Ears twitching in the dank air, Garrain listened to the song of life all around him; the sighs of drooping fungi and sodden riverweed, and the subdued murmur of the slimy little creatures that wriggled and swam amongst them. Hardly his favourite forms of life, but life nonetheless. Today their music sounded sweeter than a chorus of lyrebirds.

The song was the same as it had ever been, but now it was tinged with something more: a touch of magic; a trickle of essence that sharpened the senses, adding colour and music and hope where before there had been darkness and despair.

Garrain sucked a tiny drop of nectar between his teeth, and drew upon a familiar, yet long-dormant flow. As he had done countless times before, he concentrated on the form he wanted the spell to take—which he imagined as a golden glow suffusing his body.

A cool tailwind whistled up the tunnel, swirled about him, and was gone. And then he felt it: a surge of strength flowing into his muscles, easing the aches and pains of a long day’s climb. He streaked ahead of Ollagor, kicking up a spray of water in his wake. Faster and faster he moved, until his legs were a blur.

The swift stride spell was not an antidote to tiredness; nothing on the order of Hascithe’s grand magic. This spell was brief, and after it was over, exhaustion would claim him. But right now, he didn’t care.

Garrain let out a joyous laugh. He was whole again.

It was as though he’d been trapped in a nightmare for so long, he’d forgotten what it felt like to be awake. But now he was truly awake. That bothersome, enigmatic contradiction of a demon had been true to her word. For the time being, he was once again a greenhand—a keeper—in more than just name.

As long as he didn’t violate her ‘conditions.’

Remembering this, his thoughts darkened. Saskia sought to control him even after they were parted; after he was her captive no longer. This rankled him deeply. Oh he understood why she held his magic hostage to her demands. The trow wasn’t as naive as she’d first appeared. Saving his life may have indebted him to her, but she’d be a simpleton to trust his honour alone. No, it would have been too much to expect her to let him walk free without some sort of leverage; something to make him think twice before betraying her at the first opportunity.

He didn’t know what he might have done had the threat of losing his magic not been in place, but now…

Now he had no intention of going against her wishes; not unless she imperilled someone or something that mattered more to him than his magic. There were very few things that qualified. It were as though the demon had seen into his heart and picked the one thing that might ensure his compliance. Indeed, given her propensity for speaking in his mind, and the madness-inducing hallucinations she’d forced upon him, perhaps that was precisely what she’d done.

Again he thought of her latest intrusion. He was doing his utmost to purge that memory from his mind, but like a circling bloodfly, it kept coming back.

A steep tunnel filled with stairs had led him into these untamed burrows, hollowed out over many greatspans by deepworms very much like the one Saskia had slain. Whilst bathing away the sweat of the long climb, he’d found himself anticipating his return to Nuille’s side. Oh the delicious things he’d do to her when they were reunited—after she forgave him, of course. The water had been warm, one thing had lead to another and…

And then he’d found himself staring into that deusdamned demon’s reflection in the pool! Not her trow form, but the other one: the one that might almost pass as an alvesse. A moment later, a smaller face had appeared in the corner of his eye, painted on a circle of mirrored glass. The face in the pool had looked shocked, while Mirror-Saskia had smirked at him and poked out her tongue. An instant later, both had vanished, leaving him sitting alone in the water, his mood utterly spoiled.

Here in the dark depths of Ciendil, it wasn’t easy to measure the passage of time, but by his best reckoning at least a day had passed since then. In that time, Saskia hadn’t reappeared. Still, he’d been unable to rid himself of the unsettling notion that she was there, lurking in the shadows of his mind, watching his every move.

And there was nothing he could do about it. Not now, and perhaps not ever. His magic was hers to give and take as she pleased. So it would be best not to do anything to displease her.

His muscles began to burn and his breaths turned to gasps as the effects of the swift stride spell faded. Drawing in ragged breaths, he stopped and waited for Ollagor to catch up.

