Darkness tightened around Dorri’s consciousness. Relief but also nausea churned in her throat. Echoes rang out from an impossible distance, voices and footfalls bouncing off the walls. The world tipped, and she fell.

Or thought she fell, but there was no impact. Or there was, but it was gentle. Her back settled against a surface with give, not the cold stone floor.

Cot. They laid me on one of the cots.

Dorri blinked against the pinhole effect around her vision. The room, now at a lower angle, gradually swam into view. Cots, cozy chairs, table. Darkening blood stained the stone floor and seeped into the rug’s edge. Of their attackers remained only cold hearth and bare wall where the carving had initially been. A tall, bulky figure prowled the room’s perimeter.

Arra.

“I didn’t know you could do that.” Lora’s voice. Close by. Dorri fixed on it and used it to draw herself nearer to full consciousness.

The priestess stood near Dorri’s head, only the blue of her handkerchief hem skirt visible unless Dorri moved her head. Dorri stared, inanely drawn to notice the loops and tassels of multi-colored threads and scarves tied among Lora’s blue skirts. A tiny token dangled from Lora’s waist, a circle of four colored feathers woven together, red and blue, yellow and green.

“I hadn’t really needed to until now.” Booth. His voice was closer yet. Lower. Sitting on the cot beside her, Dorri realized, although she couldn’t feel his proximity.

Experimentally, Dorri turned her head, just a little. No pain exploded behind her eyes or anywhere else. The swimming darkness which had tried to take her did not return.

Booth sat on the cot’s very edge, his head bowed as he methodically tugged his gauntlet onto his hand.

The hand he’d used to heal her. A panic of sorts squeezed in Dorri’s throat.

I owe them, now. I let down my guard and needed them, and now I owe them.

As if she didn’t owe enough already.

“Good trick to have if you’re going to go charging in places and putting other people at risk.”

So fierce and raw was this voice that Dorri didn’t immediately recognize it. Only when Nildeyr’s bright hair and green cloak wavered at the edge of her vision could Dorri place it. Nildeyr’s eyes glittered, and fury roiled across his freckled face.

“Now doesn’t seem the time, Nildeyr.” Lora’s skirts rustled as she strode forward.

“Oh, but for him to take me to task, that’s fine. At least I only risked my own life.”

“Now is not the time.” Lora’s musical voice shifted toward discord, a note too sharp here, too quick there.

She’s worried. About the two of them fighting?

“He’s not wrong.”

The surface Dorri lay on shifted as Booth stood. At his full height, clad in chain mail and gleaming shield, he stepped directly in front of Nildeyr.

“I apologize. To you, to Dorrias. To all of you. My duties include getting all of you out of here again safely. I’ll try to do a better job of that.”

Booth had mostly blocked Dorri’s view of Nildeyr. All she saw of him was one clenched fist. Even after Booth apologized, Nildeyr’s knuckles turned no less white.

“Anything?” Karon asked quietly and off to the side.

“No.” Arra ceased her prowling of the room and took up a post to Karon’s heel. Her sword, however, remained in her hand. She glowered at the corners of the room as if the walls themselves might attack them.

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Not a foolish assumption, under the circumstances.

“It should be midday by now.” Karon’s head ticked toward where Lora and Booth and Nildeyr stood beside Dorri’s cot. “We’ve accomplished a great deal in a short number of hours. Time spent in contemplating the purpose of this place and the Scourge’s interest in it would not be time ill spent.”

Karon glanced past the other three and directly at Dorri, in a way which was not subtle whatsoever.

Defiance warmed Dorri’s blood and sent the lingering chill in her center into full flight. She shoved her elbows under her, intending to sit, to stand, to do anything but lie where she was, dependent on everyone else.

This is not who I am. I don’t need anyone.

Lora immediately swooped in. Dorri braced to fight the other woman when she tried to make Dorri lie back again. But Lora’s hand grasped Dorri’s elbow, and instead of forcing Dorri down, she helped her to sit.

