By the time Coris reappeared about a quarter-hour later, Meya had finished off the fritters. The young lord seemed taken aback to see her standing right next to the angry mob, but at last, he smiled and beckoned her to follow with a tilt of his head.

"So, what have you gleaned so far?"

Coris began as she fell in step with him. Meya glanced back at the guild—a senior blacksmith had already taken over at the counter, both hands raised and lips parted wide as he pacified the crowd, before turning back and reporting her findings.

"Broken pipes. Stolen pipes. Fake coins. Coin hoarders. Smiths have no ores to work with. Farmers, stonemasons and lumberjacks got no tools to do their jobs. Nobody could prepare their houses for storm season. Et cetera, et cetera."

She left off with a weary sigh, then nudged Coris's shoulder.

"What about you? What have you got?"

"Seems like nothing more than shortage. The usual. No suspicious activity." Coris shrugged, but his brows were tied in a knot, his gaze distant. With a sigh, he turned to Meya.

"There's still no directive from Meriton or Aynor on what to do, so I've asked them to accept only urgent complaints for now. I'll report to Father when we get back."

"How d'you decide what's urgent?" Meya asked. Coris cocked his head.

"Well, for example, planting season is over, so farmers won't need their tools again until the harvest in late summer. They'd have to make do with sanding and whetting rusty tools for now. But storm prepping; that's a life-or-death issue. If necessary, we might have to melt farming tools to make nails, drain pipes and roof tiles. Or we could have the peasants take shelter in the castle and strong buildings."

"Like here?" Meya suggested, following Coris up the central staircase to the mezzanine, where the bailiff and other officers had their workrooms. Coris nodded with another smile.

There were several things off with the mezzanine; metal railings had been replaced with crude wooden fences. Empty stone plinths that once carried ornate vases and statuettes lined the walls at uniform intervals. Twin foot-shaped lighter patches between the plinths indicate where suits of armors once stood, hands clasped over the hilt of their swords.

In her mind's eye, Meya pictured faceless men coming in and carrying off the suits of armor one by one—then the statuettes—then the railings. Each and every tossed to their fiery end in the crucible. It was a gloomy scene.

Coris stopped before an empty marble plinth at the end of the corridor, staring fixed at the thin air over it, as though he could picture the size and shape of what was once there.

His flat, emotionless face was unreadable, yet his eyes were filled with nostalgia. Meya decided to give him some personal time, before mustering up the courage to ask.

"What was there?"

Coris gave no reaction whatsoever, but then answered just as softly.

"Corien's Harp."

Meya's eyes widened. Isn't that...?

"Corien? But that's your—"

Coris side-eyed her with a slight grin, then his eyes flicked back to the nonexistent harp, his quiet voice rippling the still silence.

"Corien was Drinian's cousin who died in Everglen before the migration. That's all we know about him. And there was nothing left of him but his harp. Mother longed to hear the Harp's song while she was pregnant with me. So I'm named after him."

A reminiscent smile tugged Coris's parched lips as he went on with a chuckle.

"When I was younger, whenever Father took me here, I'd sneak off to pluck the harp, then run and hide. You know, just to annoy the old men."

He turned to Meya, and they shared a sad little laugh. Then Coris turned back to the air-harp once more. Silence fell again, and Meya wasn't sure if it was mere curiosity or sympathy that made her blurt out.

"You wanted to say something, right? Back at dinner that day?"

Coris turned around with a puzzled look, so Meya clarified.

"Your father wants to keep the Mining Ban. King Alden wants to scrap it. You side with the King, so the Baron doesn't want to talk to you about it?"

Coris's eyes lost focus for a beat as he thought back, then widened in comprehension. The gloomy aura hanging over him vanished. His complexion seemed to brighten up in an instant, as if he had been bursting to talk with someone for months.

"You noticed?" He asked, excited, then shook his head and muttered grumpily. "If only Zier were half as attentive."

"So, what were you going to say?" Meya pressed. Coris blew out a frustrated breath.