There was a hint of annoyance in the grawmalkin’s slitted eyes as he slunk into view. Having been adopted by Garrain only after he lost his magic, the beast was undoubtedly unused to such displays of enhanced athletic prowess from his master. Apparently Ollagor didn’t much care for being outmatched, even if only briefly.

The grawmalkin’s displeasure was short-lived, however, as his slitted eyes caught sight of a passing many-legged wriggler. Tail wagging, he dropped low to the ground, then pounced. Throughout the journey, Ollagor had taken it upon himself to rid the tunnels of any cave crawlers he could get his paws on. Watching the grawmalkin devour the hapless creature brought to mind a certain trow, who had found them equally delectable.

As for Garrain, he’d dined on fungus and berries and fish. Some of the things that grew down here were poisonous, but a greenhand need never fear poison. His life sense would warn him if he brought anything to his lips that would do him harm.

Finishing his meal, the grawmalkin led him to the mouth of a watery, overgrown cavern that a fistful of days ago he would have called immense. Having been to Wilbergond, his perspective had been irrevocably shifted, and now it was merely large. There was a staircase up one wall, leading to a small tunnel. Other tunnels adjoined the cavern, any one of which might lead them home. Ollagor, however, bounded straight toward the stairs, so it was up the stairs they would go.

They were halfway there when a stout figure in plate armour emerged from behind a pile of rocks near the base of the stairs, hauling a large bucket. He was followed a moment later by another bucket-bearer. Both wore the sigil of a hammer and a shield emblazoned on their breastplates.

Interesting. Very interesting. What were dwarrows doing this far from the Underneath? More escaped slaves, perhaps? But that armour…

Dropping low among the reeds, Garrain watched as the dwarrows poured the contents of their buckets into a pit they uncovered at the cavern’s edge. The foul scent carried on the air told him all he needed to know about what those buckets held.

“It’s a shite job, but someone’s gotta do it,” said one of the dwarrows, speaking the stone tongue.

His companion was not amused. “I swear on my mam’s grave, if you say those words one more time, Dorwald, I’m gonna dunk you in there.”

The first dwarrow lifted a flap of steel from his crotch and proceeded to urinate into the pit, before they covered it up with a stone slab, and both returned whence they came.

Creeping up to the rocks the dwarrows had vanished behind, Garrain found a small opening in the cavern wall, just wide enough for an alvar—or a dwarrow—to step through. A dim light flickered within, and he could feel a faint caress of hot air emanating from the crevice.

Something cold and wet pressed against his leg, and he jumped in fright, before turning to scold the owner of the furry muzzle. “Deus, Ollagor!” he whispered. “You startled me!”

Glancing back to the opening, he considered for a moment, before coming to a decision. He crouched low, facing Ollagor. “You wait here, my friend,” he murmured. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

The grawmalkin’s head hung low, ears drooping.

Garrain stifled a chuckle and rubbed the grawmalkin’s back affectionately. “My apologies. I know you’d like to join me, but this will require a sliver more subtlety than even you possess. If they are merely escaped slaves, then I don’t wish to disturb them. And if they’re more than that…”

Stripping off his armour and the smallclothes beneath, Garrain hid them in a crevice not far from the opening, along with Trowbane and his supplies. He rubbed grey dust into his skin, until it had taken on the dark hue of the cavern walls. Calling forth his magic, he moulded the darkness into a shade walker spell.

This spell was a rather curious invention of his greatfather, Undain the Eversmile, inspired by forest creatures that possessed an uncanny ability to hide in darkness. The illusion complete, he became all but invisible—so long as he kept to the shadows and didn’t move too quickly.

Like many of Undain’s inventions, shade walker had a fatal flaw that rendered it almost entirely useless. The spell only concealed a greenhand’s body, not his clothes or weapons—or focus. And carrying around a glowing staff or wand was hardly conducive to stealth. Attempts to counter this weakness by concealing foci inside various bodily orifices for the duration of the spell had met with predictably regrettable results for all concerned.

