Leena met with the Senshall brothers and the concubine, Renny, at Varsin Senshall’s opulent home in Tyrsall. She waited silently while the investors read through the letters from Ellerie and Marco.

Varsin frowned down at the page he held in his hand. “The whole idea behind this expedition was to link the Senshall Trading Company to finding one of the lost cities. How long does she want to wait?”

“Does it matter?” Burton asked. “We can’t risk offending the Terevassian royal family—certainly not over something so trivial. Let her do what she wants. We need to talk about the deal she’s proposing. We’d be giving up over half of our profit. How do we know it’s worth it?” He picked up the silversteel breastplate Leena had brought and flipped it over in his hands, examining it from all angles. Setting it down, he grabbed the fortisteel dagger and peered along its edge.

“We’ll have to try those out,” Varsin said. “Marco seems to think they’re worth the effort.”

“Even if they are, I’m not eager to lose out on over three hundred gold from my shares. Especially when the rights in Cordaea have already been sold. Cordaea is my territory.”

Varsin waved that off. “We’d just have to give you a third of the profits from the other regions. I’m not worried about that. But should the three of us go in on it alone, or should we sell it to the company instead? We’d have to split it with Father and Tobin and the others.”

“They’ll want us to pay cargo rates anyway. And if the company pays for it, then we don’t have to.”

Even though the two men were speaking in trade tongue, Leena was having a hard time following the thread of the conversation.

“But that means we’ll lose control,” Varsin said. “Father will want to make all the decisions. And you’d have to convince him yourself—you know he won’t listen if I’m the one who suggests it.”

Burton grunted. “Without any real numbers, we’re just guessing. We don’t even know what the raw materials will cost.”

“Ellerie and Marco are working on estimates for the materials,” Leena volunteered. “I can bring the details the next time I come.”

The trader nodded.

“Renny?” Varsin said. “How do you feel about it? This whole expedition was your idea.”

“I’m not sure,” the girl admitted. She pushed a small cloth bag to the center of the table, the coins inside clinking together. “They’ve paid back everything we loaned them, and brought us the swords and the necklace. That’s already well beyond what I was hoping for. The money … I don’t know what I’d do with that much money. If you think it’s worth spending some of it on this, I’ll agree to it.”

Varsin nodded, pursing his lips as he thought.

Burton turned to Leena, peering intently. “What do you think? Should we pay for it ourselves, sell it to the company, or try to sell it to someone else for a larger profit?”

Leena wet her lips nervously. She’d never negotiated a business deal beyond haggling with a customer at the bakery. She was only supposed to be transporting messages back and forth. “I … umm … Lady Hildra paid a thousand gold for the rights in Cordaea. She’s a mage and a blacksmith. I think the others trust her judgement.”

“Cordaea is one continent,” Varsin pointed out. “We’d have most of Aravor and Vestath. And more, if we ever expand our operations beyond our current regions.”

“But we’d have to hire a wizard,” Burton said. “That’ll cut into the profit. And what’s to stop him from taking what he learns and going into business for himself?”

Renny spoke up again. “Lady Ellerie suggests separating out the work,” she said, holding up the last page of the letter. “Two wizards, one for each spell, and a third person who knows the formulas. That way, one person alone can’t steal the knowledge.”

“I suppose that might work. Leena, when do they need our answer?”

“Not until they arrive in Tyrsall.”

“Good. That will give us time to test these things out.”

Leena nodded and stood. “Do you have any messages for me to take back?”

“Wait!” Renny said. “You promised when you came back, you’d stay long enough to tell us about the expedition!”

“Well … I …” Leena hesitated. She wanted to be polite, but it was hard to find anything in common with the three wealthy merchant traders.

“Please? Treya and Razai get to go out and have all the fun exploring while I stay home, but you can at least tell me what it was like.”

“I want to hear more too,” Varsin said. “The letters don’t really say much. You should join us for supper.”

Leena gave in. “I’ll stay.” There were certainly plenty of stories she could tell them about the trip.

“You should come, Burton,” Varsin said. “Get away from home for the evening.”

The other man sighed. “Sure, why not?” He sounded tired, and had dark circles under his eyes.

Renny grinned and clapped her hands together. “I’ll talk to Kelsa and the cook and get it all set up.”

#

Ariadne finished lacing the high boots, then faced the mirror to see how her new outfit looked. Among the other clothing she’d purchased, Sarette and Treya had convinced her she needed something she could wear without armor. It had taken the tailor five days to finish the work.

