worked for months just to produce this much.” And he shows us the vial. “It’s small enough to fit in a pocket, but quite destructive.”
A pocket.
Of course.
And suddenly, I know what I need to do.
79
“Keep looking,”
“I see nothing,” the queen says at my side. “I’ve scanned the entire camp twice, and still I see nothing.”
We stand atop the tallest parapet, spyglasses in hand as we watch the enemy camp. With the spyglass, we can see right into the depths of the distant enemy camp, and the symbols they have written all over their tents.
Nothing like a spider, though, and it’s frustrating.
I know you did it, Solat. I know he succeeded. Isn’t this what the Spidae have been hinting at all along? Everything is coming to this moment, and they’ve pushed and pulled and manipulated us along the way for this to happen.
They won’t check your pockets, you know.
At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. Now, it’s all too clear. I’m both excited and filled with terror.
“I see no spider marking,” Halla says, peering through her spyglass. “Are you certain?”
“It’ll be there,” I promise the queen. “We just have to keep looking.”
We’ve been staring through them for an hour, studying the tents from afar. It’s tempting to watch the battle instead, to watch Aron—either one—hack and slash his way through the men. But after seeing a few close-ups of heads being chopped and necks sliced open, I focused on the tents instead.
To a one, the tents are muddy and dirty, and the Adassians are fond of writing on them. Halla says they’re blessings or invocations, an old Adassian tradition to cover a dwelling with such to keep out bad spirits. That’s fine and all, but it makes it difficult to look for one symbol amongst all of it. It’s literally looking for a needle in a haystack.
But it has to be there. I don’t think the Spidae would have us come this far just for it all to collapse in the last minute. Then again, who knows what the Spidae are thinking? I stare through my spyglass, watching soldiers as they move between tents. There’s a huge, pitched battle at Castle Yshrem’s walls, but the Adassian camp is filled with people anyhow. There are soldiers guarding tents, wounded men, and women of all kinds. There’s also a fair amount of wine barrels, livestock, and the biggest, splashiest-looking tent in the center of all of it.
The Aspect is Hedonism, after all.
It would be obvious to have his anchor there, in the fanciest of tents, but there’s no marking on it at all. If his anchor’s in camp, he or she is likely being hidden away for such a reason.
The queen sucks in a breath.
“What?” I ask, immediately scanning the battle to find Aron. My heart pounds in terror, and I find him easily enough—the flash of the great battle-axe ever moving as he works his way through the tide of men. He’s covered in blood, his stark white tunic soaked, and he’s muddy up to his thighs, but he looks beautiful.
He smiles at his opponent, and I ache for him. Our time is almost up.
“I think I’ve found it,” the queen says, grabbing my arm. “Look. The tent with the fat man in front of it. Center of camp. It has two flags atop it—one for Aron and one for Anali.”
The goddess of healing. “So it’s a medical tent.”
“Or they want us to think that,” she agrees. “There is also a weapon rack out front.”
I raise my spyglass to my eye and scan the sea of tents, trying to find the exact one she’s speaking of. “You’re sure?”
“There are people going in and out, certainly, but none of them look wounded. I thought that very curious and started paying attention to the writing on the tent itself, and then I saw it.”
I find Anali’s flag, and then a weapon rack. Sure enough, there’s a guard out front of the innocuous-seeming tent with a fat belly and a scruffy chin. He scratches at his stomach absently and looks around, holding a spear. As I stare, the tent flap opens and a very healthy-looking man leaves, a new equally healthy one walking in. Curious. I scan the writing on the tent, though it’s all squiggly jibberish to me…and my entire body tenses when I see a spider casually drawn between two triangular symbols near the bottom of the tent.
“That’s it,” I murmur. I make note of the tent, memorizing where it’s at