stone and flesh bodies a mosaic unlike anything I’ve seen outside the paintings in Mystra Dyfan’s rooms. Men, women, children—hundreds of souls, pressed tightly together. Their hands are clasped, their faces drawn, their collective gaze directed at the center of the large space. I’ve never seen such unity and, as an outsider, I take no comfort in it. It’s suffocating.
It’s what I imagine a fox might feel submerged beneath the thawing mountain streams of Blys. Bluefin herring and striped cod swimming, breathing, thriving—drawing life from a realm made just for them.
Life teems, but all the fox can do is drown.
I take a great, shuddering breath just to prove I can.
All the energy in the room is directed at a man infinitely older than Shyne. White light drops through another opening high above, turning his grim form vaporous. He’s more stone than flesh, his rock gray and cobbled like the streets down in the Stack. It covers most of his torso and arms, pebbles spread like age spots across his face. He’s lying on a bed of animal pelts. One on top of the other, so tall Shyne does not have to bend as he approaches.
A fire, low and smoldering, sits not far from the bed. Burning twyl fills the air, making the space feel smaller than it is. A cooking stone has been placed over the flames, water gurgling from a vessel on top. Three women tend to the old man. Crysel sits next to him on the pelt bed, his hand held tightly in hers.
“He won’t change his mind,” she says to Shyne as he approaches.
The man flinches and barks a few short words. His voice is stronger than I expect; the words fly from cave wall to cave wall like the wool-feathered bats of the north. The room shifts collectively and Crysel bows her head low, murmuring words too soft for me to hear.
“I’d learn Shiv if that’s all it took to shut the girl up,” I whisper.
“He doesn’t like them speaking the common tongue,” Kyn says.
Gah, he’s close. I didn’t realize. But we’re pinned in now, the crowd closing around us, pressing nearer to the elder.
Shyne speaks, but it’s in Shiv. Low, respectful tones that tell me he holds the prostrate man in great regard. The elder’s reply is not nearly as civil.
“What’s he saying?” I ask.
“He wants Shyne to honor his promise,” Kyn says.
“What promise?”
“Shyne’s asking him to reconsider. Something about the water being tainted.” Kyn leans forward and I shift so he can move closer. “Oh.”
“What is it?” I ask, following his gaze, trying to understand.
“They’ve dug up some of the Desolation ice. See it there?” The vessel atop the flame—water hissing and spitting over the rim and onto the cooking stone. “The old man thinks it will bring him some kind of cure. He wants to drink it.”
“The waters of Begynd,” I say, curious.
“But Shyne says it’s been cursed by Winter’s magic. It cannot offer life, he’s saying, not until Winter is sent away can the fount flow freely. Shyne’s angry because he says the old man is the one who taught him this. Says he should know better than to look for answers in a desolate place.”
The elder’s eyes have yet to really open, his face balled tight as a fist.
“He says Shyne promised. He insists Shyne honor his vow.”
Shyne leans in now, and I find myself doing the same. But his words are for the elder alone. There’s no hope of us hearing from here.
The elder’s reply is loud. No deference. No respect for the man speaking to him.
I turn to Kyn. “What—”
“He says he’s not afraid of pain. Says he’s the last of the Begynd Shiv. He says that if he dies, the past dies too.”
Shyne chokes now, great tears spilling onto his cheeks as he appeals to the elder.
“Father!” Kyn translates. “You tear at my heart with this sadness. Can you not trust us to carry the past into the future? We will not forget.”
All around us, voices echo Shyne’s words.
Like the fall of rain, their promise—a staggered chorus powerful in its simplicity.
The elder’s eyes snap open, and the sight steals my breath.
“What is it?” Kyn says, as Shyne continues to argue with the old man.
“His eyes,” I say. “They’re sylver like . . .”
“Like yours,” Kyn says.
“But without the kol.”
Shyne turns toward me now, his emotions raw, unveiled. He’s desperately sad, his expression so like Lenore’s when I first came to Drypp’s. She missed her parents in wild, brutal