“Thank you for being willing to talk to me again,” Ellerie said to Ariadne. She spoke in Western, since that was the most recent language the woman had been given by the necklace. It seemed it could only handle one at a time.

Ariadne gave a curt nod of her head. Their previous conversation, several days earlier, hadn’t gone well. After only a few questions from Ellerie and Bobo, the Chosar woman had stood up and stalked away, refusing to say anything more. She’d returned to hiking around the mountain and wandering through the ancient ruins inside, not speaking to anyone unless she had to. Ellerie had decided to try again with just the two of them, hoping that having fewer people around would help. Bobo had reluctantly agreed.

When Ariadne didn’t say anything, Ellerie spoke again. “The last time we talked, it seemed like you were suggesting that all the Tirs belonged to the Chosar. Is that right? Except for Terrillia and Tyrsall, I mean?”

“Of course,” Ariadne said. “Who else could build them? We had to build Tir Sal for the humans—they don’t know shaping magic. Tir Illia isn’t even a real Tir. The elves just built their homes in the trees, like they always do.”

Shaping magic was mentioned frequently in one of the books Ellerie had found in the ruins, but she didn’t ask about it. She didn’t want to let herself get distracted from the topic at hand.

“The wood elves build homes in trees,” she said instead. “What about silver elves? Nilvasta?”

“I do not know these words. What are silver elves?”

Ellerie ran her fingers through her silvery hair, holding it out to the side of her head. “Like me. The silver elves used to live among the tershaya, just like the wood elves. Did they still do so when you knew them?”

“Some hybrids have hair like that,” Ariadne said.

“Hybrids? What’s a hybrid?”

“The necklace doesn’t give a word for it in this language. Elves with some human or Chosar blood in their past.”

Ellerie drew in a sharp breath. The most commonly accepted theory among her people was that the nilvasta had lost the tree bond because they couldn’t get the tershaya trees to grow, and there was always pressure among the great houses to keep trying. Some scholars, though, had opened themselves up to ridicule by suggesting it was because there was too much human blood in their ancestry. Ariadne’s statement alone wouldn’t confirm it, but it made the second option more likely.

“Were there many hybrids in your time? What do you know about them?”

Ariadne glared at her. “I’m here to learn what happened to my people. Not to tell you what happened to yours.”

Ellerie managed to keep from snapping at the woman. The origin of the nilvasta was important, but if she’d been in Ariadne’s place, she, too, would have been desperate about news of her own people. Luckily, dealing with Marco had been a lesson in patience.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Let me tell you what I know, and then if you tell me more, perhaps we can find where the two ends meet.”

Ariadne considered that for a moment before nodding. “Agreed.”

Ellerie considered where to begin. “Have you ever heard of the phrase the first peoples? Or the Ancients?”

“No.”

“Those are words used by modern scholars to refer to what we think might be your people, and possibly to others who were around at the same time. You know of humans and elves, but you’ve said you aren’t familiar with stoneborn, right? Or seaborn or stormborn?”

“Your short friend is stoneborn, yes? The one with the beard? Boktar?”

“Yes. And Sarette is stormborn.”

“Treya told me.”

“But you’ve never seen their kinds before?”

“No.”

“What about lizardfolk?”

Ariadne tilted her head to the side. “Lizards who are like people?”

“Yes. They’re from the southern tip of Aravor.”

“We haven’t fully explored the southern half of Aravadora yet. There is still much to claim in the north, and the demons have delayed our plans.”

“That’s the war you mentioned? The Third Demon War?” The idea of demons crossing the barriers between worlds in numbers vast enough to wage war was frightening. In all her reading, Ellerie had never heard of anything like it. Individual demons might cross from time to time, but even groups as small as the one they’d fought in High Cove were rare.

Ariadne nodded.

“So there were two other wars with the demons before that?”

“The war is over and done with, elf,” the Chosar woman said, her eyes narrowing. “Talking about it doesn’t help me find my people.”

Ellerie grimaced. “I’m sorry. Have you ever heard of something called the Burning?”

“No.”

“We’re not sure what it was, but we think the Burning is what caused your people to leave Tir Yadar. That’s just a guess, though. We don’t know for sure.”

Ariadne stood to leave. “You don’t know much. This was a waste of time.”