It was modeled after a High Guard dress uniform. A black vest with gold laces worn over a white blouse; pants—real pants, not leggings—tucked into the high boots; and a long, dark blue coat with copper buttons and buckles, meant to be worn open. She also wore a new, matching sword belt around her waist. While she already had a belt designed to accompany her mirrorsteel plate, it didn’t fit well when worn without the armor.

The new clothing was acceptable, Ariadne grudgingly acknowledged. It didn’t quite match how she’d seen it in her mind, but she wasn’t enough of an artist to sketch out what she’d imagined. She’d had to get the Nysan language from Josip just so she could speak to the shopkeeper.

The outfit was more formal than anything the others wore on a regular basis, though Sarette had something similar, and Ellerie and Katrin both owned nicer clothing they didn’t wear while on the road. Treya, despite her obvious beauty, only wore plain gray tunics and loose pants, as if she was trying to direct attention away from herself. And, strangely, she never wore shoes, claiming they made it harder for her to fight.

Ariadne had paid for the clothing out of her share of the money the group had looted from their dead enemies. All of the tailoring work combined had cost just twenty-two pieces of silver, which, according to Treya, was slightly over half the value of a single gold coin. That suggested the money would last for a while, though that was partly because Ariadne wasn’t paying for her own food or lodging. Once they reached Tir Sal, she’d have to live off of the remainder—plus her shares of the expedition’s profits, which she had mixed feelings about. It seemed wrong to receive money because of her people’s disappearance from their home, but what good would it have done to just leave everything lying around in an abandoned city?

Sighing, she turned away from the mirror. The money might help her find her people, but she had no idea where to start looking. Sarette seemed almost like one of the Chosar, but she insisted the stormborn had come about more recently. Corec and Ellerie thought Ariadne most resembled a people called the seaborn, but she hadn’t encountered one yet. If the Chosar themselves still lived, nobody seemed to have any knowledge of their whereabouts.

Ariadne had hoped to find some sort of clue in Tir a Tir, but Aencyr bore little resemblance to the paintings and illusions she’d seen of the place. The best choice she could think of was to accompany the group across the ocean to Aravadora. She could investigate Tir Sal and then travel north and explore the remains of Tir Navis. Or perhaps she would travel west with Corec. He was a warden, and even if the wardens had betrayed The People, Ariadne was finding it hard to ignore her upbringing.

There was a knock at the door, and she opened it to find Ellerie on the other side. The elven woman’s eyes widened when she saw what Ariadne was wearing, but she didn’t comment.

“Hildra would like to meet you if you’re still interested in speaking to her,” Ellerie said. “She offered to come to the inn, but she’s well known and I didn’t want to draw any attention here. Plus, I thought you might want to see more of the city.”

“Now?” Ariadne asked.

“We can send her a messenger if you’d rather do it later, but if you’re still thinking of coming with us, it has to be today or tomorrow. We’re leaving the day after that.”

“I should change first,” Ariadne said, glancing at the pile of plate armor she’d left at the foot of the bed.

“You don’t need armor in the city, but bring your sword so she can see what mirrorsteel looks like. We haven’t tried to create it since the components are so expensive.”

Ariadne nodded and accompanied Ellerie out of the inn to a horse-drawn carriage that was already waiting for them.

#

It took nearly an hour to reach Hildra’s manor house, north through the city and then across the river. None of the buildings along the way were constructed of shaped stone—even the ones with domed roofs. The Chosar wouldn’t have attempted anything like that using just natural engineering. How had humans managed it?

At Hildra’s home, a human footman helped them out of the carriage. Another escorted them inside the house, where they were greeted by a dwarven man who introduced himself as a majordomo. He spoke in trade tongue, but majordomo wasn’t a word Ariadne had learned yet. The man instructed a dwarven maid to escort them to Hildra’s study. Other servants could be seen going about their day, but when they noticed the visitors, they hurried out of sight.

In the study, a dwarven woman was sitting in a cushioned chair near a window, reading. When she saw them, she rose and set her book down, greeting Ellerie with a nod before turning to Ariadne. She glanced over her face and her pointed ears, her new clothing, and the sword that hung at her side, but waited until the maid left before speaking. “Welcome to my home,” she said. “Thank you for coming. I am called Hildra these days, though I’ve gone by other names. Your name is Ariadne, yes?”

“Yes, Warden,” Ariadne said carefully in trade tongue. She wasn’t comfortable with the language yet.

