and walked out the door. I followed the path down to a hot spring. There was no room to move around in it, but when I dipped my hand into the water, I sighed at how warm it was.
A bath would be amazing, but I didn’t know how deep the spring was or what else might be down there. I looked around and realized I was alone.
I was almost certain of it.Almostwas doing a lot of work lately.
With quick work, I unlaced my boots and pulled off the two layers of stockings. The cold bit at my toes, and I shoved them into the warm water with a hiss of relief. Aches and pains I hadn't known I was carrying melted away in the hot water, and I inched forward until the water reached my knees.
“You may as well go in.”
I screeched, but the low laugh behind me pissed me off more than my cry of alarm. A woman stood behind me. She was wrapped in a thick cloak, yet her legs and feet were bare.
“I’ll use that one.” She pointed to the other side, her voice thick with her accent. “Enjoy.”
“Wh-what?” I looked between her and the place she’d pointed. “Enjoy what?”