Because of this flaw, few greenhands bothered to learn the shade walker spell, and of those who did, most used it only to play practical jokes on unsuspecting mundanes. Garrain had never had much patience for jokes, but he’d learned the spell nonetheless, because he’d learned every spell within his reach. To Garrain, the very act of learning was itself a goal worth pursuing.

Today, he was glad he had, because alone among all greenhands (aside from fledglings who had yet to bind their magic) Garrain carried no focus. The spell’s singular weakness no longer affected him. Today, if luck were with him, he’d be able to pass unseen, and perhaps learn what these dwarrows were doing in there—and whether or not they posed a threat.

Stepping silently through the opening, he emerged into a larger tunnel, roughly hewn, its floor strewn with fragments of shattered stones. Two heavily-armoured guards stood at the entrance, but their gaze swept straight over him as if he weren’t there. Beyond lay a low passage, twisting around a sharp bend. Its walls were lined with lit torches. He’d have to keep away from those.

The air was undoubtedly hotter in here; hot and dry and dusty. Stifling a sneeze, Garrain crept forward into the gloom.

At that moment, the stone beneath his feet began to shake violently. He clutched at the wall to steady himself, and prayed that the uneven ceiling wouldn’t come down on his head. This was not the only tremor he’d felt since he began his ascent, but it was one of the most vigorous and prolonged. Something rotten had taken root in the arbor; a perturbation of the natural order that troubled him more deeply than any menace his eyes could perceive. He could feel the wrongness deep within his bones.

As the shaking subsided, he heard a voice up ahead. “…spilled some of that shite on my boot.”

“Och, you poor wee babe. It’ll wash off. You lads done out there?” said distinctly feminine voice.

“Aye, Honoured Proctor.”

“Good. Then I’ll go shut the front door.”

“Er…Proctor?”

“Aye, what is it, Dorwald?”

“It’s just that the hunters and foragers are still out there gathering supplies…”

The female grunted. “Of course they are. They’d better move their arses. If they’re not back in a bell, I’m locking them out!”

Stepping silently through the shadows, Garrain passed a small side-chamber, within which sat the female dwarrow who had spoken, reading a thick book, entitled Vengeance for Vindica. Vindica, if he recalled correctly, had been the leader of a particularly vicious band of dwarrow cultists who had terrorised settlements along the coast of the Arnean Sea.

His eyes drifted downward to the arlium-tipped copper wand hanging at her belt. A shiver of worry rippled down his spine.

Stoneshaper.

And if she were a stoneshaper, ‘shutting the front door’ and ‘locking them out’ presumably didn’t involve actual doors or keys.

Deus! He had to hurry!

Garrain stalked deeper into the dwarrow den, following at a discrete distance behind the pair carrying the buckets. The tunnel turned upward into a steep climb—so steep in places that he wished he could’ve called upon a root treader spell to keep from sliding backward in the loose gravel. He refrained from doing so, because casting such a spell would reveal his presence.

It was getting warmer in here. Much warmer.

Soon, the tunnel branched into a twisting warren of interconnected rooms and passages, guarded by more well-armed dwarrows, who nodded at the pair with slight smirks on their faces. Emptying chamberpots was an unenviable job even for dwarrows, it seemed.

Even with the shade walker spell, he had to be very careful here. One false step and he’d have a den of angry dwarrows bearing down on him.

Stout forms lay sprawled out across the hard floor of several of these rooms. Leaving the bucket-bearers behind, Garrain crept past the guards and the sleeping dwarrows, up a flight of roughly-hewn stairs and into another twisting tunnel.

This tunnel opened out near the base of a wide, deep shaft. How deep, precisely, he couldn’t say, for the apex was shrouded in darkness.

But it wasn’t the shaft itself that drew his attention. It was the crowd of dwarrows who had gathered upon a rocky outcropping overlooking it.

They stood along its edge, holding wands of copper and bronze and shining silver. He could feel essence gathering around them in waves, building into a clamour of whispers, before surging out into the void.

