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When Caspian Loredan had called Liv into his office after she returned from Lendh ka Dakruim, she’d been terrified that he would press her about the Lucanian royal family’s word of power. When she’d been questioned by Genevieve Arundell, it had been even worse - because Liv had known the other woman was already an enemy, and on Benedict’s side.

Standing before the Elden council of elders in Al’Fenthia, Liv was surprised to find that she hardly felt any worry at all. There was only the calm confidence that she had done nothing wrong, and that these were her people, even if she was only just now meeting Aira and the others. Liv wondered whether they were all as old as the woman who had escorted her here, but found herself skeptical. Most of them weren’t likely to be descended from one of the Vædim.

“We were going to speak about your guests, and what is happening in Lucania,” Aira began. “But a more important question was raised over dinner. Your eastern friend mentioned that you had reduced a rift in power.”

Liv noticed several of the elders exchange glances with each other, and a few even leaned over to speak in hushed tones. “After we helped deal with the eruption at the Well of Bones,” she explained, “Wren, Arjun and I went down into the depths and found the corpse of the Lady of Bones. I could tell that it was just spilling mana out into the world, and sort of fueling this ancient spell that kept raising every corpse within the area. I’d managed to use mana straight from a rift before, so I just – opened myself up, and took it in.”

“The mana from the Vaedic Lady?” one of the old men asked, leaning forward over two crossed forearms. “You are certain? Not from the rift itself?”

“No, it was her,” Liv stated, firmly. “It was so much more than a rift – I had to do something with it, or I felt like I’d be ripped apart. I used it to destroy all the corpses I could find, and once the flood sort of dried up, the corpse just fell apart into dust. Afterward, the priest said it wasn’t a greater rift anymore, only a lesser. And I broke the spell, so the corpses wouldn’t attack anymore.”

There was a long moment of silence, while Liv waited to see what the elders would say, and finally she couldn’t take it anymore, so she began talking again. “My friend Sidonie and I – we have an idea,” she said. “That the greater rifts are where the gods died. That there’s maybe a corpse leaking mana at the bottom of each one, and if I could destroy the corpse, we could reduce all the greater rifts to something more manageable.”

“And you were thinking to make an experiment of this,” Aira guessed. The old woman’s face might as well have been carved from the very same trees the city was built upon. “Perhaps at the Tomb of Celris - or perhaps here.”

Liv nodded. “I need to go north anyway,” she explained. “My grandfather asked me to get something out of the rift. Before he died.”

“You cannot do that, child,” a man with no hair left at all told her.

“She doesn’t understand,” Aira interrupted. “Livara, you are absolutely correct. A greater rift is a place where one of the gods died, and their corpse remains. The power shed by that corpse spills out into the world, drenching the surrounding area in mana – and causes the place to take on aspects of their words of power, and sometimes even their dying intent.”

“We could go from one to the next, then,” Liv said. “We could make the world safer.”

“Yes. In fact, you might go even a step further than that,” the old woman explained. “In time, Livara, I am certain you and your friends could learn to destroy a rift entirely.”

“It is possible, then,” Liv said, practically leaping upon the idea. “People wouldn’t have to go on culling teams anymore, or get mana sickness.”

“And our entire people would die within a year,” the old man with a bald head said, bringing Liv’s excitement to an abrupt halt.

“Think it through, Livara,” Aira urged, gently. “You have a human mother, so you might be able to survive without mana-infused food. But for the rest of us, without rifts, we would perish. That is why we stopped destroying rifts after the war.”

“Stopped -” Liv felt like a mill that had gotten a rock stuck in the works and simply ground to a halt. “You destroyed rifts?”

“Of course we did,” the old man said. “It was considered a tactical necessity - a way to force the Vædim to ground, to deny them territory.”

“Remember that she wasn’t raised among us, Severi,” Aira said. Liv was grateful to have a name for the other elder, at least. “When the old gods were defeated, we left the remaining rifts, because we needed them to survive. Your mother’s people forgot how to do it – most of them never knew, because we didn’t tell them. And we let the knowledge fade, to protect the places that produce mana.”

“I –” Liv hesitated. “Did I do something wrong, at the Well of Bones?”

“You helped the Dakruimans, from the sound of it,” a woman with wispy white hair fine as spider silk spoke up. “That is not wrong in and of itself, and it sounds like you acted out of good intentions. It could be dangerous if the easterners spread word of what you have done, and try to repeat it.”

“Dangerous for them most of all,” Severi grumbled. “Most of them would die trying to follow in your footsteps. The blood of the old gods is strong in you, or you’d not have survived yourself.”

“But if I can do it, my father could,” Liv argued. “He’s got more Vædic blood than I do – he’s a generation closer to Celris.”

