Sylph began tending the sad-looking mare while the otherssearched for clues. The horse shivered and nickered as she brushed it. Thepyradistés must have advanced as soon as they’d scouted the prince’s camp andhadn’t wanted to risk riding in the dark. Too bad they hadn’t been as concernedwith the mare’s well-being as they had been with their own.
And that also meant someone had spied on the prince’s camp beforethe attack. And Sylph hadn’t noticed because she hadn’t been looking forpyramids, but maybe she should have been. She tried to shake the guilt from hershoulders. Thana hadn’t noticed either.
But she didn’t have Sylph’s ability, which she was foreverpointing out. Sylph couldn’t help thinking that, since she had all this power,she was obliged to use it when needed.
She cast her senses out now, pausing in her brushing, hoping shewasn’t too late to catch an ambush if that was what the future held. She sensedno pyramids lurking in the trees and breathed a sigh of relief.
Until…a spark of something caught her senses.
“Stop,” she cried, whirling around, unsure of what the signalmeant or where it came from, but everyone needed to halt until she found out.
Everyone froze, well-acquainted with the suddenness of magic, itseemed. Thana’s eyes were wide as she bent over a blanket near the campfire.Dina paused while halfway inside a tent. Prince Gunnar held one foot aloft,freezing on the way to another tent, this one set apart from the others.
Barely there, the signal slipped around Sylph’s senses, slipperyas an eel or an elusive secret. “Thana, use your detector. I can’t quite searchit out.” And quickly, as Prince Gunnar seemed a bit wobbly on one leg.
Thana dug in her satchel and brought her pyramid forth. No soonerhad her eyes closed, then she pointed at the tent nearest the prince. “Gunnar,back up. They might have left quickly, but they took the time to set a trap.”
He did so, stepping as carefully as if away from a sleeping bear.
“Don’t go poking around it, Sylph,” Thana said. “You might set itoff. The rest of the camp is clear.” Dina sighed in relief and joined them.Thana smiled sheepishly. “I should have checked. Sorry.” Her cheeks went red.“Maybe you should have brought Calla.”
The prince gave her a sympathetic look. “I doubt Calla would beable to figure out how to disarm that trap without a cancelation pyramid.”
Thana had barely said, “There are a few theories,” before PrinceGunnar gave her a gentle push in Sylph’s direction and joined Dina in adifferent search.
Sylph smiled, hoping to convey complete confidence. “Tell methese theories.”
Thana spoke about the transference of energies and mind locks andall sorts of things Sylph didn’t understand in the least. But she nodded andtried to seem interested. The idea of learning more magic still made her uneasyin her abdominal organs, but she told herself that this was another instance inwhich she was obliged to use her power, when she could further prove herworthiness, and she could help Thana in the here and now.
It felt nice to accomplish all those things in one go and nice toprove that she was getting better at corralling and categorizing her thoughts.Even if no one appreciated that last one but her.
Thana fell silent and looked at her expectantly.
Oh, bother. “Which would be your recommendation?” Sylph tried.
“The lock, I think. We don’t have the right pyramids for theothers, not really. But we should be able to lock the trap and create acircumstance where only we can set it off.”
“How?” And she had to admit to a spot of genuine intrigue.
Thana pulled another pyramid from her satchel. “Trap pyramids area mix of destruction and mind magic. We need to fall into my detector together,so you can see the trap, then into this mind pyramid so we can configure thelock. You’d normally only do this for a pyramid you didn’t want anyone else toaccess, using a memory no one else has, but we’re going to make it so the traponly goes off if someone is actively recalling our memories when they get close,and since no one can do that…”
Sylph nodded slowly. “All we have to do is not think of thosememories when we remove the trap.”
A smile flashed quickly before Thana shifted and cleared herthroat. “Or to be extra safe, we’ll let Dina actually remove it.”
Sylph felt her own flush. “Right. Of course.” She expected Thanato make the entire situation worse by saying that Sylph would get the hang ofit or by making reference to further training, but Thana only nodded, quietingsome of Sylph’s fears and lessening her desire to rebel against a pyradistéfuture.
Sylph used the detector, marveling at the way it cast the worldin darker tones, all but the pyramids, which shone like gold in a land ofshadow. Once she’d felt the trap, she had it pinpointed. When Thana directedher to do so, she fell into the mind pyramid.
Delight infused her at finding Thana there, her mind like a happybeehive buzzing with intelligence. Her light shone as brightly as any pyramid.And though they could not read each other’s minds, Sylph caught a hint of herwonder and excitement.
“I haven’t done this often,” Thana said aloud, her voice carryingthrough the faceted semi-darkness around them. Sylph let her eyes slip closed.She didn’t need them in this place.
“Carefully,” Thana said. “Focus there.” A gentle nudge guidedSylph’s senses through the detection and mind pyramids and she saw the trap asa spiderweb, a complex puzzle that would have to be disassembled one strand ata time.
“No,” Thana said firmly as Sylph reached to touch it. “Try todisable it like that, and we’ll set it off, no doubt destroying whateverthey’re hiding. Fix a memory in your mind.”
What to choose? It seemed so important. What if she pickedsomething common, something Dina might have experienced?
“I can sense your fear,” Thana said.
