singing in its wake.
Yrene streamed her fingers along them, too.
A wave of sound answered.
You must enter where you fear to tread.
Yrene walked on, the bells ringing, ringing, ringing. Still she followed the sound of her own bell, that sweet, clear song beckoning onward. Pulling her.
That darkness still dwelled in him; in his wound. They had beaten it so far back, yet it remained. Yesterday, he’d told her things that broke her heart, but not the entire story.
But if the key to defeating that shred of Valg blackness did not lie in facing the memories alone, if blind blasts of her magic did nothing …
Yrene followed the silver bell’s ringing to where it halted:
An ancient corner of the room, the chains rusted with age, some of the bells green from oxidation.
Here, the sound of her bell went silent.
No, not silent. But waiting. Humming against the corner of stone.
There was a small bell, hanging just by the end of the chain. So oxidized that the writing was nearly impossible to read.
But Yrene read the name there.
Yafa Towers
She did not feel the hard bite of stone as she fell to her knees. As she read that name, the date—the date from two hundred years ago.
A Towers woman. A Towers healer. Here—with her. A Towers woman had been singing in this room during the years Yrene had dwelled here. Even now, even so far from home, she had never once been alone.
Yafa. Yrene mouthed the name, a hand on her heart.
Enter where you fear to tread …
Yrene peered up into the darkness of the Womb overhead.
Feeding. The Valg’s power had been feeding off him …
Yes, the darkness above seemed to say. Not a drip sounded; not a bell chimed.
Yrene gazed down at her hands, lying limp at her sides. Summoned forth the faint white glow of her power. Let it fill the room, echo off the rock in silent song. Echo off those bells, the voices of thousands of her sisters, the Towers voice before her.
Enter where you fear to tread …
Not the void lurking within him. But the void within herself.
The one that had started the day those soldiers had gathered around her cottage, had hauled her out by her hair into the bright grasses.
Had Yafa known, here in this chamber so far beneath the earth, what happened that day across the sea? Had she watched the past two months and sent up her ancient, rusted song in silent urging?
They weren’t bad men, Yrene.
No, they were not. The men he’d commanded, trained with, who had worn the same uniform, bowed to the same king as the soldiers who had come that day …
They were not bad men. People existed in Adarlan worth saving—worth fighting for. They were not her enemy, had never been. Perhaps she’d known that long before he’d revealed it in the oasis yesterday. Perhaps she had not wanted to.
But the thing that remained inside him, that shred of the demon who had ordered it all …
I know what you are, Yrene said silently.
For it was the same thing that had dwelled inside her these years, taking from her, even as it sustained her. A different creature, but still one and the same.
Yrene spooled her magic back inside herself, the glow fading. She smiled up at the sweet darkness above. I understand now.
Another drop of water kissed her brow in answer.
Smiling, Yrene reached out a hand to her ancestor’s bell. And rang it.
54
Chaol awoke the next morning and could barely move.
They’d repaired his room, added extra guards, and by the time the royals at last returned from the dunes at sundown, all was in order.
He didn’t see Yrene for the rest of that day, and wondered if she and the Healer on High had indeed found something of worth in that scroll. But when dinner came and she still hadn’t appeared, he sent Kadja to ask Shen for a report.
Shen himself had returned—blushing a bit, no doubt thanks to the beauty of the servant girl who’d led him here—and revealed that he’d made sure word was received from the Torre that Yrene had returned safely and had not left the tower since.
Still, Chaol had debated calling for Yrene when his back began to ache to the point of being unbearable, when even the cane couldn’t help him hobble across the room. But the suite was not safe. And if she began to stay here, and Nesryn returned before he could explain—
He couldn’t get the thought out of his mind. What he’d