“Wait!” Ellerie said. “We can still help each other.”

“How?”

“There has to be a clue that’ll let us figure out what happened. Like the reason why you’ve never heard of the stoneborn or seaborn. The stormborn I can understand—their own histories say they were created later—but the stoneborn are too widespread here in Cordaea for you to have missed them. Did they come here after your people were gone? Are humans and elves really the only other people you knew of?”

Ariadne shrugged. “The scourlings, if they count.” She sat down again.

“Scourlings? Who are they?”

“They inhabit Donvar, but we don’t know much about them. No one’s gotten a close look at them and lived. Our sailors can see them at a distance from our ships, and say they sometimes walk on two legs like a person, but if the ships get too close, the scourlings swarm them and kill everyone onboard. When I was young, we sent an expeditionary force, but they never returned. We stay clear of Donvar now.”

“I’ve never heard of them before, or of a place called Donvar.”

“You should avoid it. As soon as we’ve recovered from the war, the High Guard will deal with—” Ariadne stopped talking suddenly. Looking off into the distance, she took in a slow, deep breath, then let it out even more slowly. “The High Guard had planned to deal with them. I wonder if they ever got the chance.”

Ellerie gave her a moment to recover, then said, “Do you know anything else about the scourlings?”

“Why do you keep asking these questions? How does it help?”

“If we want to find out where your people are, we have to determine where they’re not. And who they’re not. Can you breathe underwater?”

Ariadne blinked. “What? No, of course not.”

“You remind me of the seaborn, but they can breathe underwater. Do all your people have brown hair?”

“No, not all, but it’s common.”

“The seaborn—at least the ones that I’ve met—all have brown hair, but it turns lighter the longer it’s been underwater. Does your hair do that?”

“No. You think my people changed into something else? These seaborn?”

“If my people can change, perhaps yours can as well.” Ellerie found herself wanting to give the other woman some reason to believe her people had continued on rather than being lost forever.

“The Chosar can’t breathe underwater, hybrid or not.”

“I’m just saying that if they did change somehow, that would explain why I haven’t heard any stories of your people still being around. Or, for that matter, maybe they simply sailed farther away. I barely know anything about Cordaea or Vestath, much less the lands on the other side of the world. When we get to Aencyr, we could find a map of all the seas and you can show me where the Chosar settlements were.”

Ariadne looked down for a moment, not speaking. Then she stood up again. “You can’t help me, can you? You don’t know anything. Always you want to know more from me, while you tell me nothing but guesses.”

“How do you expect me to figure it out when you’re barely willing to speak to me, and you leave any time you don’t like what you hear?” Ellerie retorted, unable to keep her temper in check any longer. “The more I know, the more I’ll be able to help.”

Ariadne hesitated, then gave a small nod. “Perhaps. We’ll see.” She turned to leave.

“Wait—we’re missing something from the storage room. A small, green bracelet made of jade. Did you take it?”

The Chosar woman whirled back around, her eyes flashing with anger. “You come here and you loot my city, and then you call me the thief?”

“I didn’t call you a thief! If you took it, that’s fine. I just want to know why.”

“What I do is none of your concern, elf.” She strode away.

Ellerie sighed.

At least this conversation had gone better than their last one.

#

The barrens weren’t completely barren. The frequent rain supported the growth of scattered weeds and scrawny bushes, and grasses sometimes grew near the streams and rivers.

There was more life in the river itself, Shavala found, as she sat on the bank with her eyes closed, her elder senses stretched out in all directions. Not as much life as a regular river, but more than was indicated by the surroundings. There were algae and mosses, and underwater species of worms and snails. There were even a few fish in the deeper, darker waters in the middle of the river.

She decided not to mention the fish to anyone else. There weren’t enough to support any amount of fishing, and her friends were growing tired of trail rations. Perhaps Leena could buy some already-cooked fish the next time she visited Aencyr.

Shavala hadn’t had any luck so far in figuring out why the land was mostly dead. The dirt was packed too hard to be welcoming to new plants taking root, and it only partially softened during the frequent storms, but that wasn’t the reason. The ground was like that because there was so little plant life, not the other way around.

“Why does nothing grow here?” she asked the staff, which she was holding across her lap. “There’s water to support life, but there’s hardly any life.” There was no response. The staff hadn’t communicated with her in any way since stopping her from helping during the battle.

