“Nyphron? I—”

  “The worst part is that Malcolm predicted it,” he said. “Well, no. The worst part is losing so many troops for nothing. But still, having him be right adds that special twist of the knife.”

  “Malcolm did what? When?”

  “Just after I sent them off. He even said it would be the goblins, and that the men would be eaten.”

  Together they reached the end of the road where the snow went deep.

  “You’re not going to like what I’m about to say,” she said.

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t.” He offered a half-hearted smile. “What is it?”

  “We can’t leave. We have to stay here.”

  “What? Why?”

  Persephone bit her lower lip. “Malcolm just told me that if we move—even a short distance—we’ll lose the war.”

  Nyphron let go a sad imitation of a laugh. He gestured with his arms toward the camp. “Look around, Persephone. We already have.”

  “Then what good will it do to retreat?”

  “Stalemate,” he said. “You’re right about the cost of making more dragons. Death among the Fhrey is rare and as such harder to accept. It could become too high a price for Lothian to bear. Besides, retreating is doing something. It’s better than just sitting here and waiting for death to descend upon us.”

  “But Malcolm . . . he says we can still win. And all that we have to do is just stay here.”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible, do you?”

  “No, but he knew about the goblins, and he knew about Suri’s capture before she was even sent, and he knew about Nolyn’s birth. He said I would have a son.”

  “That’s hardly remarkable. He had a fifty-fifty chance of being right.”

  “He told me that my child would be born on the banks of the Bern River in the High Spear Valley.”

  “I still don’t see—”

  “He predicted it while we were still in Alon Rhist, and you were chasing Lothian. At the time, I wasn’t sure if you would return. He knew you’d make it back and that you’d be moving our position—and where it would be. He knew we would wed even before I had made my final decision.”

  Nyphron had no response to that. Instead, he looked out across the white expanse into the infinite, his breath making tiny clouds that vanished as quickly as they formed.

  “I think we should stay,” she said, making the decision as she spoke the words.

  “That’s incredibly risky. It will mean our deaths if Malcolm is wrong.”

  “Since when are you afraid of death?”

  “You weren’t there,” he said in a deadly serious tone that was aided by the frigid air and bleak landscape. “You didn’t see what Lothian did to my father in the Carfreign Arena. He wanted to make an example of what happens to those who defy him. Zephyron was a good and a proud Fhrey, and he followed the law. He exercised the right that our society—that our god—granted him. Lothian could have given him an honorable death. Instead, he turned my father into a puppet, made him defile and mutilate himself before all of Erivan. He died slowly, painfully, forced to eat his own fingers before a vomiting crowd. That’s what Lothian did to a law-abiding citizen who dared to challenge his authority. What do you think he’ll do to us?”

  The wintry wind blew a cold chill between them.

  He sighed. “We’ll stay for now if you want, but the day we see the fane’s army assembling on the eaves of the forest—accompanied by dragons—that’s when we must leave. And I don’t care what Malcolm says.”

  Chapter Eight

  The Past and the Future

  Continuing to fight against insurmountable odds is difficult, even insane, but giving up was the hardest thing I have ever done. — The Book of Brin

  Roan had been studying one of the stone tablets when she stopped, looked up, and stared off into the dark, as if listening for something.

  “What’s wrong?” Brin asked.

  “Hmmm?” Roan blinked her way back to reality—at least their present version of it. She looked down at the tablet before her as if she’d forgotten what she was doing. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that this symbol here has to make the same sound as this one.” She pointed at the markings. “And this one, and this, too. They all make the same sound, but they’re all different symbols.”

  Brin smiled and nodded. “I call it the schwa. It’s the most common sound people make when talking, a short quiet one, almost never stressed. But, yeah, in order to capture it in writing and have the rest make sense, it requires some flexibility and varies depending on the adjacent symbols.”