"What I've been saying for months. We need to start mining in Latakia now, which...is heresy in Hadrian, of course." He shrugged, looking careworn as he elaborated for the clueless Meya.

"Maxus was the first Baron Hadrian and he supported the Ban, and somehow every Baron Hadrian followed him. Whenever any King tried to lift the Ban, they would lobby the Council to shoot him down."

Coris shook his head in frustration, then leaned towards Meya and continued in a low voice.

"You've seen how bad it's getting. How widespread this is." He jerked his head towards the hubbub downstairs. "We need a warning. A disaster. Catastrophe is the best lobbyist. Such is the flaw of men."

For a fleeting moment, Coris's kind silvery eyes hardened. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but Meya saw a dangerous, ruthless gleam streak by. She narrowed her eyes, wary, then steered the conversation away, before Coris could get any reckless ideas.

"What's the reason, anyway? What's wrong with mining? Those lords honestly don't believe it'd actually bring about Freda's damnation, do they?" She suggested, shaking her head in derision.

"Of course not." Coris shot back with a wry grin, and Meya blinked, intrigued.

"The truth is, every lord's demesne could be sitting above ore veins. Father's been telling them that the King could use this crisis as an excuse to seize their land and centralize mining."

"Centralize?" Meya parroted.

"That means the King would control Latakia's mining industry, instead of letting each lord manage mining in their demesne. The way the King controls mining in Everglen now, and the way it used to be before the Ban."

Meya nodded, a hum of comprehension escaping her ajar mouth. Coris smiled in satisfaction, then went back to his tale.

"Latakia is blessed with resources. Yet, why didn't the lords object to the Mining Ban, two hundred years ago?" Meya churned her lips as she mulled over it, but Coris went right on.

"That's because they get to keep any resources they discovered on their land to themselves. Secretly. Should the day comes that supplies from Everglen run dry, they would have a bargaining chip against the King."

"You mean when the time is right, they'll start mining on their land. On their own terms?"

Meya rephrased, her stricken voice a mere whisper. Coris gave a solemn nod. Meya followed up without pause,

"What about Hadrian? Do we have anything under our feet?"

Coris hitched up a devious grin. His silvery eyes flicked down and zeroed in somewhere around her chest. Meya glanced down and found her Lattis coin, gleaming rainbow in the sunlight streaming through the windows, and her eyes widened.

"Lattis?" She gasped, half-hoping Coris to reveal he was jesting, but Coris gave a firm nod.

Just then, a spark shot through Meya's brain. She grasped at the ruby brooch on her chest, unpinning it with hasty, fumbling fingers.

"That reminds me. This knife. It's made from Lattis, isn't it?" Meya unsheathed the tiny blade. She glanced at Coris, who seemed deep in thought, then looked down at the knife again, and her breath caught.

The once razor-sharp knife was now dull and distorted. It looked half-melted, as if licked by white-hot flames.

Blood of a Greeneye is the only known method of refining Lattis. Lattis melts readily in it.

Gillian's voice echoed in her ears, as clear as if he were standing right next to her. As she held the minuscule blade, Meya tried to stop her hand trembling. She had seen what this thing could do to Greeneyes—to people like her.

But what exactly are us Greeneyes? Why does Lattis hurt us but not...them?

Meya shot a covert glance at Coris at the thought, gulped down her misgivings then continued as nonchalantly as she could.

"Zier barely even scratched them, and they were screaming like they're being burned alive. And then they fled..." Meya paused, glanced left and right to check the coast is clear, before leaning in to whisper, "...on dragons?"

Meya held her breath as she locked eyes with Coris. It was the one thing everyone had been trying their best to not bring up. But now that she had put it out there, would Coris play ball? And did he see the same thing she thought she saw that night?

After what seemed like forever but was in truth but a few moments, Coris gave a curt, almost invisible nod.

The strength left Meya's legs. She slumped against the wall beside the plinth, one hand massaging her temple.

"This could explain why Nostra attacked Rutgarth back then. If Lattis could be used against dragon riders, they wouldn't allow Latakia to mine it."