She turned her attention back to the task at hand. Could the land be barren simply because the normal cycles of life had been interrupted for so long that the ecosystem couldn’t repair itself? The sun-baked, dusty ground was much different than the rich, dark soil within the Terril Forest. It was missing most of the creatures—the earthworms and woodlice and fungi—that helped to break down plant and animal matter, turning it into new soil to support the next generation of life. But that didn’t mean all those creatures were gone. According to Meritia, some were so tiny they couldn’t be seen, even with elder senses.

Some must still remain, since some plants did still grow, but perhaps there weren’t enough to restart the growth cycle at a larger scale. Or perhaps the few seeds that made it this far into the barrens, dropped by the wind or high-flying birds, weren’t capable of growing in the hard ground.

Or maybe the soil itself was too damaged to support anything more.

“Can it be fixed?” she asked the staff.

It didn’t reply. She frowned down at it, but then remembered it hadn’t communicated with her the one time she’d used it either.

“I think I understand,” she said. “You only spoke to me during the battle because you didn’t like what I was doing. You don’t want to tell me anything else except for those visions. So, what do you want to do?” She thought back to the most unusual of the scenes the staff had shown her, and what it might mean after Ariadne’s revelations. “Were those really the old gods watching when that druid found you? Why were they so interested?”

There was still no response.

“Fine, be stubborn about it,” she said, “but you have to let me help my friends when they’re in danger. If you try to hurt me again, I’ll throw you down a deep well, and then what are you going to do? Or I could just leave you here, locked in that room, for thousands more years.”

She waited longer this time, but the staff didn’t seem to have an opinion either way. It sat across her legs as if it was nothing more than any other tershaya branch.

“Would it help if I showed that you can trust me?” she asked. “In the visions, you seem to like fixing things.” Most of the visions had shown the staff and its bearer repairing an existing ecosystem or creating a new one. “Help me fix the soil here. The mules have eaten up all the grass near the river, but they’re getting tired of hay and oats all the time. They’d like to have something fresh.”

The staff didn’t complain, so Shavala climbed to her feet, then held it out in front of her and rested its tip on the ground, narrow end down. Taking her hand away, she smiled when it remained standing upright, as it had in the room where she’d found it, and in the vision with the old gods.

“I don’t suppose you have any suggestions?” she asked, glancing at the land around her. She wasn’t sure how to begin. The visions had shown what was possible, but not how to achieve it.

Closing her eyes, she stretched her elder senses out once again, but didn’t find anything more than she had before. It was pointless to keep searching for what wasn’t there. If she was going to attempt to provide any sort of lasting effect, she’d have to concentrate on what was.

The small bit of grass between the ruins and the river had been trampled and overgrazed, but much of it was still alive, both in the root systems and in the blades and stalks cropped close to the ground. Even without any help, some of it would grow back once the horses and mules left the area.

A druid could grow it back faster. Leaving the staff where it was, Shavala knelt down and laid her palms against the earth, then reached out with her magic as far as she could, calling to the plants and encouraging them to grow. The spell was similar to the one she’d used on the blackberry brambles to trap the drake, but there were subtle differences. The blackberry spell had taken advantage of the plant’s innate property of strong, fast-growing vines, and had simply accelerated the process, encouraging them to twine around the drake’s legs and wings.

She encouraged the grass, too, to follow its nature, and soon the existing blades were growing taller and new blades were springing up in a half-circle surrounding her, thirty feet in all directions except south, where the growth ended at the river’s edge.

The grass was fuller now than when they’d arrived at the ruins, but it was still patchy. She hadn’t grown any new life; she’d only restored and enhanced what was there, and if the soil couldn’t support it, the extra growth would be temporary. In fact, the small field of grass could die out completely if she’d allowed the length to grow beyond what the soil could nourish, but she wasn’t worried about that—the animals would chew it back down the next time they visited the river.

Shavala surveyed her work with satisfaction, but she hadn’t actually done anything to change the environment. It would continue on as it had been. Could she go further? This close to the river, the ground was softer and the moisture was closer to the surface. As long as the soil itself wasn’t bad, it seemed like it should be able to support more life. But accelerating a plant’s entire life cycle was very different than accelerating growth. Could she do it?

