Page 108 of Memory of Ashes

They waited. Amelia studied the runes again, though she already knew every mark.

“These are not instructions,” Eleandor said. “They are markers, carved where the veil was naturally weak. But something is now anchoring this fracture, preventing it from mending.”

“They don’t tell you how to close the rift?” she asked.

He paused and pressed his palm against the faded runes. His gaze went distant, fixed on something far beyond their sight. Then his attention settled on her. “Your father found these runes years ago. The mountain remembers him.”

“No.”

She retreated a step.

“My father disappeared during an expedition years ago.”

Eleandor remained silent.

And suddenly she knew. Her father hadn’t been lost. She remembered the vague mine report. He’d found what he’d been looking for. He’d found it before she had.

She remembered the body she’d found in this cave, exposed by the shifting rocks of the earthquake. She looked around for it now. The mountain had swallowed it during the quake.

She recalled the gleam of silver it had held in its hand, the dent across its lid. She had dropped her father’s compass as a child. His initials had been etched inside.

He’d died here, alone.

Her knees threatened to give way. All these years she had imagined him lost somewhere beyond the maps, still searching. He’d never been found. But he had been here. She had stood within arm’s reach of him and not recognised her own father.

She felt Casyl’s warm hand on her shoulder, steadying her.

She sank to the ground, pressing both hands against the cave floor. Somewhere beneath the stone, his body lay.

“The rift—” Eleandor began.

“Give her a moment,” Casyl said.

“We don’t have—”

“A moment,” Casyl snarled.

Amelia stared at the stone, cold beneath her palms. All these years, she had nursed her anger at his abandonment while resenting the way his name followed every achievement of her own.

“I spent my whole life trying to step out of his shadow,” she whispered. “And all this time I’ve been following him to his grave.”

She stood, wiping the tears from her face, and fixed her gaze on Eleandor. They didn’t have much time. She nodded at him to continue.

Eleandor continued. “The rift is a wound in the veil between our worlds. The fracture exposed the magic beneath it, which is why you could sense it. Tiryn later used your ability to suppress that magic and force the wound wider.”

“Did Tiryn suspect this?” Casyl asked.

“I suspect he did. He talked about how humans destroying their world had weakened ours. He must have known that for a human to breach our lands, there must have been a crack in the veil.”

“That doesn’t explain how I entered your world,” Amelia said.

“The fracture was only wide enough for one person. Your connection to both worlds allowed you to pass through it.”

“What connection?”

A tremor passed through the mountain as the army drew closer.

“Can you close the rift?” she asked. It was the only question that mattered.