“That isn’t - that isn’t how heritage works, sweet girl,” Aira said, with a sigh. “Put it aside for a moment. Let us make a few decisions, and then I think you and I need to have a long conversation. First of all, can we agree that Livara’s guests will be permitted to remain in Al’Fenthia? It’s too dangerous to make them stay in the trading quarter with everything they’ve seen and done, on top of the mess the human king has made.”

“Agreed,” Severi said, and the other elders nodded or spoke in support one after the other. “I believe it is also a simple decision that we will not hand one of our people over to the Lucanians, no matter how loudly they complain. I presume you are not actually a murderer, and that their complaints are exaggerated for political ends?”

Liv shook her head. “I killed one apprentice while trying to escape, and that was only because he came at me with a sword in hand, using his magic.”

“I will have Saana tell their ambassador what he can do with his complaints,” Aira said. “And if they don’t like it, we will pull more of the contracts with their guilds. That should shut his mouth quickly enough. You can thank Ambassador Sakari for getting word to us so quickly, next time you see him, by the way,” she suggested to Liv, who merely nodded. “In that case, the council will meet again tomorrow.”

Liv waited while the elderly men and women departed, and when Aira rose to make her way down the steps, Liv hurried over to help her again. “I’m not made of glass,” the old woman complained, but she didn’t turn down Liv’s arm.

“Come, we’re going to take a walk,” Aira said, and led Liv out of the council building. “I’m sorry I had to drag you all the way over here, but that wasn’t a conversation to be had in front of a crowded dining hall.”

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“It’s alright,” Liv assured her. Then turned south onto one of the roads that led between the great trees that stretched high above the city. The sun had set completely by now, and the city was lit by small orbs of glass hung from the branches of the lower canopy. Within each sphere, a soft light glowed, like a trapped star.

“Æs,” Aira explained. “The Vædim mostly used mana stone, but there isn’t so much of it around as there used to be. What are your words, Livara?”

“Cel, of course,” Liv said. They would know that from her family. “Aluth and Cei, from the guild. And Luc.” Her heart almost skipped a beat actually admitting the last out loud, but in Al’Fenthia Lucanian laws couldn’t touch her.

“Four words, at your age?” The old woman scolded her. “You can’t possibly have mastered them all. Don’t be so eager to imprint everything you come across. Focus on building your foundations, on actually knowing how to use all those words.”

“May I ask how many you’ve imprinted?” Liv found herself curious.

“I was born with Cer,” Aira said. “And then Deru, of course, my mother taught me that when I was quite young. I learned Savel from the House of Bælris, and, finally, Ve. Do you see how they work together? Words of growth, and wood; words of sun, and storm. They are complements. I didn’t just pick up every shiny thing I found, like some crow.”

“Your magic is all about growing things,” Liv realized. “Watering crops, encouraging them to grow. Have you ever considered Cem, to control the soil? My friend Rose uses that.”

“I’ve thought about it, of course,” Aira confirmed. “But I simply ran out of time. Four words is a great many - especially once you begin combining them. You can spend centuries on it, before you even get distracted by things like children.”

“Most people in Lucania never even combine two words,” Liv told her. “We call the people who do archmages.” She hesitated. “You said your mother taught you Deru?”

“My mother was Ceria, Lady of Thorns,” Aira said. “You don’t need to be afraid to say it. One moment.”

Liv was surprised to see that they had come to the southern wall which led into the trading quarter of Al’Fenthia, where she’d seen the waystone from above, and the armed camps of soldiers. Armed Elden soldiers guarded the great gates, and they bowed at the elder’s approach. “Is it going to cause problems for me to go here?” she asked.

“It would have caused a fuss if you’d simply shown up on the waystone without warning,” Aira said. “We thought you might come this way, but we weren’t certain, and didn’t know when. Word had only just arrived from Freeport. The Lucanians might have tried something, if they saw you were here before we realized what was happening. But if they cause trouble while you’re with me, we can simply use the insult as a reason to demand further concessions from them.” The old woman’s eyes twinkled at the idea, and Liv was surprised to see that she was grinning.

The guards opened the gates, and Aira led Liv into the trading district. The level of ambient noise around them immediately increased: here there were inns, warehouses, restaurants and shops, all catering to a bustling crowd of both Eld and human.

Liv found her eyes drawn to a small boy with tan skin, walking between a human man and an Elden woman. The tips of his ears had points, and he held each of his parents by the hand.

“Not used to seeing children like you?” Aira asked.

“I was the only person like me I’d ever met,” Liv admitted, shaking her head.

