Zandrue rolled the Pearl between her fingers and stretched out, putting one leg over the arm of the large chair. She’d had no idea the Hall of Knowledge had chairs that were actually a little bit comfortable—other than the ones in Ezmelda’s office.

This was the first time she’d even been allowed in the Council Chamber. It was huge and took up almost an entire floor to itself. There was actually wood panelling on the walls, giving the room a much warmer look than the rest of the Hall of Knowledge. Hundreds of chairs were arranged around the room in two main sections, each angled to face both each other and the third, smaller section of chairs at the front of the room. There, ten chairs stood in a row, and behind them were three larger chairs, the centre one larger still than the other two. Zandrue was lounging in that chair now.

Ezmelda had a frown on her face, but said nothing, so Zandrue stayed put.

Nin-Akna slumped in a chair in one of the larger sections, her head in her hands. She had avoided looking at or talking to Zandrue since that strange case of mistaken identity. No one had given Zandrue much information about what had been going on yet.

Pedrin stood beside Ezmelda, while grumpy old Agernon sat near Nin-Akna. Beside him was another elderly Eloorin woman Zandrue didn’t recognise. There were a few other people spaced about the room, some of whom Zandrue vaguely remembered—all wizards. Corvinian sat beside her.

“Are you going to tell us why you’re here?” Corvinian asked. “Where’s Rudiger?”

Zandrue closed her fist around the Pearl. “One thing at a time. Where’s Felitïa?”

“Imprisoned by Lord Belone,” Ezmelda said.

Zandrue groaned. “He apprehended her again? What was his reason this time?”

“Different Lord Belone,” Corvinian said.

“Feodor Belone died of a suspicious illness,” Ezmelda said. “Danel Belone is lord now.”

Zandrue put her foot down on the floor. “That ass? When did this happen?”

“New Year’s Eve,” Ezmelda said. “You might not have heard while travelling on the road.”

“I...didn’t travel very far on the road. We’ll get to that shortly. Arnor City doesn’t know about this yet. How’s that possible?”

Ezmelda stared at her.

“Arnor City is a long way away,” Pedrin said.

Ezmelda shook her head. “You know better than that, Pedrin. The Church has a way to send messages quickly. They must have been prevented somehow.”

“There’s bad stuff going on in Arnor City now as well,” Zandrue said. “Specifically at the Royal Palace. Possibly a lot worse than Danel Belone taking over here.”

“He’s let Red Knights in,” Ezmelda said. “Apparently, their leader, Mitchal Plavin, is here too.”

“Shit.” There was clearly a coordinated effort going on between the two locations.

“Tell us what’s happening in Arnor City,” Ezmelda said.

“Okay, long story. To start…” She held out her hand and opened it palm up to display the Pearl. “This is the Pearl of Sestin. It’s what got me here. I don’t—”

Agernon leapt to his feet. “Pearl of Sestin? As in the Staff of Sestin?”

Zandrue nodded. “Seems likely.”

“One of the eyes!”

“Also seems likely.”

He grabbed his cane and hobbled forward. “I need to see that.”

Zandrue closed her hand, enclosing the Pearl again. “In due time. I want to know exactly what’s been happening before I give this up to anyone other than Felitïa.”

Agernon slammed his cane down on the floor. “Of course it will go to Felitïa. I’ve been studying the damn Staff it’s part of for her. Having that Pearl will make that study a hell of a lot easier.”

Zandrue sighed. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Agernon. It’s that I don’t trust any of the forces working against us. They’re very resourceful. Now, let me finish my story so I can hear yours.”

“How did you get the Pearl?” Ezmelda asked.

“We should probably start at the beginning,” Zandrue said.

She tried to keep it as brief as possible, although that was difficult given all that had happened. Combined with all the questions everyone had, it took until late in the evening for her to tell them everything, and she still hadn’t learned much of what had happened here—beyond a few comments in response to what had happened in Arnor City.

“Dyle tried to escape. There was a struggle and we got hold of him. I found the Pearl on him. He tried to grab it, and…”

She’d found herself lying face first in a snow bank at night. She rolled into a sitting position, looking around for Dyle—possibly Quilla and Gabriella as well, although she was pretty certain she’d just been transported by the Pearl, which meant she was possibly a long way from them right now.

There was no sign of Quilla or Gabriella, but Dyle lay in the snow a few feet away, Quilla’s knife still protruding from his neck. The snow around him was red with his blood.

Zandrue knelt beside him and checked his vitals. Dead.

Good riddance. She certainly wouldn’t miss him.

She made a quick search of his body. One of the other pouches on his belt contained coins, which she added to her own. It wasn’t a fortune, but any money could be useful. Who knew where she was?

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Another pouch contained a small crystal on a chain. The crystal was long and thin. One end—the one opposite the chain—glowed ever so slightly. There was a tiny pinpoint of light inside it.

She held it up by the chain close to her face to peer more closely at it, but as she did, the crystal turned of its own own accord to lie horizontally in the air. Was it pointing at something? If so, it was pointing vaguely ahead of her to her left.

Around her were hills of snow. A short distance to her left was a road—more just a trail of flattened snow, but it probably followed the path of an actual road. She jumped to her feet and trudged over to the road. This was definitely not anywhere on the Palace grounds.

