Mishtaw’s meeting with Logar and Morn in the village was about as short as it could be. The village leaders didn’t want the meeting to go long in case the villagers’ antagonism towards women lead to something they couldn’t recover from and Mishtaw did the meet more for formality’s sake than anything else, from what I could tell. Though I doubted she was all that thrilled to see all the cut trees, too. There was something inherently wrong about those. And there was the fact that a whole region had been punished when a single was burned—that wasn’t something easily forgotten even if the same rules didn’t apply in the inner valleys.
I could tell Mishtaw was interested by the floating boxes though. They were unique enough from anything we ever used and the fact that they didn’t burn despite sitting lava likely made them similar to what had drawn her to relics in the first place. Things that stood outside common knowledge and that had secrets waiting to be uncovered. Even if the floating boxes’ secret was just that the men had access to special kind of wood and they didn’t need to worry that making use of it would make a goddess mad.
We were about halfway across the massive lake of molten rock when Nine Claws jolted on the edge of my vision. The next moment she was speaking quickly with Malady and Mishtaw while Creed shifted so no one would be able to read their lips.
Prevna and I shared a glance, but given that we weren’t being beckoned over it wasn’t likely we would be filled in right away. I was still tempted to try to slip over to hear what was going on, and I could tell Prevna was too, but there wasn’t exactly a good place to sneak past Creed’s eye line on the floating box.
Prevna still tried to go for it. She was the more experienced light foot between the two of us, but Creed noticed her drifting closer right away. He tapped the massive spear hanging against his back and Prevna made her way back to me as if she hadn’t done anything wrong. Still, that tap meant we were likely in for a sparring session once Creed had a spare moment. He seemed to think that if you were willing to take a risk then you were willing to get into a fight—and if you got caught doing something you shouldn’t then a fight was the natural consequence of failure.
I wasn’t looking forward to it. Creed had a lot to teach when it came to fighting with a spear but he never went easy during our consequence fights. Prevna and I had never beat him even when he took both of us on at once. Normally, he had us flat on our backs in a matter of seconds and we’d have bruises to match. It was…somewhat infuriating that no matter what else I had accomplished my skill never seemed to match up his despite the years I had since first holding a spear as Rawley’s apprentice.
I knew I wasn’t the most talented when it came to weapons fighting or fighting in general. That fell to Breck in our cohort without question, but it also grated to be reminded of my shortcomings when I was still figuring out how to use my strengths in ways that weren’t related to healing.
Prevna practically pressed her side against mine so she could whisper without being overheard. “What do you think that was about?”
I forced my mind to focus on her words and not anything else. “The throne? Do you think Tike and Deamar messed something up?”
Prevna shrugged one shoulder. “It’s possible, but there didn’t seem to be anything they could mess up when we were keeping watch. Unless they managed to break the fire dancers.”
I hoped that wasn’t it. Despite the creepy duality between what they had been like when JIka and I had hidden from them in Steamer’s Fall and how they were in the audience chamber, there was a part of me that didn’t want to see them ruined.
“Do you think it’s another Envoy?”
She frowned. “I hope not.”
I had to agree with her. There was another fight I didn’t want to participate in. I had barely scrapped through the last fight with an Envoy. They didn’t have the same restrictions against killing as we did and with all the artificial boosts they got from the jewelry they wore it was hardly like facing another human. We might have our boons and blessings, but most didn’t help with ending a fight in a decisive, nonlethal manner. Which was fine when it came to the Lady Blue’s monsters, where the restriction didn’t apply, and was absolutely a disadvantage when it came to anyone else. Even with the death bringers only the Peacekeepers got the restriction lifted, so we had been at a disadvantage when they came after us.
But the goddess had Her domains and it common sense not to do anything that might make Her think you were trying to usurp Her authority. And that was also ignoring the fact that She was notoriously finicky about anything that had to do with Her sister, which the Envoys certainly fell under. Best to just keep things simple for now and hope that there wasn’t another Envoy trying to carry away an entire throne at the moment.
We watched as Logar was pulled into the whisper women’s hushed council. He had come to guide us up to the audience chamber even though practically all of us knew the way. Another thing for formality’s sake. At least with his involvement we knew whatever was going on had to do with the inner valleys and not an unexpected development elsewhere.
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Nine Claws had decent number of her cats watching the audience chamber and the area surrounding it, I was sure of that. If something was happening it likely was there and one of her cats had notified her of it like they had when they spotted the monster and rats hunting us when we first entered the valleys.
Logar was sent back out of the group looking more troubled than he ever had. That was when Creed finally motioned us over. Prevna and I slipped past the few villagers that had been brought along with Logar and into the space Mishtaw, Nine Claws, and Malady opened up for us.
