not healers like the ones we know. They’re cutters. They’re angels in human skins, though not all of them are strong enough to stay anchored to their bodies. Some are, and they stay in the same skins for weeks. There were a few I never saw change. But some of them go through bodies like a soldier goes through gloves.”
“You said they spoke of monsters,” Audric redirected him gently. “What kinds of monsters?”
“I don’t know. They called them by a strange word: cruciata. As far as I can tell, they live in the Deep. And now he’s trying to recreate them, or something like them. He and his healers, they make serums, these vile elixirs. They smell like poison, and all the tunnels and caves underneath the mountains reek of it. And then they…”
Jazan looked up at Audric, silently imploring. “There are dragons too. Dragons.” He laughed a little. “I didn’t believe my own eyes at first, but it’s true: There are still dragons in the world. Ice dragons from Borsvall. Furred collars and everything, just like in all the paintings. And he’s…” Jazan spread out his hands, palms facing up. He looked around the table helplessly, as if desperate for someone to tell him it was all a dream. “He’s making monsters out of them. He cuts them open and stitches them back together. And there are other beasts, too, that his healers play with and sew together with the dragons, or…God help me, I don’t know how they do it. But these beasts, they are abominations.
“And the children… He forces them to forge castings, and he controls their minds while they do it. It’s perverse. It isn’t right. And the castings the children make—some are for themselves, and some are designed to fit the beasts, like a set of armor shared between child and monster, and… Your Majesties, I think he means to make an army of them. Elemental children with their minds under his control, them and their beasts armored in bound castings. I don’t understand how, but… These beasts, they can fling fire just as the children that ride them do. The children shake the earth and bend swords, and so do their beasts, same as any elemental. As if child and beast were one creature, split into two bodies.”
“This is impossible,” muttered the Grand Magister of the Baths, wringing her freckled hands. “You saw wrong.”
“I don’t see wrong.” Jazan wiped his eyes with bandaged fingers. The wounds he had sustained were minimal.
And this disturbed Audric most of all.
“Why did he let you live?” Audric asked.
“He wasn’t even there. Not really. Not in body.” Jazan thumped his chest hard. “Not like this. He was off somewhere else in the world, and his generals were running things in his absence. But I heard him.” Jazan nodded, laughing a little. His tears spilled over. “I heard him. I’m his messenger. He wants you to know what is coming for you.”
“What did he say?” Audric leaned forward. “Do you know where he is?”
“He’s in Patria,” said Ludivine.
Everyone turned to face her. She sat pale and still, her hands clasped on the table. She met Audric’s gaze and held it. “He brought Rielle to Patria. They’re after the saints’ castings. When they left Celdaria, they had three of them. Now, they have four.”
Audric briefly closed his eyes. Of course Rielle would still be searching for the castings—now, perhaps, to open the Gate instead of repair it.
Several people around the table drew in sharp breaths.
“She has Saint Marzana’s shield,” Audric said quietly, remembering. “Saint Grimvald’s hammer.”
“Saint Tokazi’s staff,” Kamayin added. She did not speak of the Obex Rielle had slaughtered to obtain the staff, but Audric saw the memory on her grim face.
“And now, Saint Ghovan’s arrow,” Ludivine concluded, her expression grave.
“And once she has found all seven,” he added, every word heavy on his tongue, “their power may be enough for her to do with the Gate as she pleases.”
A hush fell over the room.
Queen Fozeyah glared at Ludivine. “How do you know they are in Patria?”
She hesitated. “I tried to speak to Rielle. I reached out to her. I…I saw her.”
Shock jolted Audric. “Is she hurt? Is she well?”
“She’s not hurt,” Ludivine said slowly. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”
“Stop speaking in riddles and tell us the truth,” he snapped.
Ludivine’s calm was maddening. “Her connection to the empirium is much stronger now than it was weeks ago. I was stunned to sense the change in her. It was as