  “A lot of the sounds come from the same markings, at least in combination. These sets here . . .” Roan pointed again. “They’re identical, yet for the phrase to make sense they would have to be pronounced a little differently.”

  Brin nodded, bit her lip, and made an embarrassed face. Her system wasn’t without flaws; she knew that, and this was the first time anyone had ever studied it—the first time it had been taken apart and critiqued. Teaching Roan to read had become an act of humility.

  Maybe teaching someone to read wasn’t such a good idea. I sort of imagined it would be fun. While Tressa never learned much, at least she never made me feel like an idiot.

  “And these symbols that appear at the end. They set the timing, right? When the thing happened—in the past, the present, or the future?”

  Brin nodded.

  “So why are there eight? And why are there so many of these items added in front of words that designate the opposite of the thing that follows? There should only be two states, but, again, you have eight: un important, il logical, dis agree, and so on. You seem to have a thing for eight.”

  “It’s just how people talk,” she defended herself. “I didn’t invent the language.”

  Brin had invited Roan to search through the scattered set of tablets, looking for any information on how to escape. Neither of them could move the stones, so several couldn’t be read, and none could be reordered. As a result, Brin went around the chamber on her hands and knees reading all the ones she hadn’t had a chance to go over on her first visit. Teaching Roan to read gave the Wizard of Nog something to work on. Brin hoped it would help her recover. The speed at which the woman grasped ideas was astounding. In a world of mental sloths, Roan was a diving peregrine. Problems, however, developed given the way Roan’s mind worked. She wasn’t the type to accept what was—she always focused on whys and hows.

  “But if you are going to make a system, why not make it the best? Why not clean it up and standardize?”

  Brin shrugged. “Because everyone already knows how to talk. It’s been difficult to get Tressa to learn while using words she already knows. If I’d tried to make her use new words like undecisive or unpossible, it would have been a lot harder.”

  “Hmmm.” Roan’s single tone sounded judgmental, disapproving.

  Brin felt altogether miserable. The written language was her one thing, her life’s achievement. She’d spent years creating, refining, and polishing the system. It was the accomplishment she was proudest of, at least until a moment ago.

  Maybe it’s best that I never taught anyone else. Apparently, it’s a mess.

  Roan sat back and sighed heavily, a scowl on her face.

  She hates it. Roan hates what I created.

  “I’m tired,” Roan said. “I need to rest. Being up like this is exhausting. I feel like we’ve gone back in time, like Arion is draining us again.”

  Brin nodded.

  Roan slowly stood and began to walk back toward the others—to Gifford—leaving Brin alone. After a few steps, she stopped. “It’s beautiful, though.”

  “What is?” Brin asked.

  “Your writing. It’s an amazing thing you’ve created. I wish I could study more of it. I wish I had more strength. It’s wonderful.”

  Brin felt her heart swell so much it pushed tears to her eyes. “Thank you.” Then, feeling uncomfortable under the weight of such massive praise, Brin sought an escape. “I don’t think I did much. The person who wrote these tablets did most of the work. Malcolm thinks he saw me in the future and used my own system. Truth is, the Ancient One filled in some gaps, improved what I was trying to do, and made me see what was possible.”

  “Maybe,” Roan said. “But even without the tablets, you would have figured it out eventually, or those who you taught would have. How else could he have learned this? He must have seen the language you eventually made. You taught him first.”

  Roan left her alone with that idea to ponder and another score of tablets yet to read.

  Tesh knew what he had to do; he just wasn’t sure he could manage it.

  They had all agreed it was the only way, and that he was the man for the job. He’d faced deadly Fhrey in the Harwood, fought Sebek and whatever a raow was, but none of those things had scared Tesh as much as the battle he was about to wage—one he couldn’t afford to lose. But deep down in his selfish depths, he hoped he might. He knew victory would be bitter; it would hurt more than anything he’d previously experienced and last an eternity. Still, he had to do it.