Down the road were the flickering lights of a small village. That wasn’t Arnor City either, so she’d travelled quite some distance.

Flickering lights.

She looked up. It had only just occurred to her that, while it was fully dark out here—stars even twinkled in the cloudless sky—there had still been light left at the Palace. That meant either she’d been unconscious for a few hours—which would probably have frozen her to death—or she’d travelled a considerable distance east. Probably at least halfway across the continent.

Shit.

This was inconvenient.

She still had the Pearl though. Maybe she could figure out how to use it and get herself back.

Or she could follow where the crystal was pointing.

Perhaps, first, she should find out where she was, so she set off along the road towards the town up ahead. The crystal was pointing that direction anyway. By the time she reached the town, she recognised it: Cromda, a town a couple days travel west of Quorge.

So she’d travelled almost all the way to Quorge. Holy shit. This Pearl thing was astounding. There was so much that could be done with it. No wonder Dyle and his friends had run circles around them for so long.

Quorge was convenient though. Incredibly so. She could head there and find Felitïa. Maybe Felitïa could help her figure out how to use the Pearl. More importantly, Felitïa was supposed to have the Pearl—at least, according to Quilla’s mysterious Isyar. But even if that Isyar had lied, Felitïa was still probably the best person to have the Pearl. She was certainly the only person Zandrue would ever trust with that kind of power. Zandrue wasn’t even sure she’d trust herself with it.

No. She definitely wouldn’t trust herself with it.

She found an inn in Cromda. Even with Dyle’s money, she didn’t have a lot on her, unfortunately, so she decided to risk a bit of gambling at a local tavern. That worked out reasonably well, except she spent all night in the tavern, didn’t end up staying at the inn, and was too drunk to travel the next day. All the while, whenever she checked the crystal, it continued to point in an eastwards direction.

The day after, she set out at first light along the road to Quorge. She turned back an hour later when it became clear a blizzard was coming in. Oh, how wonderful it was to be back in blasted north-eastern Arnor. Fucking weather. Fucking Belone province. Why did people live here anyway?

She set out once more the next day. No blizzard, but the road was piled so high with snow that a two-day journey became four days. The crystal continued to point east—towards Quorge—and its light was starting to get a little brighter.

She did finally make it to Quorge. The crystal now pointed in the direction of the noble quarter, perhaps towards the palace. Though for all Zandrue knew, it might have been pointing at something miles past the palace. The light was quite a bit brighter now, though.

Travelling to the palace was not what she felt was the best idea right then, so instead, she went straight to Agernon’s home, only to find there was just a pile of rubble there. “I want to know what happened there, by the way,” she told Agernon.

Agernon harrumphed.

“Then I came here,” she concluded.

“That was awesome,” Corvinian said.

Zandrue grinned. “Yeah, it kind of was, wasn’t it?” And she hadn’t embellished any of the story either. Well, not much of it anyway.

Then they told her what had happened here. Except their story was mostly second-hand since Felitïa wasn’t here and Nin-Akna was not in much of a condition to tell it. She could make a pretty good guess now where the crystal was pointing, though.

Zandrue stood up and walked over to Nin-Akna. “Hey.”

Nin-Akna didn’t look at her. “Hey.”

“You know, you don’t need to be embarrassed about the hallucination thing. It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Let’s hope Jorvan gets here soon.”

“Yeah, let’s hope.”

Zandrue patted her on the back, and Nin-Akna finally looked at her, glaring. Zandrue back away a bit. “Sorry.”

Nin-Akna went back to looking away.

Zandrue clapped her hands. “Right. First things first. We need a plan to rescue Felitïa. Second, we need a plan to defend this place when the Bloods and Belone’s forces come after it in two weeks. I don’t think we can rely on Jorvan getting here in that time. He had a long journey to make and an even longer one back. If he gets here, that’s an added bonus, but we can’t depend on it. We need to plan assuming he won’t be here to help. I think we should split into two groups: one focused on getting Felitïa out, the other setting up defences here. Agernon, Corvinian’s descriptions of your home’s defences sound pretty potent. Can you do the same thing here?”

Agernon laughed. “In two weeks? I had fifty years to set up things in that place and it was a fraction the size of this place. It wasn’t even the size of this room.”

Zandrue flashed him a smile. “How about something similar? Doesn’t have to be the same scale.”

Agernon groaned, but nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Perfect.” Zandrue looked around the room. She didn’t know much about the wizards here. She probably should have interacted with them more when she was young. However, she could guess most of them would rather work on defending the Hall of Knowledge. That was fine. The Hall needed more people on it, and rescuing Felitïa was better with fewer. “Nin-Akna, if you weren’t so tired, I’d have you with me setting Felitïa free.”

“If I weren’t so tired,” Nin-Akna said, “I’d’ve rescued her already.”

“I don’t doubt it. For now, it’s probably best if you stay here.”

“Probably.”

Corvinian leapt up. “What about me?”

“You’re with me, boy,” Agernon said. “I’ll need your help.”

Corvinian frowned for a moment, but then smiled. “Okay.”

Zandrue addressed everyone else. “The rest of you will work on the defence here, except one. I want one volunteer to help me spring Felitïa.”

Ezmelda raised her hand. “I’ll help.”

Zandrue raised an eyebrow. “All right. Now we’ve got the broad outline, we need to figure out the specifics. Suggestions?”