“It doesn’t matter. He was in his place of power. Stripped of his stone, he could be laid low for a time, yes. But no simple dream could destroy him completely nor could that defeat alone return his citadel to the realm of dreams. I fear that it was his choice to flee once the stone bonded to your flesh. Even I don’t understand how you’ve bonded with it so easily and what it will do to the stone if it is removed by force. Weakened, confused, and knowing that we had found him, I believe Shan Lian Doresh chose to flee, to remove his people and his citadel to a place we could not follow. I am certain he will return when he is ready. He will find a new home for his citadel in this world and reconnect with those agents he has scattered throughout your kingdoms. And when he is ready, he will return for his stone.”
“Well, that’s something to look forward to,” Thorn said.
“There’s still more,” Tira said. “Even I know little of the Draconic Prophecy, but I know both you and Sarmondelaryx are a part of it and that this is why the Chamber has used you in this way. And I am certain that your finding the stone was another part of their plans for you.”
“It’s never easy, is it?”
“No,” Tira said. “And for you, it never will be.”
Then she was standing at the gate of the Silver Tree. She had a portable hole, filled with all the supplies she’d need to cross the wasteland. Every one of the ghaele had offered to carry her back to her homeland, even the frosty Lord Syraen, but she wanted to walk.
She’d found that the ease with which she’d tapped into the Quiet Stone had been one more aspect of walking in dreams. She knew what powers lay within the stones she carried, but she still had a long way to go to master them. She knew what she was. She knew what she could be, if she chose. Could she return to her work for the Citadel? Or was there a greater battle in her future, one that could, ultimately, do more for Breland than her work as a spy?
“I need time alone,” she said to Drix at last. “I’ve got much to think about before I reach Breland.”
“What will you do when you get there?” Drix said.
Thorn thought about the life of Nyrielle Tam, about the mother who abandoned her, the father who died in the war, the brother who’d told her stories when she couldn’t sleep. She remembered her conversation with Drego Sarhain just before she cut his throat and the dream she’d had when she kissed Essyn Cadrel.
“I need to find my family,” she told Drix. “And then I think I’ll go looking for a demon.”
