Vantra walked with her hands behind her back, uncertain what to say to the Wiiv yondaii as he strolled beside her. As Zepirz needed to ask Katta to return him to Greenglimmer, and Katta was on the Loose Ducky, he required a guide. Might as well be her.

Unease in his company might have struck harder, except the night had not gone as she expected. As stern and unsociable as he was, he strangely enjoyed the meal, and when the minstrel played indigenous songs from around the Evenacht, he listened in rapt fascination. The man sang two pieces from the broader Elfiniti, An Avie’s Lament and Golden Leaves, and Zepirz realized how similar other cultures’ music was to ballads he knew from Greenglimmer.

And he recognized those songs because he heard similar ones at Luck’s Hold. No one said a word about it, either.

He adjusted the plate he carried; heaped with tasty goodness for Ayara, he protected it like the most valuable thing he owned. How sweet of him, to take the food to them; hopefully they enjoyed the meal as much as he had.

“This port feels brighter than Selaserat,” he murmured as they topped a rise and the sea came into view at the end of the street.

“Talis cast a Light spell for Nem Hala, and local legends say a glejeth altered it to target the Beast,” she told him. “The brightest place in the Evenacht is the Windtwists due to it.”

“I can almost see the mythical stars through the cloud cover,” he said, staring up, then regarded her. “But they are not so mythical to you, are they?”

“No. I grew up with the night sky in all its glory. There are hundreds of thousands of tiny blinking lights in the darkness, each representing a planet or a star. There’s a bright purplish white cloud that runs across it, and you can see it when there’s no ground-based source of light, like a city. People have called it many things, but it’s our galaxy’s staff. The staff has two heads that spins, creating trails of gas and stars. We’re in one of those trails, so we can see the staff.”

“Galaxy?”

“It’s a gigantic entity that contains billions of stars and planets and sub-galaxies and space dust and gas and whatnot. Sensour is one tiny little speck rotating around a sun within the vaster whole. When you behold it, you realize how small and insignificant you are.”

“Even the most insignificant have important roles to play, for all to proceed as it should.” They turned the corner and headed for the dock where the Loose Ducky was tethered. He gazed at the sky free of building roofs before smiling. “Grand schemes fail when the minute aren’t taken into account.”

She would dare him to say that again, if he ever beheld a star-filled sky.

The pirate presence was at a minimum; they nodded to them and left them to wander below deck. They stopped in her cabin so he could set the plate down, then made their way to Katta’s.

Jare leaned against the doorframe, arms and ankles crossed, watching the syimlin who sat on the floor, eyes closed, fingers clasped loosely between his crossed legs, facing the foul object. Encased in Katta’s shields, the powdery red urn sealed with blue wax and glyphs looked plain, harmless—and was anything but.

Zepirz’s beak fell open in aghast disbelief. “What is that?”

“That is a picoth,” Jare said. He ran his hands over the top of his head, then tightened the tail that made him look more pirate-y than Light-blessed. “They’re special vessels beghestern use to seal away the burned bodies of their most depraved. The glyphs are supposed to keep whatever remains of the individual away from the populace at large.”

“It’s not working.”

Jare half-smiled. “No, but Katta’s shields are.”

Unconvinced, Zepirz gathered himself then slipped inside for a closer look. He reared back, his crest feathers laying flat against his head. “I visited the citadel before the false Strans gathered the forest’s warriors. Priestess Navonne asked me to join her below the tower, and she took me to a pool of darkness. She said the false one dipped his Touch into the waters and renewed their life, but I only felt death.”

“Was it the one where they created the mephoric emblems?” Vantra asked.

“No. It is deeper, more vile, than that. I have spoken to the Darker One about it, for he plans to infiltrate the depths after he has helped Levassa care for the . . . the cayzreol.” He clacked his beak and looked away from the object.

“What did you do at the pool?” Jare asked.

Zepirz shook himself, as if to wake from a terrible nightmare. “I? Nothing. She performed a ritual. I remember little of what she said for I struggled to keep my thoughts my own, but to open the magic, she intoned a phrase. I did not understand it, but it was something like ‘Dotha mer tiforthani’. She had black-painted instruments I have no familiarity with, and drew lines in the air with them. They glowed, creating shapes, before dissipating.

“I vowed never to return. The evil I sensed took days to wash from my fur and feathers, and my true mark glowed violently until it faded. I still wonder, how she behaved in a normal manner after the visit. She should have shriveled into a husk. Instead, she extended several offers to travel below with other yondaii, but I ignored them. I could not endure the touch.”