At that moment the ground began once again to shudder and sway. Rocks cracked and boulders plummeted from on high, smashing down upon the floor of the shaft. The dwarrows stood unmoved by the cacophony; undaunted by the falling rocks.

Garrain ducked back into the tunnel, struggling to keep his breath slow and silent. He was getting a very bad feeling about this. These stoneshapers were the source of this creeping malice he’d been feeling in his bones. If they continued unopposed, what horrors might they unleash upon Ciendil?

They had to be stopped.

And yet, he couldn’t stop them. Not today; not alone. Not with Saskia’s conditions staying his hand. For it was as clear as a mountain stream in highspring that the demon would oppose any action he might take against them. She’d chosen to side with the dwarrows, as had her predecessor, Calburn the Arborcaede.

For now, he needed to get himself and Ollagor to safety. He could decide what to do later.

On the way out, he had to hurriedly duck out of the way of a group of armed dwarrows hauling animal carcasses and baskets of leaves, roots and fungi.

“A good haul,” commented one of the guards. “Anything interesting going on out there?”

“Just the usual. Don’t ken why we even bother to hide. No-one ever passes through them burrows ’cept us. Och, but Gomric here claims he saw one of them topside beasts lurking in the swamp. Growmalkers or some such.”

“I amn’t just claiming I seen it. I done seen it!”

“Aye, right. And I saw a red-tailed mogworf!”

All of the dwarrows laughed, except Gomric, who complained, “I amn’t yanking your beards! ’Tis true, I swear it!” This brought on yet more laughter from the other dwarrows, who were clearly having none of it.

Garrain let out a slow breath. As long as they didn’t believe this dwarrow, Ollagor remained safe.

But there was a far bigger problem. If this was the hunting party returned from outside, then that could only mean…

Deus!

Caution abandoned for expediency, he dashed back down the tunnel, slipping into the shadows only when he almost ran into the stoneshaper coming the other way. Fortuitously for him, her nose was deep in her book, so she didn’t see him.

Reaching the tunnel entrance, his heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. In place of the narrow opening that lead to the swampy cavern outside was a smooth wall of stone.

He was trapped.

Silently cursing his tardiness, he slumped against the wall. There was no digging through that wall. He had no spells that could slice or burn through stone that thick. Perhaps Trowbane could have done the job, but he’d left it outside. Besides, there was no way he could have cut through the stone unnoticed—not with the pair of guards standing right there.

That left him with no choice. He’d have to wait until the stoneshapers reopened this tunnel to let someone in or out.

Crouched in the shadows just out of earshot of the guards, with nothing to occupy himself with but his own thoughts, Garrain lost all track of time. His hope surged when the stoneshaper returned, only to plummet when she settled onto her stone stool, nose still buried in her book, without taking so much as a glance at the tunnel entrance.

Fatigue gathered like weights upon his eyelids, and it became a struggle to keep them from drooping. If he fell into slumber, his shade walker spell would fade, but if he had to wait much longer, there would be no choice. He’d have to find a safe place to hide while he slept.

He was about to do just that when there came a rumble at the entrance, and the stone parted. Into the tunnel spilled a large band of travel-weary dwarrows. Their leader, a blonde-bearded stoneshaper of middle spans stepped up to the guards.

A moment later, the stoneshaper dashed out of the side room to meet the new arrivals. “Honoured Rector!” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Proctor,” said the Rector. “The northern project is proceeding faster than anticipated. We need you to be ready at the same time, so I’ve brought you some new graduates from Spindle to help out at your end.”

“Och, terrific news!” said the Proctor. “The sooner we can both be finished, the better.”

“Indeed,” said the Rector. “Sadly, we had an encounter with a mer warband in Dwallondorn, and as a result, our numbers are depleted. Lost a pinch of shapers and a fair few fistfuls of guardians.”

“Curse those mer!” she hissed. “Mayhap we should’ve assembled a third unit to deal with them as well.”

