Ilse had the impression of a strict and cold existence, of a life requiring exquisite balance. Like walking the knife edge above spinning worlds in Anderswar.
Which reminded her of another question. “What about now? Why did you remain in Veraene? Why bargain with us at all?”
“Ah, that.” Valara lifted her hand to show the ring. “Because Daya would not allow me. She—he—they told me clearly they wanted deliverance, for themselves and their brothers, sisters. I had not understood before what they meant. I’m still not certain.”
More pieces from history and her own memories fitted together to complete the picture. Daya. Lir’s emerald. Once joined together with the other two.
Even through the enveloping magic, Ilse could hear the wind thumping against the Mantharah, like a vast fist hammering on a door.
Or like an angry supplicant, demanding satisfaction of its god.
Deliver us all, the voice like bells had cried out.
We are all bound to these jewels, Ilse thought. Just as they are bound to us.
A man was created free, the philosophers said. It was his own choices, however, that bound him in the end. Even the choice to do nothing, to deny responsibility and claim that one was powerless to act, that, too, would bind a soul to the same life, the same questions, again and again.
“So then,” Ilse said softly. “I have my answers. Now I give one to you. We do as the jewels ask of us. If we refuse, we are set to this same task in our next lives, and the next, and so on until the end of eternity. If we deliver them to freedom, that in turn sets us free. So. We must recover the other two jewels and join them all together, as they once were.”
“I—” Valara broke off and stared at the Agnau’s surface. “No, I cannot argue that. But how? Leos Dzavek has Rana—the ruby—locked away in his castle. We cannot hope to attack him in that stronghold. Remember how it was before?”
“I remember.”
She did. If Ilse closed her eyes, she could see ghostly images of Zalinenka. The hundreds of guards who stood outside the gates and patrolled the lower halls. Even before Károví divided itself from the empire, the court had its factions who did not always restrict themselves to mere speech to gain their point.
“So we do not attack,” she said. “We infiltrate. But not yet. First we need to recover the missing jewel.”
“Asha,” Valara said. “I hid her, him in Autrevelye.”
Three hundred years ago, when Valara Baussay had lived as Imre Benacka. And I read about you from a book written by a prison official named Karel Simkov. You died before you would admit to Leos Dzavek where you hid those jewels.
“So search your memories,” Ilse told Valara. “Find Asha and bring her back here. I shall stay by the Mantharah and keep Daya safe. Once you return, we can plan our next steps.”
Valara’s lips curled back in a snarl, as if she were a dog. No, a fox. Then her eyes closed and she touched the ring again. Her lips moved in a silent conversation. A long pause followed before she released a sigh.
“No choice. Or as you said, the only choice left.” She stared at the ring upon her finger, and for a moment, her features seemed to shift in the Agnau’s strange light, from woman to man and back again. “The only choice,” Valara repeated softly. “Would that I had accepted this before.” She glanced up, once more the Morennioùen queen, no traces of her former selves apparent. “Let us make our plans then.”
* * *
THEY SPOKE OF practicalities next. What were the implications of Valara’s search? How long would it require? What if Leos Dzavek detected her presence there?
A few hours, no less, Valara insisted.
What if you need more? Ilse asked, equally insistent. And what about the time difference? A single hour in Anderswar can mean days, years, in this world.
More arguments followed. Each of them was practiced in evasion, obfuscation, the many other intricate maneuvers one encountered in royal courts. In the end, the knowledge that they had to act for the future—theirs and their kingdoms—decided the argument.
“One day, then,” Valara said. “No longer.”
“How can you know when you return? Anderswar—”
“—is not invincible. Trust me to know that.” Her lips thinned to a sardonic smile. “Though, indeed, you have little reason to trust me. But what I say is true. Once I have the sapphire, I can traverse the void more precisely. I can return