She modified the spell, providing the grass with additional energy until taller stems shot up, growing a flowering, spiked seedhead, while the root system simultaneously grew outward, allowing the plant to bud. As she poured more magic into the spell, the seedheads matured and the seeds fell to the earth, but not before she distributed them around the area with a light whirl of wind. She pulled water up from the deeper soil to the surface, making the ground more welcoming for the seeds and buds to grow into new plants.

The work was tedious. There was little nourishment in the soil, and the growth was too rapid to take advantage of the summer sun, so all of the energy was coming from her magic. She would have to keep it up until the first plants aged and died and decomposed. If she was successful, the modified ecosystem might eventually attract new plants and animals, resulting in a self-perpetuating cycle, but that was a long time away. For now, the grass itself would be the only way to replenish the soil, but that nourishment couldn’t spring out of nothing. It all had to come from her.

She’d almost forgotten about the staff, but it had been paying attention after all. It joined her spell, though its aid was more subtle than before. Instead of yanking control of the spell away, its own magic fighting with hers, this time the two magics danced around each other in a delicate balance.

There was a slight trembling beneath Shavala’s feet. Examining the ground below her with her elder senses, she found the root systems for the grass growing far larger and deeper than they normally would, churning the soil and bringing the richer earth closer to the surface.

The plants went through another full growth cycle, then another, and another, and another. The patchy field of wispy grass grew into a full and lush—if small—meadow.

The spell ended, and Shavala drew in a deep breath. Once the staff had begun helping, she hadn’t had to expend as much energy, but the process had still been tiring. She’d never been as good with plants as Meritia.

But it had worked. The staff’s magic had discovered better soil, and the plants’ life cycle had been accelerated enough that the first two generations had already decomposed, further enriching the earth. The extra nourishment might be enough to sustain the additional growth, at least until the system could be expanded.

She took hold of the staff once again. “The mules will probably eat all of this,” she told it. “Maybe tomorrow we should do it again further down the river.”

Perhaps the next time, she’d try to draw in some of the weeds and scraggly bushes that grew nearby. They were hardy enough to survive here. What could they do if the soil was improved?

And the mules had provided plenty of manure that could be turned into mulch, if she could convince Nedley or Corec to help her haul it. They could use the hand-drawn carts the attackers had left behind. There wouldn’t be time to age it properly, especially in this environment, but the spell to accelerate its aging process wasn’t that much different than the spell to accelerate the grass growth.

She returned to the ruins as she considered other ways to improve her efforts.

#

Ariadne rose well before dawn and buckled her armor on, then quietly made her way out of the building where the group had made camp. Treya was on watch nearby, but the woman was used to Ariadne’s early morning ritual and simply nodded to her.

It was still dark out, but once Ariadne was beyond the perimeter of mage lights surrounding the camp, her vision adjusted to the lower light levels. As clouds drifted in front of the crescent moon, her vision adjusted itself again to show heat differentials between different surfaces. Away from the other people, the differences were small, but it was enough to stay sure of her footing.

She left the ruins and headed for the river, but aimed for a spot a mile upstream from where they typically watered the animals. It wouldn’t do to have another incident with the boy, Nedley, while he was trying to take care of the mules.

But with a twenty-minute walk from the normal watering hole, she wouldn’t run into him. Or anyone else. She unlatched her armor and removed it, then quickly stripped off the padded layer and her bodysuits. The garments, designed to be worn under armor, were the only clothing she had. Luckily, to prevent chafing, she’d been wearing two of them when she’d gone into stasis.

She’d washed the outer bodysuit the day before, so she left it on the bank of the river and brought the inner garment with her into the flowing water. Suppressing a shiver from the chilly early morning temperature, she waded to the deeper water in the middle and quickly submerged herself. Then, surfacing, she swished the suit around in the river to rinse it out. Some sort of soap would be helpful, but the fewer things she requested of the intruders, the better. Working together to bury the Mage Knights was one thing, but she didn’t want to be indebted to the people who were looting her city.

Finished bathing, Ariadne left the river and wrung out the bodysuit, then used it as a towel to dry herself off as well as possible. She waited in the night air for the rest of the water on her body to evaporate, then pulled on her dry bodysuit and padding before reequipping her plate armor.