He set his hand on his tummy, as if the memory nauseated him. Vantra glanced from him to the urn and back. Should that not have been a sign, that the Strans who called him was not the true one? How did he excuse all the evidence he had had that the forest-bound deity had changed, and still worshipped him?

Veering too close to her own misgivings about deities, she yanked her thoughts back to the present. “Elora said the guard captain maintained a pool when Kjivendei was active. It powered terrible destructive magics and became corrupted. That’s what me, Kenosera and Yut-ta were originally trying to find.”

“We need to tell Rezenarza that he should ask her before he inspects the depths of it,” Jare said.

“I’m interested in his assessment of the pool, if that’s what’s down there,” Katta said. Vantra jumped at his unexpected voice, and embarrassment took hold, even though the other two did as well. “The Labyrinth’s retreating back to its historical boundaries, so the citadel’s not under its influence anymore. He might just end up destroying the mountainside to eradicate the foulness.”

“What of the Light Temple?” Vantra asked.

“Qira’s given them a task,” Jare said. “After the healers have tended to everyone afflicted by Kjiven’s hand, they’re to start a cleanse of the place. They know, if they can’t manage it, they’ll have to move. They’ve spent millennia there. They don’t want to leave, so there’s incentive.”

“A grand motivator,” Katta murmured as he rose and dusted at his pants. “But I think Elora’s drive has more to do with keeping Kjiven from the Fields than any respect she has for his legacy.”

“His legacy fell when the Wiiv first burned Kjivendei,” Jare declared. Zepirz nodded in stern agreement.

Vantra shivered. A sensation tainted the atmosphere, one of seething darkness and red-infused hate. Katta glared at the urn and Zepirz took a step back, clacking his beak. “Whatever sits within wants out,” the syimlin said. “The Loose Ducky isn’t the place to investigate it. Jare, we’re taking this to the Forest Temple. I’m going to ask the Evengate guards about it, then I’m sticking it in the Vicanth Vault.”

She gasped. The Vicanth Vault was a magical storage founded by a long-ago Death that housed the most inauspicious, the most deadly, the most corrupting, of magic items. The wards and shields kept the terrible artefacts out of evil hands. If something ended up there, it effectively disappeared.

“But first, I need to send Zepirz back to Greenglimmer. Qira’s not up to it.”

“I will retrieve the meal for Ayara,” he said, hustling out with more haste than necessary. Katta raised an eyebrow, then followed. Vantra bet the unlucky yondaii would suffer under a deluge of quick questions before he set foot back in the rainforest.

She eyed the urn; how did its touch waft through Katta’s shields? Mica’s words haunted her; if the syimlin—

“You should have told someone.”

She glared at Jare. She had stood with Kenosera and Yut-ta. They watched her and Mica take off; they could have hunted him down and said something long before they sailed into the cave.

“Mica’s impulsive, but you?”

She wasn’t impulsive! She was . . . she was . . . not that.

His growing humor scratched her, but Jare was not a hissy cat she could put down and shoo away.

Katta whisked back, headed for the left-side hammock, snagged a pack stuffed under it and withdrew a gnawed, modern Talin pen and a thick pad of paper. “I’m going to write that phrase down. I’m pretty certain that’s an elfine language, probably Kanderite, but I need to ask Lorgan.” He bit down on the lid, pulled the top off, and wrote on the first clean sheet. “Vantra, would you mind taking this to him?” he mouthed around the plastic.

“No, that’s fine.”

He ripped the page out and handed it to her before shoving the tip into the lid and taking it from his mouth. “Let’s get this done, Jare. I don’t think this urn should remain free any longer.” He tossed both onto the bag then cupped the shield in a tight grip. The two disappeared in a swirl of Darkness ribbons.

Vantra bit her lower lip, staring at the bolted table upon which the urn had sat; the sensation had vanished, not a trace left. Yet her thoughts whirled; what if Mica was right? What if the syimlin did not realize their power had faded? What if—

No. She needed to find Lorgan and ask about that phrase instead of following terrifying suppositions.

Still, to calm her nerves, she folded her hands at her chest and closed her eyes. Clear Rays filled the room, a sweep of Sun to dispel any corruption that might linger. She thought she heard an odd mmeeep, but the noise did not repeat, and the room felt as clean as a scrubbed countertop. She crinkled the paper in her fist then whisked away, intent on the inn and the scholar’s expertise.