“And those timelines?” Kaelren asks.
“They fail.”
The chamber grows very still.
“I remember them all,” Thalia says.
I stare at her. “How many?”
“Thirty-six.”
The numbers settle into place. Seventeen. Plus thirty-six.
Fifty-three.
Kaelren exhales slowly. “So while we were resetting…”
“You were protected,” Thalia says. Her voice softens slightly, “We were not.”
No one speaks for a moment. I don't even know how to process what I've heard. When I was scattered across the Void I was only privy to the seventeen timelines and potential futures that might have been. That alone was overwhelming enough. To know Thalia had to actually experience fifty-three…
Torvel clears his throat and shuffles his papers.
“Well,” he says quickly, “regardless of the accounting, the strategic data remains useful.”
Peeble leans toward me. “He must be delightful at parties,” they whisper.
I bat them away as Thalia continues the introductions.
“Next to Torvel is Irielle.”
The woman beside him has not moved since we entered. Her hands rest flat on the table. Her eyes remain closed. Bright green Root marks threaded with silver move slowly beneath her skin.
The table responds to the movement of those marks, faint pulses traveling through the wood.
“She is the Verdance Rootkeeper,” Thalia says. “She monitors the city’s connection to the Rootline.”
“Something is wrong with the Verdance right now,” Irielle says without opening her eyes. Her voice is calm and precise.
“It has been wrong for six days. The boundary is weakening faster than the previous cycle.”
The room quiets.
“How much faster?” Thalia asks.
Irielle opens her eyes, and they are the most beautiful silver. “We had nine days before the last Bloomfall,” she says. “Now we have six. Possibly five.”
“That is three days less than expected,” Rhyven says.
“I am aware of the arithmetic, Captain.”
Thalia absorbs the information without visible reaction.
Her hands flatten against the table.
“Then we adjust. Torvel. Status of the archive analysis.”
Torvel pushes aside a tower of books and spreads several diagrams across the table.
