“Your highness,” a guard said as we approached the entrance. They both bowed their heads to Kumi and turned to evaluate us with tense, expectant expressions.
“Were you here when the monsters attacked?” Kumi asked.
“No, Your Highness,” the nearest guard said. “We only just relieved the others’ watch.”
“And did they face much trouble?”
The guard looked uncomfortably at his companion and back to Kumi. “Better for you to see for yourself, Your Highness,” he said as he stepped aside to let us through.
I watched the guards as we walked past. None would meet my gaze. One looked at the floor, and I followed his eyes. Dark stains were visible in the gaps between the flagstones, blood that they hadn’t had time to wash away.
Something about them rubbed me the wrong way.
We emerged from the confines of the gatehouse into the open space of the courtyard. It was every bit as impressive inside as it was outside.
Ice encrusted the walls and shifted slowly as wisps of fog drifted from them. Patterns of frost formed and reformed over a layer of blue-gray stone. The white of the ice created images of storm-tossed oceans, of people swimming with fish in the deep and a dragon cresting the waves with wings spread wide.
“What do you see?” Kumi asked me, clearly proud of the magic.
People emerged from the sea onto land, worked with the water they found there to feed crops and built homes amid the rivers, streams, and lapping tides. It was like watching a hauntingly pale cartoon on the world’s biggest widescreen TV.
“The story of the Qihin people and this city,” I said.
“There’s more,” the princess said as she gestured for me to continue.
For all their wonder, the shifting walls were just the frame for the focus of the courtyard. Statues like those I had seen around the city rose up 20 feet high and towered over us. Each one was clearly a figure of legend, equipped with some marker of who they were and what they stood for. There was a man clutching a net from which an endless tide of fish flowed and became the pedestal on which he stood; a woman in close-fitting armor with a trident raised high with a jeweled circlet on her head; an androgynous figure with the wings of a dragon who carried a set of scales in one hand as coins ran from the other.
We crossed the courtyard and moved in and out of the shadows of these divine beings until we reached the grandest statue of all: a vast, winged lizard with its tail coiled in long, snake-like loops. Surrounded by burning candles, the dragon’s body reared up as if it was about to spring into flight. It bared rows of ice-frosted teeth as its wings swept back in mid-flight. One claw was stretched toward the sun.
“Yono,” Kumi said, bowing her head. “Guardian, guide, we thank you.”
The rest of us bowed our heads respectfully to the impressive figure.
“Is Yono a living spirit?” I asked. “Or a creature from the past?”
“That’s a complicated question,” Kumi said. “Yono is said to have lived among the Qihin in the first generations of the clan. They taught us how to tame the waves both around us and within us, to become as one with the flow of the tides. They left after their great battle with Ordath the Burning Brand, when they had been wounded in defence of the Vigorous Zone and those who lived around it. Some say that the wound was fatal, and the divine Qihin passed from this realm. Others say that they survived but moved on, as we could now protect ourselves and others who were in need. Whichever it was, Yono’s spirit still guards us, providing the courage and the wisdom we need to face a turbulent world.”
The princess took a handful of incense sticks from a pot near the base of the statue, used a burning candle to light them, and placed them in a pot amid Yono’s coiling tail. The smoke was sweet yet earthy and made me feel as if I could take on the world.
I recalled the shrine to Nydarth on the mountain path outside the Radiant Dragon Guild House. It was nothing like this mighty space dedicated to Yono.
“Do you have a temple like this somewhere?” I asked Nydarth silently.
She snorted. “If only.”
Behind Yono’s statue lay the doors carved from large pieces of salt-encrusted driftwood. The individual planks were mismatched in color, texture, and shape. They made something that worked seamlessly together, framed in highly polished bronze.
“This is the inner shrine,” Kumi said as she opened the doors.
I entered a room lined with blue and white tiles. They merged into an artistic mural of waves and gave the impression we were surrounded on all sides by the sea.
Only the ceiling was different. A huge carving of snow-blown icebergs spiked with real icicles hung down and cast a scattered collection of curved and pointed lights that spun over the walls. Mighty statues of the ancient Qihin guarded the walls and items displayed on pedestals. An ancient and much-mended net, a gleaming blue-green orb, and a series of glowing scrolls shimmered when the flames from burning braziers touched them. The far end of the chamber was illuminated by a single beam of sunlight that focused on an empty plinth.
Kumi gasped and ran over to the empty pedestal. She searched frantically on the ground behind it and turned to us.
“The Depthless Dream!” she shouted. “It’s been taken!”
One of the statues shifted suddenly and jumped down from its pedestal. Sunlight gleamed from a body of frozen plates joined together by sinews of water. The ice golem stood 10 feet tall, clutching a massive icicle in its hand and glaring at us with cold, unfeeling eyes.
“Is that meant to happen?” Vesma asked.
“I don’t think so,” Kegohr answered.
I unsheathed my sword as
