avenue, and there were a few people standing on the edge of the road. Whether it was a function of the glass or an effect of the Mourning, they were perfectly preserved. Each spectator was covered in a layer of glass an inch thick, the surface smooth and clear.
There’s nothing magical about the glass itself, Steel told her. And no signs of burns of the flesh, as you’d expect if molten glass fell from the sky. I’m guessing that they suffocated.
“It must have happened within moments,” Thorn said. “Look at their expressions. No fear, not even surprise. It was over before they even knew what was happening.”
Drix dismounted, handing the reins of his hippogriff to the eladrin flight master. “Eerie, isn’t it?”
“You knew about this?”
Drix nodded. “I spent some time wandering after I left the Silver Tree, after it all happened. I just… Ascalin was on the route my father traveled. I’d survived. I hoped I might find him here.”
Thorn looked at the child trapped in glass. “And did you?”
Drix shook his head. “No. Not here. Not in Kethelfeld or Greenbarrow or any of the others. I walked the old path, and I never found him.” His eyes were distant for a moment, lost in the past.
“You just wandered across the Mournland by yourself? How did you survive?”
He smiled faintly, running a finger over his hidden crystal heart. “It’s easy to survive when you can’t die. I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. I’ve had my bones crushed and flesh burnt and far worse than that. It never lasts… bones mend the moment they break, clothes turn to ash but the flesh remains.”
“And you’re not afraid to give that up? To let them take the stone away?” Thorn was honestly curious.
“I want it to end,” he said. “I want to sleep again. I want an end to the pain. And this…” He gestured at the frozen city. “If this is somehow tied to me, if I can restore the land, any price would be worth that.”
“Do you really believe that? Do you think it’s that easy?”
“None of this makes sense,” he said. “Look around you. What could cause this? I know the idea that restoring my heart could somehow heal the land… it’s ridiculous. But this is a mad world, and if it’s possible, I won’t let that chance slip away.”
“You came here for a reason, and you waste time we do not have.” The flight master was one of Lord Syraen’s guards, and he shared his lord’s icy demeanor. “You, maimed one, you know where you need to go?”
Drix nodded. “I know the way to the Orien enclave. It’s not far.”
“I will wait here for a time, to ensure that you have accomplished your task. Then I will depart with my beasts.”
“Then lead the way, Drix,” Thorn said. She saw a rat crouched in an alley, frozen in glass yet still watching. “We may be heading toward a fortress of nightmares, but I’ll be just as happy to leave this place behind.”
They passed a cutpurse, frozen in the moment of his theft. A beggar with his hand held out, eyes pleading behind the glass. Finally they reached the enclave. It was located on the largest plaza in the little town, along with outposts of a few other dragonmarked houses. A gnome stood outside the Sivis message station, hand outstretched.
Something was wrong.
It took her a moment to make sense of it; then she realized. The gnome’s hand wasn’t encased in glass. She saw that there were others around the plaza and shards of glass scattered around the ground.
She paused by a dwarf dressed in the robes of a Kundarak banker. Glass still covered much of his body. His face was frozen behind its translucent mask. But the glass around his waist was cracked and broken away, and fragments were scattered all around him.
“Someone chiseled this away,” she said. “His belt’s been cut… to remove his pouch, I’m guessing. He’s missing a finger too.” The wound was jagged and rough, but there were no bloodstains, and the flesh was still fresh; it seemed that the glass wasn’t the only thing that prevented decomposition. “Looters.”
It made sense. They weren’t far from the Valenar border. And if there was anything truly worth stealing in that place, it would be in the coffers of the dragonmarked. Glancing around the plaza, she could see that a number of doors and windows had been forced open, glass shattered so the salvagers could get into buildings. The Orien house was among them. The unicorn seal of the house was carved on the door, but it had been scarred and cracked when the looters forced their way into the building.
“I suppose we should be grateful,” she said. “I left my glass-smashing tools in my other gloves.”
Drix paused fifteen feet from the entrance, staring. “I suppose,” he said. “But… where’s the sentry?”
“What sentry?”
“I passed through this plaza before. There was a guard at the Orien gate. Trapped in glass like the rest. Now there’s nothing there. Why would someone take his body?”
“I don’t think they did. Not all of it, at least.” Thorn approached the gate cautiously. Large slabs of glass were heaped around the doorway, refuse from the efforts to force the door. She carefully shifted a few pieces aside, revealing the shadow seen through the glass. A leather boot, still trapped in the glass, with a good part of a leg still in it. The body had been snapped with sheer brute force; it was the work of a sledgehammer or maul. She picked up a smaller shard and tossed it to Drix. “Take a look-links of chain mail in the glass. I think our looters were searching for keys or other ways to bypass security. They just shattered the body with a maul and picked out what they needed. As for the missing pieces, perhaps there’s predators we haven’t seen. We should certainly be prepared for anything. Can you sense anything unusual?”
“Unusual? Not really.”
It wasn’t Drix she’d been talking to. I believe you are correct. There are still residual traces of energies on the doorway… an old ward, broken when it was, well, broken. They likely hoped to find a key charm on the guard, and perhaps they did.
“Anything else?” Thorn said.
“Nothing you haven’t already figured out,” Drix said. “You’re very clever.”
Isn’t that sweet? Steel said. I’m sensing active auras within the building. Nothing specific, especially at this distance, but I’d be careful.
“Let me go in first. Stay back until I say it’s safe.” She made her way gingerly across the broken glass and slid Steel’s point inside the doorframe.
There’s no glass inside the building, he reported. The cold-fire lanterns are still burning. There are bodies, perfectly preserved, but I see no signs of life. Minor auras-the lanterns, environmental cooling charms-nothing threatening.
Thorn stepped through the door, setting her back against the wall as soon as she was inside. “Whatever happened to these people, it must have been off-peak hours,” she said. There were only four bodies in the lobby. A clerk lay slumped across the reception desk, a slip of paper still clutched in her hand and a few copper crowns scattered across the desk. A man had fallen to the floor before her, a package under his arm, ready to send by Orien courier. And there was a courier, coming out of the main hallway. All three were dead, though without a mark on them.
She leaned out the door and gestured to Drix. “Come in but stay behind me. I don’t think we’ll find anything alive in here. What are we looking for?”
“The main circle chamber. It shouldn’t be hard to find.”
House Orien bore the mark of passage, and transportation was their trade. The greatest minds of the house had developed many tools to channel the power of their dragonmark, from the saddle that lent speed to a mount to the lightning rail coaches that had become a vital part of the economic infrastructure of Khorvaire. Their most wondrous power was teleportation. Most Orien enclaves contained teleportation circles, and when the proper ritual was performed, goods or people could be transported from one circle to another in the blink of an eye. It was a far more efficient form of travel than the lightning rail or the Lyrandar airships, but the ritual that linked the circles was expensive, and it could be performed by only an Orien heir with a potent dragonmark. Thorn didn’t know how Drix planned to activate the circle without the mark, but it had been his idea, so she assumed he had a plan.
While she’d never been to that enclave, it was a place of business, and teleportation, a service offered. Signs on the walls pointed the way to different parts of the outpost, and it took only a moment to find the path to the teleportation circle.
“I’m the first around every corner,” she whispered to Drix. “You peer around and don’t follow until you see my signal. Do you understand?”
He shrugged. “I suppose. What are you worried about? Everyone’s dead and they wouldn’t have wards on the
