Thana pointed at those last lines. “I know it’s obvious, but thatprobably refers to light pyramids being saved.”
“And lanterns can be left behind for the supposed knowledgemonks,” he said. “Or the monks could be a thought the writer is saving for somefuture date.” He flipped through a few pages. “This is homemade, doesn’t feelold.” He brought it to his face. “The leather cover smells new.”
“Meaning these are likely notes the rogues are making now?”
“Hmm.” He paused on another page and pointed. “Here’s a referenceto tunneling.” His tracking finger paused on a symbol that meant nothing toThana, but he brought out the map again, and she held it while he madecomparisons. “There.” He tapped a marking on the map that stood well inside thepalace. “The tunnel entrance?”
She frowned. “I doubt it. Wouldn’t someone have noticed a groupof pyradistés tunneling through the pantry floor?” She squinted at the map.“It’s too vague to see exactly where in the palace that is. Maybe it’s thegoal?” She scanned the map again before thinking of her own attempts to trackthe movements of the new crystal. Some of the locations on the map seemed thesame as those where pyramid accidents had been reported. Then there were othersshe hadn’t heard anything about.
“These could be the sites of more pyradisté incidents orsomething completely different,” she said.
Like a tunnel opening.
She grinned at Gunnar to find him smiling at her, too.
“You two are cute when you’re sleuthing,” Dina said with a wink.“Care to elaborate for the rest of us?”
“We have a place to start,” Gunnar said as Thana announced, “Weshould head here.” But to undermine their portrait of closeness, they pointedto different places on the map.
“Perfect,” Sylph said wryly.
Gunnar closed the book with a snap and gave Thana a lofty look.“I’ll hear the reasons behind your choice.” But he began striding toward thehorses.
“When?” she asked as she hurried to catch up, cursing his longerlegs.
“On the way to my choice.”
She muttered a few phrases she definitely should not say in frontof royalty, glad for once that he outpaced her by too great a distance to hear.
Not far from the pyradisté camp, they set up camp themselves, allof them exhausted from the night before and needing a longer night so somecould sleep while others kept watch. Thana didn’t even have time to anticipateanother night with Sylph because she fell asleep as soon as she lay down.
* * *
There was nothing left of the farm but a hole in the ground.
Sylph and the others had ridden hard just after dawn, followingthe enemy map. They only found this place because Sylph had sensed thedisturbance in the earth. She’d been connected to her stone pyramid for miles,looking for this tunnel entrance Prince Gunnar hoped to find.
Instead, they’d found torn soil strewn about, along with ascattering of green leaves that might have been vegetables. Clumps of tornthatch spread along the ground. Apart from the dark earth that blighted thelighter soil like some malevolent creature, Sylph might have guessed that acart had overturned, and here remained the scraps that could not be salvaged.
But with her pyramid, she didn’t have to guess.
If it had been a farm, what of those who’d lived here? Had theybeen a family? More than one? While the others gathered around the sunken patchof ground, she looked for tracks but saw only their own horses. No one else hadcome and gone.
Not aboveground, anyway.
“It’s like the earth swallowed everything,” Dina said. “It’s surenot a tunnel entrance unless it was filled in.”
“No one left that I can see,” Sylph said as she wiped the dirtfrom her hands. She slipped a hand in her pocket, running her thumb along theedges of her pyramid as she fell into it and scanned the area closely. “Thereis a tunnel down there, but…there was a cave-in,” she said softly. “The tunnelmakers dug themselves out, then filled this area behind them as they left.”
“But why bother filling it in?” Thana asked. “And what happenedto the farmers?”
Prince Gunnar wiped his forehead. “They couldn’t leave a hole,didn’t want anyone to follow them.”
“And the farmers?”
“Like I said, they didn’t want anyone to know.” He took a deepbreath, his face grim. “If we hadn’t found that book or didn’t have Lady Sylph,we might have thought this some sort of sinkhole that had swallowed the farmand farmers, too.” He nudged a bit of thatch with his foot. “The pyradistésprobably blew the house apart to support their ruse.”
“No,” Thana said, her tone still striving to be light. “Okay,maybe the pyradistés destroyed the house, but…” She looked at Sylph, her mouthworking. “The farmers ran away, right? I mean, who would have believed them ifthey’d said a group of pyradistés had come up through their house like giantmoles? There was no reason to kill them.”
Sylph fell into her pyramid, her senses cast into the earth. Shefound eight voids in the ground not far away, the right shape and size. Herheart fell for Thana. “I’m sorry. It’s true.”
Thana turned away as if sick, and Sylph heard her sob. Thepyradistés might be her people, but the farmers were her people, too, in a way,being peasants. Or perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps Thana would weep ifthese were nobles or visitors from some distant shore. She’d always wondered ifThana had originally helped her out of a sense of duty, both because of theirrespective stations and because of Thana’s being an agent of the crown, but nowshe knew differently. Thana had helped her because she was a person who’dneeded helping.
Sylph had suspected it before, but to have it confirmed atop anunmarked grave sat heavily on her chest.
She put her hands on Thana’s shoulders. “What can I do?” sheasked softly. She didn’t want to explain her thinking, didn’t want to trot outwords like peasant or status, not here where it ceased to matter. For thosewho’d lived here, with nothing but each other, perhaps it had never mattered.But
