You tell yourself that your callous words will be an act of mercy. Urmish will never thrive in Hetch. Your mother does not trust him, and without the full blessing of Yune, she cannot even use him. The new temple will not save him.

But as you start to talk, Urmish cuts you off.

"Maybe they're not the real Stormraiders," he says, veering suddenly back to that topic. "Maybe they're only river pirates. But I hear some of them are dark priests, and others are worse—spell thieves! No lineage at all, though they make the sign. And you must know that they kidnapped Princess Hyranni."

Hyranni, daughter of King Hyras of the Sea Kingdom, vanished from the Great Temple of Mithi last summer. Rumors have blamed everyone from troll bandits to war-mad nymphs to the ghost of Hareetha.

Você se aproxima da borda do poço retangular e olha para baixo. Os trabalhadores estão trabalhando arduamente preparando a fundação do templo. Em meio à sujeira, você vê velhos ídolos recuperados de algum assentamento anterior, figuras de barro toscas que, no entanto, encorajaram a tribo Pine a construir aqui. Mais ídolos de barro estão em uma pilha indistinta ao seu lado.

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"Dizem que ela usa uma máscara dourada e comanda um de seus barcos", diz Urmish. Esse é um boato que você nunca ouviu antes. Você olha de volta para Urmish, tentando avaliar o quanto acreditar nessa afirmação improvável.

And then a scream rises up from down below. You turn to see workers backing away from a circle of disturbed dirt near the old idols. Then three trolls burst out of the earth. They've tunneled into the pit from below! Eyes bright and mad, they slash at the workers with copper knives. More burst out of the tunnel, and more, until there are a dozen trolls down below and panicked workers trying to scramble up the walls of the pit, unable to escape.

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