“I argued in favour of that, but the Chancellor insisted we shouldn’t split our forces any further. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps not. Time will tell.”

“Aye,” she agreed. “Now if you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to the dwelling chambers for a well-earned meal…”

“Lead on, Proctor.”

The dwarrows stepped away from the opening. This was his chance. Weaving between the oblivious guards, he dashed out into the—

Another dwarrow stepped around the corner.

Feet skidding on the loose stones, Garrain sidestepped the late arrival. His knee bumped against an arm…

The dwarrow spun about with a curse. His eyes widened, and he shouted, “Intruder!”

More shouts rang out from inside the tunnel.

Heart thundering in his chest, Garrain sprinted away, only to realise that his shade walker spell had faded. The shock of the near-collision had jolted him into stark visibility, clad in naught but his skin.

Blundering dunce! he berated himself silently.

Eyes flicking over the swamp, he could see no sign of Ollagor. The grawmalkin must have hidden or escaped when the dwarrows showed up.

He dashed to the spot where he’d left his belongings, snatching up Trowbane and his reagent satchel. There was no time to don what remained of his armour, but it wouldn’t offer much protection against spell or steel or arrow in any case.

“Is that one of them fish-ears?” said one of the dwarrows rushing out of the tunnel.

“A leaf-ears, more like.”

“Well he’s about to be a dead-ears. Shoot him!”

Memories of his old nightmares flashed into his head. But this was no dream. And he was far from defenceless.

Willing himself to calmness, he reached for his meagre supply of drackenwood bark. At his behest, essence surged into him, consuming the reagent and transferring its properties to his flesh.

Without waiting to observe its effect, he dashed to the swamp’s edge and placed his hand upon a barbed and twisted tree that coiled across the rocks. It had sharper thorns than the mirewood thickets of Laskwood. Yes, this would suit his purpose well enough. Drawing from its song of life, he brought forth a wreathe of thorny branches that snapped and flailed about him.

Not a moment too soon. A crossbow bolt thunked into the ground at his feet, snatched out of the air by angry branches. At the same moment, Garrain staggered backward, pain blossoming in his side.

He glanced down, expecting to see a bloody shaft jutting from his abdomen. Instead he looked upon unbroken flesh the texture and hardness of the most ancient, sturdy trees of Laskwood.

Never had he wrought a bristling barrier of such ferocity, or a bark sheathe that could stop bolts loosed from a dwarrow crossbow. How Saskia could be providing this much essence, he had no idea, but right now, he’d need every sliver of it.

Garrain had the dwarrows’ full attention now. Fanning out across the swamp with shields and weapons and wands raised, they advanced warily toward him.

Let them come, he thought venomously. Demon be damned, he was not going to let these burrowers take him. He withdrew another pouch from his satchel: a bag of tiny cave bugs, pulled from the tunnel walls during his ascent. A very fortuitous act of foresight, as it turned out. Scattering the pouch’s contents into the air, he worked the tiny forms with his magic, causing them to expand and multiply, over and over. From that cloud poured forth a ceaseless swarm of suffering.

The summoned insects filled the air, buzzing into faces and crawling beneath armour and underclothes, biting as they went. Fire licked at the swarm from spinning torches, shielding a few lucky dwarrows from the brunt of the attack.

As for the rest, Garrain almost felt pity for them. Screams echoed across the cavern walls. Bodies jerked and spasmed, falling to the sodden ground. There were very few beings who could ignore the debilitating pain those insect bites inflicted. Saskia had been one of them.

But what was this?

Among his screaming, thrashing brethren, a lone dwarrow stood, moved by neither pain nor fear. Peering through the shroud of branches and buzzing bugs, Garrain saw why that was so.

The Rector’s bearded face had taken on a metallic sheen, like polished bronze. Even his eyes seemed to be made of metal, though from the way they tracked Garrain’s movements, the Rector clearly still had his sight. The whole of his body must be similarly encased, and the seething mass of insects skittering over him couldn’t bite through it.

