Page 118 of Keldori By Daybreak

“No,” Iseult admitted. “It’s been so long since she left Tulyr, she doesn’t even know I exist.”

The heavy doors at the end of the entrance hall opened again and an old woman strode out, chased by the woman who had greeted us. This new woman’s white braid wrapped around her head like a crown, and small orbs of silver light floated on the air around her. Green silk robes embroidered with silver embellishments caught the skal-light, their pattern reminding me of the veins of opal in the Great Willow.

The woman carried herself with grace and strength but her tanned face betrayed her age. Galahad was etched in every wrinkle and the shape of her nose, though hers had a slightly more gentle curve to it.

“The city is under siege, and the library is closed,” the woman thundered, “so why is Taj telling me someone claiming to be my niece is here to see me?”

Iseult lowered herself to her real knee in a bow. “Lady Lysanor—”

“Get up,” Lysanor snapped. “Who are you really, and why are you here?”

Iseult remained on her knee with her head bowed so that her white hair obscured her face, but Orla stepped forward and offered her hand.

“We’re with the Riftguards, and we are seeking information that will help us reseal the Frozen God.” Orla kept her hand extended even when Lysanor ignored it.

“If Galahad sent you, you can tell that arrogant toe fungus—”

“Galahad’s dead,” I cut in.

Lysanor’s eyes widened, but she maintained her composure with her hands tucked into her bell-like robe sleeves. “I suppose he would be. The man would’ve been over seventy by now. And who are you, then? A Quillguard or Eldguard?”

“A Saergrim.”

She cocked her head, and her lip curled in either cold interest or disdain—I couldn’t tell which.

“Our citadel is under siege because of you.” A green blast overhead punctuated the words. Emerald light spilled across the polished floor, and debris from the Great Willow rained on the glass ceiling overhead. Lysanor remained unflinching at the center of her floating lights. “I admit, you aren’t quite how I imagined the Frozen God.”

“Because I’m not the Frozen God.”

“I promise you, Lady Lysanor,” Iseult interjected, still on her knee, “she is not a threat. Her skills are woefully underdeveloped. You have nothing to fear from her.”

“Didn’t I tell you to get up?” Lysanor turned her curled lip towards Iseult. “The library is closed until the threat outside passes, which I’m to understand isn’t going to happen until your friend here gets handed off to the mountain army. So no, I’m sorry. I can’t help. Get out of my library before I alert the authorities myself.”

Lysanor’s robes swirled around her ankles as she whipped around to exit back the way she came. Taj stepped forward, presumably to see us out, but Iseult climbed to her feet to shout after her aunt.

“We’re trying to help! The Rift is open. We want to close it!”

Lysanor kept her back to us but stopped to deliver a cold laugh at the windowed ceiling.

“I left Tulyr fifty years ago because I saw what happened firsthand when Magicians meddle with the Rift.”

“Balin was wrong to try to free the Frozen God,” Iseult agreed, “but my grandfather fought to defend Tulyr—”

“People died that night because of your grandfather.” Lysanor turned back around. “Tulyr fell anyway. My cousins, both Galahad and Balin, were failures who meddled with forces outside their own scope. We all suffered for it.”

She hitched up the hem of her robe to show off the valleys of scarred-over flesh that ran from her ankle and up her thigh before disappearing behind fabric.

“We’ve all suffered.” Iseult mirrored Lysanor and pulled at her cloak to reveal her skal-replaced leg and the halo of light it cast across the polished floor. “And Galahad died a hero.”

Lysanor exhaled heavily through her nose, glaring at Iseult’s faux leg.

“You didn’t say,” she sang, “how did he die?”

“He died protecting the Rift,” Iseult growled, dropping her cloak back over her leg. “And I won’t let that sacrifice be for nothing.”

Lysanor tutted.

“It sounds like it already has. The Rift is open. If you close it, some other Magician is going to come along eventually and sow havoc and heartbreak to open it once more.”