  Tesh walked across the cave, feeling like he was going to his execution while carrying the weight of the world. His feet dragged across the stone, and his arms hung as if boulders swung from his wrists. He didn’t have the will to lift them. He didn’t have arms or feet, either, but he was past trying to understand such things, beyond caring. This place was killing what was left of him. Soon, very soon, standing and walking would become things he used to be able to do.

  Finding Brin was easy. She shone out as a beacon in the dark, and he noticed that the closer he got, the lighter he felt. Something about Brin had a way of lifting his load, now and always. She was sitting on the floor near a wall with dozens of flat tablets gouged with markings strewn about. She was doing her “reading thing.” Tesh had never understood, but he knew it was important to her. She hadn’t seen him yet, and he paused while still several yards away. Crossing the cave was exhausting, and he needed a rest before taking those last difficult steps, but he also wanted to look, take her in. She was beautiful, never more so than at that moment. She leaned over a tablet, studying it with her fingers as well as with her eyes.

  I never deserved her.

  He’d been telling himself that for some time. He thought it might make his quest easier. It didn’t. A mouse trapped in a corner by a bear will still fight for survival. Love, he came to realize, was like that. No matter the odds, love refused to give up. That’s what made those last few feet so hard, what made any and all excuses useless.

  “Brin?” he said softly.

  Her head came up. She drew back the curtain of hair, saw him, and smiled.

  Don’t do that. Please don’t smile at me.

  Tesh could feel the pain again, deep in the place where his chest used to be.

  “I never thought I’d find these tablets again. Roan and I have been reading them, trying to find something that can help us get out.”

  She pointed at the one she had been working on. “The Ancient One . . . the being whom the dwarfs let out of the Agave—wasn’t a prisoner at all—I mean, well, he was, but he was dead, just like us. His name wasn’t The Three; it was Trilos. You can see how I made that mistake, right? I’m still trying to figure out how these tablets were made. Nothing of Eton can affect anything on Elan. Unless . . .” Brin lifted the key, which now hung around her neck. “I bet I could scratch on stone with this. I wonder if he had something like it? Anyway, Trilos was in the Abyss, and he managed to get out. Out of this cave, out of the Abyss, out of the afterlife—or the Afterworld, as he called it. He’s probably the only one to have ever done that. And he did it without a key.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. I can’t read all of the tablets. Trilos wrote on both sides, and I can’t turn them over or move them. That means there is still a lot of missing information, but I’ve learned a lot. You see Trilos—an Aesira—was murdered by his brother. He was the first ever to die.”

  “Aesira?” Tesh said. “Isn’t that what Fenelyus called Ferrol?”

  Brin nodded. “According to Beatrice—she’s a dwarven seer we met—there were five Aesira: Turin, Trilos, Ferrol, Drome, and Mari. Trilos was the first to die, and he became the first inhabitant of Phyre—aside from the Typhons.”

  “Who?”

  “According to these tablets, they were spoiled brats with the power of the elemental forces of nature. When they lived on the face of Elan, the Typhons ripped the place apart, destroying everything they came in contact with. It’s one of the reasons Eton hated them. Eventually they were cast into Phyre. The Typhons’ continued efforts to escape are still felt on Elan in the form of earthquakes. They’re the ones that made this tunnel, probably trying to dig their way out. But there’s a barrier between Elan and Phyre that even they couldn’t get through.”

  “Brin, I’m glad you found the tablets. I can see how much you enjoy this stuff, but I—”

  “Oh, you have no idea!” She pointed toward a tablet a few feet away. “From that one, I learned that the Abyss was created to hold the Typhons, but the shackles strong enough to restrain them were harmful to an Aesira, and devastating to the likes of us. So Elan created an upper tier to Phyre. The low plains of Nifrel, the midlands of Rel, and the highlands of Alysin. This gave her children a place where they could live comfortably. Anyway, Trilos wasn’t alone long. With the First War, others died, and as Trilos’s siblings joined him, he learned the tragic truth that Turin had given the gift of eternal life to his daughter Muriel.”