Undeterred, Garrain stalked toward the metal monster, letting his barrier slice into several of the unfortunate dwarrows who lay in his path. Those branches could cut through armour, so perhaps…

The ground shifted violently beneath his feet. Falling to one knee, he caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. He rolled to the side just as a huge spike of stone erupted from the floor, missing him by a finger width. Deus that was close!

The Rector had his wand extended, already calling forth another spell.

As for Garrain, he couldn’t even remain upright on this shaking ground. Was that the Rector’s doing too? Scurrying forward just in time to avoid another spike that erupted from the floor, Garrain wondered if this dwarrow might outmatch even Ruhildi, with all of her cursed corpses at her command.

The shaking subsided, and Garrain staggered to his feet. But to his chagrin, he realised he wasn’t the only one doing that. His foes were rising with hatred in their eyes. The short-lived swarm of suffering spell had begun to dissipate, and now he faced the fury of a resurgent dwarrow warband.

Hurriedly, Garrain drew upon the torrent of essence that Saskia availed to him, and flicked a droplet of simmerwood sap into the air, shaping it into his old favourite: the scorching sap spell. He flung the roiling globule of amber-coloured liquid at the Rector.

Several dwarrow guardians threw their shields up, forming a wall in front of their leader. Garrain’s spell struck the shields and splashed over and under and between them, splattering across the swampy ground, sending dark smoke billowing outward. Scorching sap may not be able to burn through the metal of their shields and armour, but there was an abundance of exposed flesh as well, and it scoured it away in an instant. Shrieks and curses emerged from behind a shroud of foul-smelling smoke.

More foes ran at him from the sides, so he summoned another bolt of scorching sap and hurled it into their midst. And another, as he sprinted toward the stairs, where stood his best chance to escape. Faster and faster, he called forth his spells, and the essence kept flowing. His chest was afire, his breathing laboured, and yet never had he felt so alive.

Garrain felt a wave of giddy laughter bubble up within him. He could do this. He was going to survive, even if he had to slay every last one of these bastard—

Something struck him on the back of the head. He fell face-first into the muck.

Spitting out a mouthful of foul-tasting slime, ears ringing, Garrain struggled to rise—and found he couldn’t. A heavy weight, hard and cold, held him down, squeezing the air from his lungs. Even through the shell of his bark sheathe, he could feel it. The branches of his bristling barrier clawed feebly at rocks tumbling to the ground around him.

There she stood, near the base of the stairs: the one who would see him buried—the Proctor—with wand held high, and gauntletted fingers curled around her cursed book. If his predicament weren’t so dire, Garrain would have chuckled. She’d go to her grave with book in hand; of that, he was certain.

But right now, it was his own grave that concerned him more.

Heavy boots kicked up a spray of mud. Light danced off gleaming steel. They were almost upon him, and he couldn’t move.

A dark shape sprang at the two closest dwarrows from the side, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Ollagor tore off an unfastened helmet with one paw and flung it aside, clamping his muzzle around the exposed throat.

A blade flashed toward the snarling beast, swung by the downed dwarrow’s companion.

Reaching out with his glaive, Garrain pinned the dwarrow’s wrist to the ground. There came a grunt of pain, and the sword flew free. Snatching up the fallen blade, Garrain drove it through his foe’s chin, up into his brain, and twisted it.

Ollagor’s hapless victim gurgled, shuddered and lay still. The stench of voided bowels filled the air.

More shouts came, and the grawmalkin spun to face the new threat. Letting out a thunderous roar, he bounded forward.

Then staggered, slowed, and toppled to the side, legs twitching. With yawning dread, Garrain beheld a feathered shaft jutting from his friend’s skull.

Blackest despair loomed. In all likelihood, Ollagor’s death would precede his own by mere moments. Unable to draw breath, he reached for his friend, feeling darkness press in on him.

