fixed on the ground as she picked out a path on the rocky trail. She was smiling.
“Damn you to the outer darkness, Gaven.” Haldren quivered with fury. Darraun was nervous that he might end up taking the brunt of the sorcerer’s anger again. After all, he was the one who had let go of Gaven’s hand.
They had appeared on the shores of a lake, large enough that the opposite shore was nearly invisible. Darraun’s hunch was Lake Brey, somewhere near the uneasy border between Breland and Thrane. The wind blowing off the water was cold, and Darraun pulled his cloak around him.
“We’re going back,” Haldren announced. “Join hands.”
Darraun cast his eyes around, looking for a distraction, anything to buy Gaven more time. Nothing caught his attention. “Wait a moment, Haldren,” he said.
“Join hands now.” Haldren was not going to wait. Cart had already seized one of Haldren’s hands and held the other out to Darraun.
“I’m just thinking-”
“Stop thinking and join hands. If he harms her because you’re too busy thinking, I will reduce you to dust and scatter your remains across the Ten Seas.”
Darraun took Cart’s hand, and Haldren intoned his spell. Darraun considered yanking his hand away at the last second as Gaven had done. A world of possibilities began to form in his mind, then Haldren finished the spell and they were back in Paluur Draal, staring up at the sixteen goblin gods.
No sign of Gaven or Senya.
“Senya!” Haldren yelled. His voice echoed around the cave, but that was the only reply.
Cart moved immediately to the cave entrance and looked outside, while Darraun made a show of examining the floor.
“I was just thinking, Haldren,” he said, scanning the ground as if looking for tracks, “what if they were still caught in the magic of your spell and got shunted through space, just not to the same place we were?”
Haldren snorted. “I thought I told you to stop thinking. And you know the spell doesn’t work like that.”
“On the contrary, I’ve seen teleportation spells go horribly awry.”
Haldren moved to stand beside Cart, turning his back on Darraun and looking out at the ruins nearby. “It would have been one thing for the spell to carry us to the wrong location, but quite another for it to transport us correctly while taking them elsewhere.”
Darraun stood behind the others. He couldn’t see much past the corpse of the mountain troll they had slain earlier.
“Senya!” Haldren shouted again.
Darraun grabbed his shoulder. “Don’t! You’ll draw every troll and wyvern in the city down on our heads.”
“I don’t care!” Haldren whirled around as he shouted, and emphasized his last word by shoving Darraun backward, simultaneously blasting a gout of fire from his hand.
Darraun fell to the ground and clutched his arms to his body. His shirt and cloak smoldered but didn’t ignite, and his leather cuirass protected his chest, but his face and eyes stung with the heat. Haldren turned away and started out into the city. Darraun sat up and glared after him.
“Are you hurt?” Cart extended a hand to help him stand, and his voice was full of concern.
Darraun took his hand and pulled himself to his feet. “Not badly, no.” He scowled. But I’ll make him pay for that, he thought. When this is all over.
“Let’s go, then.” Cart hastened after Haldren, his sense of duty to the Lord General replacing his concern for Darraun.
Darraun lagged behind, watching his feet as he walked. He didn’t want to be the one to spot Gaven or Senya, and if Haldren did find them, Darraun wanted to be as far away as possible.
Something on the ground caught his eye, and he stopped. There was a groove, either cut into the stone or marking the space between two ancient cobblestones. Drying mud covered the ground around it-mud that had been smeared across the stone. He crouched and traced his finger along the groove. It was the shape of Kraken Bay-he’d found the map they were looking for.
“Haldren!” he called. “You need to see this!”
Haldren wheeled around and walked back to within a few yards of Darraun. “Did you find their tracks? Are we on their trail?”
Darraun brushed mud away from the region northwest of Kraken Bay. “Not them,” he said. Haldren threw up his hands and started to turn away. Darraun pointed to a strange symbol carved into the stone, where he had cleared the dust away. “But I think I’ve found the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor.”
As the western sky grew red, the valley opened up, and a stream poured out from under the mountains. Gazing down the valley, Gaven saw other mountain streams joining its flow, and it widened into a river far ahead.
Senya spotted a grassy patch near the stream bank and threw herself down. “This river should lead us all the way to Korranberg,” she said, starting to remove her boots.
“Is that where you’re heading?” Gaven asked.
“There’s a lightning rail station there. We could get from there to pretty much anywhere west of the Mournland.” Senya got both her boots off and started massaging her feet.
“The Mournland,” Gaven echoed.
Words from the Prophecy echoed in his mind: Desolation spreads over that land like a wildfire. Haldren and Vaskar had taken those words to refer to the Mournland. He saw it, briefly, in his mind-a barren plain, unbroken by any sign of life or civilization, the earth itself reduced to ash. Then he saw his hands half buried in the scorched soil, tasted the acrid air. He shook his head, trying to dispel that image. Senya was watching him curiously, and he forced himself to look at her. She is here now, he reminded himself. The rest…
“So that’s what they call Cyre now?” he said. His mouth was dry, and the words scratched his throat.
“It was a beautiful land, before,” Senya said. “Did you ever go there?”
“Many times.” Faces sprang to Gaven’s mind, people he hadn’t seen in many years. How many of them were dead?
“Cart and I went there once after the Mourning. Just a short way in.” She shuddered. “Far enough. I don’t ever want to go back.”
“Haldren’s going there-or Vaskar, perhaps. Or both of them.”
“Looking for the Sky Caves. Haldren told me.”
“Thunder!” Gaven sighed. “I’m glad to be done with Haldren and his schemes.” Even as he said it, though, it rang false. Looking for the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor in the Mournland sounded like quite an adventure-and to explore them would be the chance of a lifetime. The knowledge they must hold…
He sat down on the stream bank, a few paces downstream from where Senya had started dipping her feet into the water. The stream showed him the Ring of Siberys overhead.
“Shall we stop here for the night?” Senya asked.
Gaven looked up at the sky. The red in the west had faded to a narrow band above the mountains, while the Ring of Siberys shimmered gold above him. It wasn’t as bright as it had been the night before in Shae Mordai, but it still shed enough light that they could make their way farther down the valley if they wanted to. Realizing that the previous night they’d been in Aerenal made him feel exhausted.
“Yes, it seems quiet enough,” he said. “And open. Less chance for anything to sneak up under cover.”
Senya rummaged through her pack and tossed Gaven some dried meat. “I have to say, I’ll miss Darraun’s cooking.”
Gaven scowled, thinking of the fragments of conversation he’d had with Darraun. “Haldren said he was a more recent acquaintance. How long have you known him?”
“Darraun? Only a few weeks. Cart and I recruited him to help us break into Dreadhold.”
“How did you find him?”
Senya shrugged. “We asked around. Haldren still has a lot of friends in Aundair. In the army mostly. I think Darraun has friends in intelligence.”
“Intelligence? The Royal Eyes?”
