Smoothly recovering from her misstep, Lady Junica continued, “Instead of help and healing, harm and disease were coming to Koth—but Varrin was no longer a weak and powerless boy. As Nemek approached, Varrin did not eat, until his body was so gaunt that he could wriggle free of the belt without untying the knot. Then he went to the Kothan silver mines and forged a false belt, so finely wrought that even a god could not tell the difference. So when Nemek came before him, Varrin untied the knot himself. In their astonishment, Nemek stumbled back, and in the moment they were unbalanced, Varrin bound their wrists with the true braid, so their fingers could not reach the knot to untie it.”
“I would use my teeth,” Seri said, and brought her wrists to her mouth to demonstrate when Lady Junica looked at her in confusion. “They did not?”
“I . . .” The councilor blinked. “Nemek are not a warrior, so they must not have thought of that.”
“You say Varrin was a warrior, so he would have,” Kelir said, and turned to Seri. “They could not use their teeth if their wrists were bound behind their back. If you must tie an enemy instead of killing them, do it in that way—not only looping around the wrists, but winding the rope in between so they cannot work their hands free as easily.”
“I will,” the girl told him before looking to Lady Junica again. “So that must be how Varrin tied them.”
“It must be,” she agreed. “For they did not escape. Instead he gave them warning that no gods except for Rani would ever be welcome in Koth, and tossed Nemek away from the mountain, sending them back to the frozen plains.”
“He had grown so strong?”
Nodding, Lady Junica said, “Which only enraged the gods all the more, not only that he would defy them, but that he could stand against them. Vela could not send her oceans to drown such tall mountains, but she sent wolves and warriors—and all of them, Varrin struck down. Law reached into the molten heart of the mountains, but Varrin capped Koth’s peak so it would not erupt, and Justice cracked Koth’s stone foundation, but Varrin mortared it again with his own blood. Then came Stranik, who wound his coils around the realm and began to squeeze, hoping to bring famine and fear as he always does. But Varrin tricked the snake god into eating his own tail, and when Stranik had consumed himself until only his head remained, Varrin kicked the god far into the southern realms.”
“And we in Toleh thank him for that,” Preter said dryly. “For then Stranik slithered into the caves of the Fallen Mountains, scraping through narrow tunnels so that he might turn inside out and unconsume himself, and forced the Farian savages who still hid there to emerge from the stony depths and onto our lands.”
Eyes sparking with amusement, Lady Junica said, “For the sake of our alliance, perhaps Koth will extend its apologies. But I assure you that Kothans were not sorry then. Though they soon would be,” she continued, her smile fading. “For even Varrin had barely the strength to defend against what came next.”
Seri’s brow creased with concern. “What was it?”
“Vela became so enraged that she threw a piece of herself down from the heavens. Varrin saw the moonstone fall from the sky, ablaze with white light, and used all of his power to shield Koth when it struck.” Mournfully, Lady Junica shook her head. “When the dust and fires cleared, his hair had turned white as snow, and no longer did Koth stand atop a mountain peak. Instead it was at the bottom of a vast crater, for the moonstone had obliterated everything that surrounded Koth. And now Vela could send her oceans against the realm, for beneath the northern ice are frigid waters—and in rivers, those waters began to stream toward the crater in which Koth sat, and as the basin filled, would surely drown all those who had survived the moonstone.”
“But Varrin cast a spell to make it float?”
“He had not enough strength left,” she said. “Shielding the realm had taken nearly all of his power—and recall that he no longer wore Nemek’s braid as a belt. His body had been battered as Koth fell, so he was finally near to dying, which was all he’d wanted. Yet now his people might also perish,