Carrying the wet bodysuit, she returned to the camp. By the time she made it back, the sun had crested the horizon and everyone was up and about.

Leena, who seemed to be responsible for the group’s provisions, was still away for some reason nobody had bothered to explain to Ariadne, so the morning’s cold camp rations were distributed by Ellerie and the redheaded human woman. Ariadne ignored the elven woman and accepted a plate from the redhead. The woman gave her a quick smile but didn’t attempt to engage her in conversation.

It was difficult to know what was happening around the camp when nobody ever spoke a language Ariadne could understand, and she refused to ask any questions unless absolutely necessary. It had taken her several days to realize that the reason the group wasn’t cooking their meals was simply due to the lack of firewood, thanks to this strange, dead version of Van Kir where nothing grew. Like the human barbarian tribes, their only means of cooking seemed to be over a campfire. Ariadne had tried several of the cookers in North Tower to see if she could get them working, but either the enchantments had failed or the magic that powered the devices had been drained.

She was accustomed to trail rations from her days in training, though, so she accepted her plate without complaint. She glanced around for a spot to eat away from the others, but her attention was drawn to the men, who’d apparently decided to delay their meal.

The war mage who claimed to be a warden, Corec, and the short, bearded man, Boktar, were sparring with Nedley. The boy was wearing a suit of silversteel plate, and the other men were teaching him how to move and fight in the armor.

Ariadne watched the training session, paying close attention to how it differed from what she’d learned. It was obvious they weren’t accustomed to how light silversteel was, or how mobile the young man would be while wearing it. It wasn’t quite as light as Ariadne’s own mirrorsteel plate, but it was close enough that she’d been trained on silversteel while waiting to be accepted into the Mage Knights.

The woman called Sarette joined her, speaking words Ariadne couldn’t understand. She carried a staff-spear in one hand, the shaft made of silversteel and the blade of fortisteel. It looked like standard High Guard equipment, much like the armor Nedley was wearing.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Ariadne said in the language she’d gotten from Corec. “Can you understand me?”

Sarette grimaced. “I no … uhh … speak? I no speak Western. Only little.”

Ariadne sighed, but it had been eight days since she’d used the Necklace of Tongues. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad this time. She gave the other woman a questioning look and held out her hand. Sarette nodded, then grasped her fingers.

Ariadne gasped as the necklace did its work, violently shoving the new language into her head. The pain was as bad as ever, but at least this time her nose didn’t start bleeding.

While she was recovering, Sarette spoke again, but Ariadne still didn’t understand her.

“Not that language,” she said. “Speak this one.”

“You learned the stormborn language? I thought …” Sarette paused, furrowing her brow. “I was trying to talk in trade tongue.”

“I can only learn your language.” These new words felt both familiar and strange at the same time. The vocabulary was different, but the verb forms matched The People’s language.

“Oh! Well, I just asked if you wanted to join in. I could use a sparring partner. They’ll be busy with Nedley for a while.”

“No,” Ariadne said, but then softened. Other than the bluish tinge to her skin and the markings along the side of her face, the woman reminded Ariadne of her own people. “Perhaps another time.”

Sarette nodded. “Of course.”

Ariadne hesitated before speaking again, but the similarities in the languages and the other woman’s appearance were too much for her to ignore.

“Treya says you are of the stormborn?” she asked. “Where do your people come from? I’ve never seen your kind before.”

“Most of us live in Snow Crown, a valley in the Storm Heights, across the sea to the west. I’m not sure if any stormborn has ever come this far east before.”

“What does it mean, this word, stormborn?”

Sarette grinned. “The legends say that Borrisur created us out of storms, and that’s where the name comes from. We were born from the storm.”

Ariadne nodded as the necklace connected the two words together in her mind. “Who is Borrisur?”

“The God of Weather. He protected us from the storms in the Heights, and granted us safe refuge in Snow Crown.”

A god? Or a fable? Ariadne had never heard of any god called Borrisur, but it was impossible to keep track of the hundreds of gods the human tribes made up to explain everyday phenomena. This one’s name seemed familiar, though. Had it been taken from the Chosar language? Ending a name in -sur meant brother, but with an inflection of nobility and honor. In this new language the necklace had given her, it might translate as lordly brother.