A scream arose from the darkness behind his eyelids. First one, then many, from all sides. Screams and shouts and choking gurgles, slowly dying off. Silence followed, profound and absolute.

Soft footsteps padded toward him. A rough tongue licked his face.

“Ollagor?” he croaked, opening his eyes. “Are we there already? Already in the Vale of…”

No. Ollagor still lay just out of reach, unmoving. And as for Garrain, he was still in this cursed cavern, pinned beneath a fallen rock. The slitted eyes gazing into his looked very much like Ollagor’s, but…

“Morchi?” he whispered, reaching out to stroke the soft fur.

The grawmalkin turned his attention to his fallen brother, licking his eyelids shut, and letting out a soft, whimpering yowl.

The weight slid off Garrain’s back. He hauled himself up onto a crouch. The cavern tilted around him, and with a feeble groan, he sagged back down into the slime.

“Let me heal you first, ardonis,” said the last voice he’d ever expected to hear in this place.

Warmth spread from his aching back, and out into his extremities. A moment later, he rose to his feet, supported by a pair of arms that possessed surprising strength for all their slimness.

“Did you miss me?” asked Nuille. A tremulous smile graced her flawless lips.

Garrain’s eyes drifted to the heaps of torn flesh that had once been dwarrows. Their limbs were bent at all the wrong angles. Blood leaked from their eyes, and their faces held expressions of undiluted horror. Upon one of the mangled lumps scattered across the stairs lay a bloody book, gripped by twisted fingers.

“What did you do to them?” he whispered.

Nuille didn’t answer; wouldn’t even meet his gaze. And when next he looked upon her resplendent face, he saw that her eyes were wet with tears.

Shouts rang out behind him. The Rector stepped over the bodies of his fallen kin, accompanied by a pair of ashen-faced stoneshapers. He was calling out to a larger group of dwarrows gathering outside the opening in the wall. More were streaming out to join them.

“Time to move, ardonis,” said Nuille, snatching at his arm.

Together with Morchi, they fled up the stairs, hearing the clatter of crossbow bolts striking stone around them. They ran into the tunnel atop the stairs, and kept running.

It was a long time before they felt safe enough to stop, and collapsed in a panting heap on the cold stone floor.

“I saw you flinging spells at the dwarrows,” said Nuille when they were finally able to speak. “Yet you don’t have your staff. At least, not the one made of witherbark…” A faint smile crossed her lips as her eyes ran down his body. “Where is Ruinath?”

“It’s a…complicated situation,” he said evasively. “But what about your magic? What you wrought upon those dwarrows… You’re a…” She refused to meet his gaze, and he couldn’t bring himself to say the word aloud.

Cruorger.

“Hold your secret,” she said. “And I’ll pretend you don’t know mine. There’ll be time enough for explanations when we’re safely back in Laskwood.”

“Very well. But answer me this, if you will. How did you find me down here?”

“I’d have thought you’d have guessed,” said Nuille. “Did you not wonder why your grawmalkin followed you into the arbor alone? I sent him to you! I sent him and held his brother back. It was no easy thing, parting them, believe me. The blood bond is—was—so very strong between those two. And when Jevren came to me with word of what happened, I went after you. It would not have been easy for Morchi to track you directly, but he didn’t need to. He led me to Ollagor, who led me to you.”

So that’s the thread Saskia saw, he thought. Not oracle or Chosen magic, but the unbreakable bond between brothers. It was an impressive feat for Ollagor to find me after I fell, but Morchi had to cover a far greater distance. He could not have done it without his brother.

“So you see, ardonis, it was my fault, what happened to him,” she continued, her expression hardening. “But I’d do it all again, without hesitation, even knowing the cost. I’ll not let anyone or anything—not demon, nor dwarrow, nor the Vale itself—take you away from me.”

Garrain looked upon his lifemate as though for the first time, in awe and admiration—and a tiny shiver of fear. In that moment, he believed her every word. Deus help anyone who came between them.

Nuille rose, tugging at his hand. “Let’s go home.”