Hildra seemed to be waiting for her to say something else, but when she didn’t, the dwarven woman spoke again. “Ellerie asked me to try to remember what I could about the Chosar people. I’m afraid it’s not much. My library was destroyed eight hundred years ago.”

Ariadne frowned. “I don’t know these words. Please to talk with slowness.”

“You should use the necklace,” Ellerie said in Eastern. “I already told her about it.”

Ariadne hesitated. She’d used the necklace twice in one day before—once to speak to the tailor, then again with Treya so she could return to speaking Eastern. The resulting headache had laid her out in bed for hours. If she used the necklace with Hildra, she’d have to try to get by on trade tongue alone for a day or two if she wanted to avoid that. There was little choice, though, so she nodded.

Ellerie explained the process to Hildra, who held her hand out and waited. Ariadne got it over with as quickly as she could. When the worst of the pain had passed, she opened her eyes and nodded.

“I can speak to you now,” she said in the dwarven language. It was harsh and guttural, but had a strange sense of familiarity.

“Such an odd sensation,” Hildra replied, rubbing her temples. “I believe there are wizards in Vestath who can cast a similar spell, but I’ve never experienced it for myself before. As I was saying, I don’t remember much about the Chosar, but I’ll tell you what I can. May I ask you some questions in return?”

Yet another person wanting to know more than they could tell her, but Ariadne had given up on feeling angry about it. The anger hadn’t accomplished anything.

“If you wish,” she said. “Do you know what happened to my people? Why they left Van Kir? Where they went after?”

“I can’t give a precise answer, but I’ll tell you what I know,” Hildra said. “Scholars who’ve heard of the Chosar usually consider them to be one of the tribes among the first peoples, which is just a way to informally refer to different groups that existed a long time ago. Not many historians have heard of the Burning, but from the name, I suspect there was a large fire—most likely somewhere here in Cordaea. Maybe that’s what happened to the tershaya forests you told Ellerie about. In any case, there was a long period where little written material was produced, and the label of first peoples isn’t applied to any groups appearing after that time. The Chosar themselves are usually thought to be a human tribe, or perhaps an elven offshoot, or even stoneborn.”

“We are our own people,” Ariadne pointed out.

“I can see that, though is it possible you’re related to the seaborn?”

“I’ve never met any seaborn,” Ariadne said. “Is it true that Irisis created them from the ocean? The new gods didn’t exist in my time.” At least not as you know them, she added silently. Sarette had told her the story of the seaborn, which paralleled the story of how Sarette’s own people had come to be.

“Sometimes a legend is just a legend,” Hildra said. “I suspect the origins of the seaborn are rather more mundane, just as I suspect that my own people were not birthed from the stone itself. As for the new gods, are they truly new? Or did we simply learn of their existence more recently?”

Ariadne nodded, but didn’t try to explain who the gods actually were. What if the new wardens thought they could do the same thing? She didn’t know Hildra well enough to trust her.

Ellerie’s gaze darted back and forth between the two of them as she tried to follow along, a growing look of exasperation on her face. It was satisfying to see someone else have trouble understanding the conversation for a change.

Hildra continued, “The other thing we know—though only because it’s been passed down by earlier wardens—is that the people who we were meant to protect disappeared after the Burning. The story doesn’t say they died, but only that they scattered or vanished. Were the Chosar the people who were protected by the wardens?”

“Yes.”

“Protected from what?”

“Demons. The original wardens were chosen during the First Demon War. Or, at least, that’s what our histories say.”

Hildra stared off into the distance. “Ellerie told me about your demon wars, but demons no longer cross over in large numbers.” She sighed. “I guess it’s true that we don’t have a purpose anymore. I was right, but I was hoping …” She shook her head. “No matter.”

“The wardens took on other responsibilities over time,” Ariadne said. “But why do demons no longer wage war on the world?” Neither Ellerie or Bobo had been able to provide an answer.

The dwarven woman shrugged. “I don’t know. Could it be that your wardens stopped them permanently?”

That hadn’t been the reason given for the ritual, but the reason given had obviously been a lie. By turning themselves into whatever it was they’d become, had the wardens prevented later wars? It was possible. But then, it was also possible that the demons had held to Captain Hera’s armistice. Still, regardless of the outcome, could it be that the wardens hadn’t intended to betray The People after all? Maybe it had all just been some sort of misunderstanding. That seemed like such a weak thing to hope for, but any sort of hope was better than none.

Hildra didn’t wait for an answer. “Ellerie mentioned that you said the Chosar built the Tirs,” she said. “A long time ago, I owned two books that survived the Burning. They suggested it was an alliance of different peoples that built the great cities, and then the Chosar drove the others away.”