Nine Claws spoke first, “The Dawn Crawler is spewing lava on the fire dancers in the audience chamber. Logar insists that this has never happened before and he doesn’t know why the creature would change its ways now. Except for us. Have you done anything?”
Insisting I hadn’t would have been easy. Except that Logar knew we had been to the Night Cave, even if I wasn’t sure if Tike would have told him much more than that. Tike caved easily under pressure, but I doubted he wanted everyone in the village to know he had been in the clutches of their terrible mountain spirit and gotten away. Just like I doubted they would have been so fine with him watching over the throne if they had known.
Nor did I see how giving the entity the stone would result in the other great entity in the valleys, the lizard, going crazy with the fire dancers. Her unwelcome dreams and insistent questions about wishes didn’t seem to have much in common with this new situation either, but I knew I hadn’t done anything else that was likely to cause trouble. My grace period wasn’t even up.
I decided to hedge my bets. “We went to the Night Cave after we took our watch on the throne.”
Mishtaw crossed her arms. “The village leader mentioned that. He said it was dangerous and best to be avoided, but from what I hear this would your second time going to the Night Cave.”
Prevna took the lead, “There’s all these carvings with different representations of death. It’s crazy, but you’d probably like it, Mishtaw.”
I saw the flicker of interest in my mentor’s eyes but she had gotten to know us well enough over the years that she was better than I would like at telling when we were trying to avoid telling the whole story.
“And?” Mishtaw pressed.
Malady broke into our interrogation unexpectedly, eyes narrowed, though it wasn’t to help us. “You mentioned you went there before trying to fulfill a favor for the Lady of Calm Waters.”
“What favor?” Mishtaw definitely wasn’t pleased with that reveal. I wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t like her authority being undercut by my patron or because she had stronger reason to suspect a favor for the Lady of Calm Waters could cause the Dawn Crawler to go on a rampage or some other factor I didn’t know.
I still didn’t want to reveal every little bit of what happened. Didn’t want to admit to most, if any, of it. I might have told Malady about the favor under threat but it still felt like I was sharing a secret I wasn’t supposed to. But I could give them the basic facts since they already knew about some of it and leave everything about dreams and wishes out of it.
So I told them about the fact that Esie had given me the stone so I could give it to a “friend” of the Lady of Calm Waters that didn’t leave the inner valleys and that had long limbs. Mishtaw didn’t let her line of questioning go, however, until she established that on my most recent visit to the cave I managed to give that friend the stone.
Mishtaw sighed when she heard that but it didn’t quite cover up what Nine Claws muttered, “Can never leave anything be.”
Malady asked, “Do you know what the stone was for?”
I shook my head. “I was just supposed to deliver it.”
Everyone was frustrated by the lack of information about both what the Lady of Calm Waters’ favor was meant for and what was going on in the audience chamber, but I didn’t have more information to give and we couldn’t get to the audience chamber any faster than we were.
Mishtaw took charge with her usual no nonsense attitude. “Prevna, Gimley, find the boys that were left to watch the throne and make sure they’re safe. We don’t need more ill blood between the villagers and us. We’ll see about dealing with the Dawn Crawler and the throne.”
It was annoying being placed on Tike and Deamar’s protection detail when there were obviously bigger things happening, but I knew that completely ignoring Mishtaw’s order was the quickest way to only being trusted with watching bags or getting stuck back in the Seedling Palace.
Still, I couldn’t help but ask, “And when they’re safe?”
She looked me dead in the eyes. “Don’t do anything stupid. Keep yourself safe so someone else doesn’t have to risk their neck for you.”
I glowered at the floor but didn’t press further. I wasn’t about to be stuck hiding in bushes if something important was happening, not if I could help.
Prevna slung her arm around my shoulders. “We won’t do anything stupid.”
Mishtaw didn’t look convinced but the conversation fizzled out then and we were sent back to the spot we had claimed along its side, so they could coordinate without us getting any bright ideas about where we might be needed.
As soon as the box pulled up along the shore we headed up the mountainside to the audience chamber as quick as we could go. What we found wasn’t melted fire dancer puddles or even the Dawn Crawler breathing lava all over them. Instead the crawler was curled up around the throne without any signs of it being affected by the power that tried to take my blessing.
And, more eye catchingly, the fire dancers were dancing as if they had never been dead eyed statues. They flowed from one step to the next, weaving around and through each other with intricate steps that weren’t like anything I was used to. As they moved, the fire covering them burned brighter and ash floated to the ground so more and more of the dancers became clear glass.
Then the middle most dancer, all imperfections burned away, crumbled into dust. Another fire dancer moved into its place until that one too crumbled away.
Mishtaw stiffened next to me as we stared at the impossible scene happening in the audience chamber. “It’s a wishing ceremony.”