Coris theorized. Meya was only half-listening. A single word echoed in her brain, ricocheting from corner to corner, side to side, like a crazed bird in a cage.

Dragons. Dragons. Dragons. Dragons. Dragons.

She remembered the mural in the Hadrian Chapel. The glowing, acid-green eyes of the dragons that migrated from Everglen. Those eyes were similar to her own. And twenty pairs of those same eyes were glowing in the dark. Last night. On that hill.

What if all the dragons hadn't flown to Nostra? What if some of them, like Drinian Hadrian, decided to settle halfway in Latakia and bond with humans as dragons and riders?

But if that was what happened, and Greeneyes were dragon riders, how could she explain herself being born a Greeneye, while her siblings and her parents were normal people with normal eyes?

"Maxus was a blacksmith working in Rutgarth when it happened. The Nostrans kept him fugitive for ten years, then he escaped back to Latakia with the Axel. He went straight to King Edward to report what he learned. Not long after that, the Mining Ban was announced."

Meya snapped out her reverie at that new snippet of information, which contradicted what she had been taught her whole life.

"Wait. The Ban wasn't announced right after Rutgarth was attacked?" She interrupted. Coris leaned so close she could feel their foreheads touching.

"That's why I'm sure Maxus and the Axel have something to do with it. But why would they ban mining if our only weapon against dragons is right under our feet? Unless..."

Coris froze mid-speech, his gaze losing focus.

"Unless what?" Meya prodded, impatient.

Coris held up a hand, leaving the restless Meya to rock on the balls of her feet. Then, the fingers of his raised hand folded, leaving only his index pointing at Meya's chest level. His eyes, though, were still somewhere far off.

"Maxus and King Edward weren't trying to fight dragons." Coris began, slow and careful, then turned and stared straight into her eyes.

"They were trying to protect the dragons. From us."

Protect? Dragons?

Meya opened her mouth, but no words came out. But judging from Coris's serious expression, she was the only one finding it hard to believe .

But why? Why would dragons need protecting? Who would want to protect dragons? They're dragons, for Freda's sake! They could melt whole mountain faces with one fiery breath, let alone a puny human.

Suddenly, the floor shook and tilted. Meya let out an unwitting scream as she flung herself against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut. She felt the cold from Coris's body above her, shielding her.

The quake lasted for barely half a minute, then the world stilled once more. Meya's body was still trembling as she extricated herself from the wall and fell against Coris's chest instead. His soft voice flowed over her like a calm breeze as his clammy hand smoothed her hair.

"It's alright. It's gone now. Everything's fine."

"What in the three lands was that?" Meya demanded, voice shaking as hard as her hands twisting Coris's tunic. Coris gave a nonchalant shrug.

"Just an earthquake. It's no big deal."

"No big deal!?" Meya snapped, pushing away from Coris, who looked both surprised and seconds from bursting out laughing.

Meya felt her cheeks burning, and turned the other way; come to think of it, she had been the only one screaming in the whole building. The busy buzz downstairs had droned through the whole ordeal as if nothing had happened.

"We can feel quakes from Neverend Heights here in the far west. The volcano's still puffing brimstone."

Coris explained, his voice rippling with the slight tremors of laughter, looking both sympathetic and amused. He moved away and began walking backwards, towards an open door at the other end of the hallway.

"I'll go talk with Bailiff Mansfuld for a bit. You have a look around. There's nothing much to see, though."

Coris shot her a wink and a smirk, as Meya blinked blankly, still not done recovering. But the split-second Coris whirled away and strode off, Meya heard a sharp crack from above.

She glanced up. One end of a wood truss had broken free, and was free-falling right to where Coris was.

"Coris! Get out!"

Meya screamed as she plunged forth like a spear, hands outstretched. The flat of her palms connected with Coris's bony back, pitching him face-down to the floor.

She had just enough time to see Coris whip around, wide-eyed in horror, before the heavy plank landed a decapitating blow to her nape, and all her senses were consumed by blank darkness.