“The wound has been mended.” Lora stated, once more musical and light of voice. “You may feel some after-effects of the magic—and the blood loss—for a short time. There’s no harm in taking a moment to catch your breath while we sort things out, surely?”

Dorri’s face heated, but at least Lora looked at Dorri and addressed her directly. Booth and Nildeyr stepped back from their clash and turned their heads toward Dorri, too, but Booth’s frown indicated he was looking inward, and Nildeyr seemed preoccupied with casting icy glances toward Booth.

The two of them were squaring off, it suddenly seemed to Dorri. Little wonder there—they were as different as two men could be.

And somehow Dorri felt stuck between.

I didn’t ask to be.

Irritation flickered, further clarifying Dorri’s vision and driving back lingering nausea.

I have my own problems to deal with. I didn’t ask to be made part of theirs.

Lora was waiting, eyebrows raised slightly, for Dorri to say what she wanted to do. Dorri took a breath and nodded.

“Yes. I’d like to just sit a moment, please.”

Lora nodded and stood, and that was that. Dorri stayed where she was, letting her breath flow in and out evenly while she waited for her body to catch up to her determination.

“The attackers seemed to be elemental in nature.” Karon glanced around the room, with its chairs and beds. “Given the arrangements here, I’d even guess that possibly they once held a human form.”

Shining Ones are magical beings which began as mostly energy. Over time, many evolved into more physical forms as they came into contact with other physical beings. They are generally inclined toward one or two particular types of elemental energy.

The narrator stopped there, but Dorri recalled the combat announcements.

Karon’s comment went without answer for another awkward moment longer. Eventually, Booth haltingly asked, “Shining Ones, then? Flamis and Terberis?”

“That would be my guess.”

Booth frowned. “If they were human before, they didn’t look human anymore.”

“No. Something must have prompted them to revert to their energy nature. Simply captivity, perhaps, if they’d been held here long enough.”

Another longer pause fell while Booth stared at Karon. Dorri was reminded of a student struggling to work through an academic problem and come up with something to say that wouldn’t annoy his professor.

“And when we walked in,” Booth finally said, placing the words together with obvious care, “the Shining Ones just threw together whatever physical form they could come up with on the spot?”

“Something like that.”

“So, you don’t think the Scourge were behind this?”

Karon tipped his head at Booth’s question. “The Scourge didn’t seem to have disturbed the door. I’d theorize they bypassed this room for expediency’s sake. They didn’t need to open this door and enter this room, and so they didn’t.”

“A lesson there, maybe.” Nildeyr didn’t lilt or seem to even pretend at playfulness. A dark bitterness underscored his words.

Booth’s head jerked like he’d heard Nildeyr, but he kept looking at Karon. “The Scourge knew exactly what they were after here, then. And went directly to it.”

“A sound assumption. We’ve seen nothing yet for which that relic of yours might be useful. Perhaps we’ll find more answers down the lift. Lor’ariel?”

Karon turned, abruptly, and looked directly at Lora, who was still standing beside Dorri’s cot. Lora merely tipped her head and gazed back. To Dorri, it seemed as if Karon were trying to ask some unspoken question.

If so, Lora either wasn’t hearing it or was choosing to ignore it.

Karon side-stepped gracefully but firmly more directly into Lora’s line of vision. He reminded Dorri of a teacher attempting to get the attention of a recalcitrant student.

“I asked earlier if the symbolism we’ve been seeing seemed familiar to anyone.” Karon waited for Lora’s gaze to follow him. “You began to reply, but we were interrupted.”

Lora glanced toward the hearth, where the repeating pattern of shapes and lines they’d been seeing throughout the ruins featured on the mantel above the now-cold hearth. She stepped closer and lifted the lantern.

“The triangles are symbols for the elements, depending on the direction of the point and whether a line crosses through it—fire, air, water, earth.” Lora tapped a fingertip against what Dorri presumed were the matching symbols as she spoke. “The matronly figure of the statue in the entry combined with the elemental symbols suggests perhaps this shrine was dedicated to Lifebringer.”