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In silent supplication, I collected my thoughts and focused on my true intent. I hadn’t come up there to reflect on my own failures, but to entreat on behalf of those I loved. Silently, I begged for the goddex to extend their shield and hold it close to Cian. He had been a mess ever since Nevahn left, taking his frustrations out on soldiers in the training yard until he was too exhausted to move. I did what I could, but the only comfort I could offer was my own body, and even that didn’t relieve his unease for long. There was a certain anxiety in the air, and I feared he would do something foolish.
For Nevahn, I asked the goddex to lend their strength and confidence. He had strengthened his body in recent months, and hardened his spirit, but he sometimes lacked certainty when we weren’t with him. The soldiers needed to see the strength I saw in him. I prayed that they would, that his voice would be good and strong, his sword sharp, and his aim true.
I closed the prayer with a bow, touching my forehead to the ground and rising. The sun had crept over the horizon. At the bottom of the hill, the camp was waking, Skaags and Nightmares scurrying about to carry out their daily duties.
Footsteps behind me had me turning my head, but I relaxed when I recognized the weight and cadence of Cian’s walk.
“I thought I’d find you up here,” he said.
I pulled my tunic closed and started tightening the ties. “I was praying.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“It’s all right. I was finished.” I gestured to the woven rug I’d spread out next to me. “I was just about the cast the bones if you wanted to stay. Unless there was something you needed?”
He shook his head and dropped to the ground on the other side of the rug. “No. I just didn’t want to be alone today.”
I reached across the space between us, putting a hand on his knee. “He’s going to be all right, Cian. Have a little faith.”
He sighed. “I hope your bones agree with you.”
“Let us see what they have to say.”
I brought the leather pouch into my lap, shifting the contents before pulling open the drawstring. There I let them rest a moment while I drew in another breath. With my intention at the forefront of my mind, I thrust my hand into the bag without looking, grabbing pieces at random, and cast them out onto the mat.
The casting of bones was an ancient and well-respected method of divination, but there was no definitive guide on how to do it, or exactly what should be in a bag of bones. Even calling them bones was a misnomer, for the bag contained far more than bones. It held feathers, coins, precious stones, and random trinkets I found. Anything that called to me was inscribed with arhadaand went into the bag. I had been building my collection of casting stones for well over a century.
Tiny jawbones fell alongside sharpened talons, stones, and small bundles of sticks woven together. I frowned at the pieces that had come out. Some of them I hadn’t seen in fifty years. Not since we set out for Srall to demand an end to the tithe.
I lifted my eyes from the mat to glance up at Cian. He wasn’t skilled in divination. I could tell him whatever I liked, tell him the bones said all would be well, and to expect an easy victory. He would never know better. Perhaps that’s what he thought he needed to hear, but it wasn’t what the bones said.
He frowned and gestured to one of the pieces that had fallen near him. “What is that?”
“Fulgurite,” I said and lifted it. “Fossilized lightning. When it strikes some surfaces, it crystalizes in a chemical process that preserves its shape. It is considered an incredibly powerful fire symbol.”
He finally looked up at me. “Is that bad?”
I put the fulgurite down and eyed the cracked ruby that had fallen near it, another fire symbol. The dragon’s claw had fallen, too.
“It’s not good,” I said. “Unsurprisingly, the events at Lach Ban-Lenon will decide much of the future. We’ve entrusted that to Nevahn, but the divination is…unclear.”
I ran my fingers over the fulgurite, wondering if it might represent Nevahn. Hisrohhad looked like lightning, which should have been impossible. Lightning was in the same school of magic as conjuring flame and controlling dragon fire, the power of Iridyn himself. Of course, Iridyn wasn’t the only mage capable of manipulating fire. Even he hadn’t mastered lightning. The last Storm Weaver had perished hundreds of years ago, the ability lost to time.
A great storm must be weathered… What had Ren meant when he said that?
With a sigh, I began collecting the pieces and putting them back in the bag. “Do you know the story of Prince Arun?”
“Iridyn’s brother?” Cian rubbed his chin. “The last Storm Weaver?”
“How did he die?”
Cian shrugged. “No one knows for certain. According to the histories that survived, his own dragon attacked him, but some of the writers seemed to suggest Iridyn had a hand in Arun’s death. Most of them didn’t have much to say on the subject at all except that he was the last of the Storm Weavers and that he died without an heir. Iridyn tried for decades to master the power of lightning and failed. Why? Did the bones say something about him?”
I shook my head. “No. I was just thinking. Do you suppose it’s possible he did have an heir? Perhaps a hidden one?”
He huffed. “I seriously doubt it. If he did, Iridyn would have somehow bred them into his line by now. Lightning has always been the one power beyond his reach, no matter how powerful he got.” He crossed his arms. “Why the sudden interest in that particular offshoot?”
“No reason,” I said with a shrug. “Just reflecting on the choices I have made that my family will disapprove of. By now, even the youngest of my siblings will have completed their reproduction contracts and entered their trades while I am still here, playing at building bridges and fighting other people’s wars.”
