Aerax learned when introductions were made. So now he could tell Lizzan that he had made three friends. But more importantly, they might be hers—if this alliance could form and hold.
No time did the High Daughter waste there, either. Tankards of mead had only been set down when she pointed to her own eyes before gesturing to Tyzen’s.
“You wonder if my moonstone eyes possess sight beyond what is seen?” At her nod, he shook his head. “Only my mother and foremothers had that gift.”
She blew out a frustrated breath, which Tyzen apparently had no trouble interpreting.
“The Destroyer’s spells made him invisible to that sight. They could only see the destruction he left in his wake.”
Aerax frowned. “Do they see his trail now?”
Again Tyzen shook his head. “My mother’s mother, Queen Venys, was slain by the Destroyer and reanimated as a demon. My mother killed her, and then she herself returned to Temra’s arms five years past.” A faint smile touched the boy’s mouth. “It is full strange to be among people who know little of Nyset’s heirs. In the south, the warrior-queens of Syssia have been feared and loved since ancient times, when Queen Nyset struck down the Galoghe demon. And before the Destroyer killed her, Venys was the only warrior to have ever made him bleed.”
Faintly Aerax recalled hearing those tales—of how the goddess Vela had walked within the ancient warrior-queen for a thousand years, together chasing and battling the twelve-faced demon. And more recently, of another queen who had cut off the sorcerer’s arm.
But few had believed the latter tale, dismissing it as a story that had grown larger in the telling—because when the Destroyer had marched north, he had two arms. “Are you certain the Destroyer comes? Many times I have heard that he returns. Never before has it been true.”
“We are certain,” Tyzen said. “Vela herself appeared before my sister and tasked her with building an alliance between the western realms.”
The moon goddess had visited his sister and given her this message?
Aerax suspected that he was about to give offense. He’d heard of others who’d claimed to receive messages from the gods. Typically after they were found wandering in their nightclothes. Yet none of them truly had. No gods ever came to Koth. Not in dreams, not in temples. Not since Varrin’s blood had transformed the island into a prison for them.
Carefully he asked, “And this sister is Yvenne, your queen?”
“Queen of Syssia and of the Burning Plains,” Tyzen confirmed before grinning. “She was not dreaming when Vela visited her. Nor was she alone. If you wish to hear an account of it, Kelir and Ardyl witnessed that meeting—and Vela also favored them with her attention. Would you hear from them?”
Looking to the two warriors, the Krimathean nodded.
At their seats, Kelir and Ardyl exchanged glances, eyebrows raised as if asking whether the other wished to start. The scarred Parsathean then drew a deep breath before reciting in a cantering rhythm, “On the banks of the river Lave, far south of the Burning Plains, a warrior who did not yet possess the heart of a king was grieved by the foulest treachery—”
“The short version,” Tyzen interrupted. “She needs only hear what occurred in Drahm, not the entire tale.”
“For the best, then, as Kelir has not memorized the full song—only the parts where he is most featured,” Ardyl said with an amused glance at the other warrior. “I will tell you how it was, my lady, though it won’t be as prettily said.”
With a wave of her hand, the Krimathean urged her to go on.
“Kelir and I were serving with four other warriors as our king’s Dragon guard when Vela appeared before us as one of her priestesses, but with her eyes shining bright as the moon. Her skin shone, too, and her voice and her touch were as ice and steel.”
The Krimathean’s lips parted on an indrawn breath and she nodded—not as if in surprise, but in recognition.
“You have seen the goddess, too?” Kelir asked.
She met his eyes and then tugged at the edge of her red cloak, as if to indicate that Vela herself had given her the quest, instead of merely receiving it from one of Vela’s priestesses.
“Then you know how she appeared,” Ardyl said. “She spoke first to each of the Dragon guard”—her voice thickened with emotion and her hand came up to touch her braided hair, as if in memory of another touch—“and then to Yvenne and Maddek she went. There she said