  “Why is that so bad?”

  “Because she and Trilos were in love. The tablets are filled with his thoughts and memories of Muriel. Oh! I even found the message Padera gave me.”

  “Padera?”

  “She died. We found her in Rel, and she said Malcolm told her to tell me, ‘When trees walk and stones talk.’ At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. But I found it in the tablets. It’s a phrase Muriel uses when she’s frustrated that something will never happen.” She paused and shook her head. “When I think of the cruelty, it . . . it’s no wonder Muriel hates her father so much.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Oh, well, Muriel is immortal so she can never come to Phyre, but Turin killed Trilos to keep the two of them apart. When Trilos found out Muriel would never be joining him, he threw himself into the Abyss. The tablets don’t actually say why. Maybe he thought there would be a way out down here, or it could be he was hoping the Typhons would obliterate him from existence. But then he found this tunnel and the thin barrier between the two worlds. This gave him hope. The Typhons’ brute force wasn’t able to breach the boundary, but Trilos found a way. Rather than bashing a monster-sized opening, he chose to focus on creating a teeny-tiny pinprick, just big enough for a bodiless spirit to pass through, but he faced two problems. The first was that he lacked the power to break through the barrier even with a small hole. The second was that he would still be buried under layers and layers of rock. Eventually, the dwarfs provided a solution. He heard them burrowing and called to them, promising secrets in return for his release. That’s how he got out of Phyre.”

  “And you got all that from these tablets?” Tesh stared at the scattered stones.

  “Yeah.”

  “But you didn’t actually find anything that can get us out?”

  “Well, no.”

  “And you read all the tablets, right?”

  “All the ones I could. Like I said I can’t—”

  “Brin, I have to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it.” He paused and licked his lips. His head drooped from the weight. He had to get this done while he still had the strength.

  She turned to face him fully, and her light was blinding. He wanted to lift a hand to shield his eyes, but that wasn’t going to happen, so he turned away. “Brin, the others and I have been talking, and we’ve made a unanimous decision. You have to go on without us.”

  “Go on? What do you mean, go on?” There was a harsh, suspicious bite to her tone. She knew exactly what he meant.

  “You can climb up. You can reach the door to Alysin. You can finish what we can’t.”

  With a nervous laugh, she shook her head. “I can’t do that—not alone. We all have to get out of here. I can’t just leave you all—not here. Oh, dear Elan, no. I can’t leave you here.”

  “Tressa told us what Malcolm said. That you, and only you, would make it all the way through.”

  “I think Tressa might be suffering from—”

  “Look at us, Brin. I know you thought we’d get better, but you know we won’t. The longer we’re here, the more we are drained. You have to leave us behind and—”

  “No! Roan will figure out some brilliant solution, or we’ll find another tunnel made by the Typhons that isn’t blocked. Or—”

  “Brin, all those things take time.”

  “So? We have plenty of that. We have eternity.”

  Tesh took her anger as a good sign. If she thought he was spouting nonsense, she would have laughed. Instead, she barked at him, her face twisted up, showing teeth. It hurt to see that expression, to know he was causing her pain. Tesh had become acutely aware of such things. He was a raw wound, sensitive to what he did and what he caused. It was a shame he’d only recently acquired this talent. Gritting his teeth, he pressed on. “We don’t have a lot of time, and you know it. If you don’t go now, you’ll never be able to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve all noticed. You’re growing dimmer. Don’t try to deny you aren’t starting to feel the effects of the Abyss. How much longer before you’re like Roan, then me, and eventually like Tressa?”

  Brin looked at her hands self-consciously, then set her jaw. “I’m not leaving.” She was shaking her head, and Tesh reached out. “Brin, you—”

  “No!” she shouted and jerked away. She stepped back, nearly falling.

  “You have to,” Tesh said as gently as he could.