Shadows enveloped them, and Naelin called on two small fire spirits to light the way—but her fire spirits balked at the entrance, their glow only shedding a faint light into the darkness.
It didn’t matter, though, because ahead a light bobbed as Llor came trotting back to them, carrying a torch.
“Careful with that,” she admonished as the flame dipped back and forth.
“I can carry it,” Llor said. “I’m careful.”
“He burned himself this morning,” Erian reported.
“Bemorecareful,” Naelin said.
Excitedly, Llor grabbed Ven’s hand and pulled him deeper into the cave. Naelin and Erian followed. She felt a breath of wind in her face, and the cave opened onto a chamber of glittering white—smooth quartz that sparkled from the light of seven torches plus Llor’s. Llor placed his into a holder on the wall.
In the center of the room was a raised black stone pallet, and on it lay moss, curved in the shape of an unusually tall and large woman. Tiny white flowers grew on her body from the moss. Naelin took a step forward. The enormous woman’s eyes were closed with black stones over each one, and her hands were folded on her stomach.
Naelin shivered. There was an oddly familiar feel to this place. She thought of the Queen’s Grove in Aratay. Rock surrounded them, not trees, but there was something about it that felt similar. It had a sense of heavy silence.
“Who is it?” Ven asked.
“The Great Mother of Spirits,” Erian said.
Both Naelin and Ven stared at Erian, then at the mossy body.Thiswas the being who had created them all?No wonder the cave feels like a grove, Naelin thought. It was a sacred place...thesacred place.
Naelin instinctively pulled her children closer to her. She reached out with her mind and touched her spirits, but they were distracted: the spirits of the untamed lands surrounded them, pressing closer, squeezing them up against the rock of the cave.
“The villagers want a queen, and Bayn was supposed to find one,” Llor said, piping up from within the circle of her arms. “At least, that’s what they said when Bayn brought us here.”
“They said we have to stay with the Protector,” Erian said, “until a queen comes.”
“And they said Bayn was gone for a hundred years!” Llor threw his hands out wide when he said the word “hundred.”
“Two hundred,” Erian corrected.
“Three hundred!” Llor shouted. “Four hundred!”
“Anyway, it didn’t sound very likely,” Erian said to Naelin and Ven.
Out of the corner of her eye, Naelin saw Ven shift onto the balls of his feet. He looked ready to fight. But who would he fight? Bayn, who had saved Erian and Llor from Queen Jastra’s spirits? Softly, Naelin asked, “Bayn, is it true? Are you from here? Did you come to Renthia to find... me? Or someone like me?”
Bayn trotted over to the bier and sat beside it.
Maybe that was his answer.But I’m not sure what it means.“The people in the village,” Naelin pressed. “Did they send you into Aratay?”
The wolf tilted his head.
“Did you send yourself?” Ven asked.
Bayn looked deliberately into Ven’s eyes and nodded, humanlike, as if he’d understood every word. He then laid his head on the mossy hand and let out a puppylike whimper.
Ven’s voice was flat. Naelin wondered what he was thinking. “You went to find a queen—the villagers said they’d been awaiting your returnwitha queen,” he said. “Like Naelin. But then you were chased back here... and you couldn’t return?”
“Bayn saved us,” Llor said.
“I know, sweetie,” Naelin said.
“Then why does Ven look so mad?”
He was right—Ven had half drawn his sword, though Bayn had not twitched a muscle other than to move his head. In the glow from the torches, the wolf’s eyes flickered yellow.