Ariadne scowled at the woman. “Your books were wrong,” she said flatly. “It was the Chosar who brought civilization to the world.” She was keenly aware she was lecturing a warden, but plunged forward anyway. “Humans and elves are primitives. Were primitives. Elves live in trees! Humans have trouble building anything more complicated than a tent or a mud hut! We had to protect them, both from the demons and from themselves. They had no part in building the Tirs.”

“My apologies,” Hildra said. “It’s certainly possible my sources weren’t accurate. Unfortunately, they were destroyed so long ago I don’t remember all the details.”

“What about your people?” Ariadne asked. “You weren’t in Van Kiradaea when the Chosar lived here. Did you come to take our lands after we’d fled?”

“No one knows where we came from, beyond the old stories about being born from the stone. Our earliest surviving written histories were from right here, in the Skotinos Mountains. That was at least four thousand years ago, but we can’t say exactly when because the calendars have changed so much. Our own histories don’t mention the Burning, so it must have happened before we came about, or before we learned how to preserve our writings.”

Ariadne nodded. The dwarves had likely taken advantage of what the Chosar had left behind. Just before the end of the war, construction had begun on a new underground city in the mountains, along with an underground passage between the mountains and Tir Yadar. The new city, meant to be as impregnable as Tir Yadar once it was finished, would have offered a second bastion in the fight against the demons, as well as a safe place of refuge for those fleeing from the destruction of the aboveground cities.

“You’ve mentioned both Van Kir and Van Kiradaea,” Hildra said. “Are they the same place?”

“No. Van Kir is the first land of the Chosar. The first kingdom. We spread out from there. Van Kiradaea is the continent, The Place of Van Kir. You call it Cordaea.”

Ellerie spoke up then, in halting Stoneborn. “What of … lands … other?” the elven woman attempted, then shook her head in irritation and switched to trade tongue. “What about other continents? Are there places the Chosar could have gone?”

Hildra started to reply to her, then switched back to Stoneborn and spoke to Ariadne instead. “Did you understand her?”

“Well enough,” Ariadne said.

“I’ve spent most of my life in Cordaea. I’m sure Ellerie and Corec can tell you more about Aravor than I could, but I’ve traveled a bit in Vestath, and I visited western Ewori once. I’ve never been to Cetos.”

“Have you seen anything of my people?”

“No, but there’s more out there than any one person can ever learn. I went to Ewori to investigate a region where magic doesn’t work right, but did you know there’s a nation of giant humans there? The men are seven feet tall. And in Vestath, people talk about the sunborn. Nobody will admit to having met one, but they all claim to know someone who has.”

“Sunborn?”

“Supposedly they live deep in a desert somewhere. I’m afraid that’s all I know. I’m not sure if they even exist or if they’re just a story.”

“I don’t think my people would live in a desert,” Ariadne said. Though they might if they’d built another underground city—it was something to look into eventually. “You didn’t mention Donvar.” There were six continents, but the dwarven woman had only listed five. The necklace didn’t provide a translation for the name.

Hildra wrinkled her brow. “Where is Donvar?”

“Far to the west.”

“If it’s farther west than Pado, you should ask the seaborn. The storms are too rough for any ships but theirs to get through. There aren’t any maps of that area.”

The necklace translated Pado as Paraido. “Do you mean the big island west of Aravor?” Ariadne asked.

“Yes, the seaborn homeland.”

The navy’s initial explorations had indicated that Paraido was uninhabited, which suggested the seaborn had arrived later.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“There are so many stories in the world, but most are just fables,” Hildra said. “I can’t think of any that sound like your people, but how could I say for sure? I don’t leave Bancyra very often, you see. I wish I knew more.”

“It’s enough,” Ariadne said. “It’s been helpful.” The task ahead of her seemed daunting, maybe futile, yet she found herself feeling optimistic for the first time.

“It has?” Hildra sounded truly puzzled.

“There will always be somewhere else to look,” Ariadne told her.

The seaborn and the stormborn. Tir Sal, Tir Navis, and the rest of Aravadora. Thedan and Ephrenia, the Mage Knights who’d managed to escape from the stasis pods. Paraido and the region farther west. Donvar, if The People had managed to chase off the scourlings. The sunborn in the Vestathi desert. The old wardens—the new gods—if Ariadne could figure out a way to talk to them. And then, perhaps, on to lands that even the Chosar knew little about.

Maybe she would never find what she was looking for.

But maybe she would.