“Out of all the cities in the world, this is the one where humans and Eld live together the most,” the old woman said. “Put people together for a while and they’re going to pair off – nothing to be done about it.”

“What happens to them?” Liv asked, watching the boy and his parents walk away until she was craning her neck.

“Most of them stay here,” Aira said. “Or eventually go with their Elden parent back to whatever house they came from. By the time they’ve grown to adulthood, their human father or mother is usually getting old.”

Liv swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “My mother is sixty-one now,” she admitted. “I don’t know when I’m going to be able to go and see her again.”

“My mother has been dead for nearly a thousand years,” Aira said, her voice suddenly much softer. “I’ve forgotten what she smelled like, and I’m not sure I would recognize the sound of her voice.” She led Liv toward the rows of tents where Elden soldiers had encamped around the waystone.

Now that Liv was so close, instead of seeing things from high above, she could smell the woodsmoke of cook fires, hear the murmur of conversation between men and women who were oiling their blades, cleaning their armor, or trimming each other’s hair.

“My grandfather didn’t have a good relationship with Celris,” she said.

“Ha! That’s understating things,” Aira broke in. “I know that history. And I’m not going to argue that my mother was better than the Lord of Winter. I never knew my father, and – it’s different,” she explained, grappling for words. “Auris was raised by a woman who’d been raped by a god. She was already pregnant when the war began, and she ran. His earliest memories are of the fighting.”

“You’re older than him, then?” Liv asked, putting the pieces together.

Aira nodded. “My mother raised me like any other woman, I suppose. A woman with incomprehensible power, yes – a woman who kept slaves to work her terraces and orchards. But that’s the thing, Liv – they weren’t all the same. Bælris left. Arvatis, Sitia and Tamiris supported the rebellion, and then left. My mother tried to keep it away from me.”

“She didn’t fight?”

“Not until the end,” Aira explained. “She cultivated horrors, though. Vines that could strangle a man, poisoned thorns that dissolved flesh, flowers that snapped like giant mouths. None of it was enough when Semhis Thorn-Killer came, at the head of an army. She fought then.”

“And lost.” Liv tried to imagine what it must have been like, for the woman leading her between rows of tents. To be a child, and watch her mother or father die.

“She surrendered, at the end,” Aira said. “I still wonder whether she might have beaten him, if she kept fighting. But she made a bargain, you see. That I would be safe. That they wouldn’t hurt me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Liv said. They’d reached the waystone now, and though it was guarded, the Elden warriors simply bowed their heads to the elder and allowed the two women to pass without any objection.

“The hardest part was after. To hear the hate with which they spoke my mother’s name,” Aira murmured. Liv wasn’t certain the old woman was entirely talking to her anymore; she sounded as if she might be lost in memories, rather than present here and now. “The things they said she did – but I never saw any of that. To me, she was just my mother. And she was a good mother. If you learn nothing else here, learn that, Livara.” The old woman squeezed Liv’s arm. “People are more than one thing. We are bundles of contradiction, the good wound about the evil. And the Vædim were more like us than anyone wants to admit. Here.”

She led Liv out onto the waystone. “You know the sigil for Al’Fenthia?”

“Your grandson showed it to me when we met,” Liv said. “She must have told you things, then. Your mother. Why they put the ring in the sky, why they made us. You know?”

“More than nearly anyone else who is still alive,” the old woman confirmed. “They came from a world bursting with mana, you see. Saturated with it. Our world, to them, is like a great desert devoid of water. Dead. They built the ring and what we call rifts to do many things, to fulfill many functions – such as these stones.” Aira scuffed her foot on the waystone.

“But more than anything else, they built their wonders to fill this world with mana. To make it into a place they could survive. Break the ring, destroy the rifts, and they die. Which is, I suspect, why Ractia is fighting us so viciously,” Aira concluded. “She’s trapped alone on what is, to her, a dying world. She’s fighting to survive.”

“That doesn’t excuse the people she’s killed.” Liv felt a surge of anger in her chest at the merest suggestion of sympathy for the monster responsible for her grandfather’s death.

“If you wish to defeat your enemy, begin by understanding her,” the old woman said. “We will speak more when you return. This sigil, here.” She stretched her boot out and tapped her toe against the stone. “This one will take you to Varuna, where your father is fortifying the bridge. I presume you would like to speak to him.”

“I can –” Liv hesitated. “I can go and get back?”

Aira nodded. “I will send you from this end. When you return, I’ll have one of our warriors waiting to escort you back to your room for the evening.”

“Thank you,” Liv said. She stepped away, into the center of the waystone.

Aira carefully knelt, touched her hand to the sigil she’d pointed out, and then left the waystone as quickly as she could manage, while Liv waited in the building glow. The world dissolved in light, and when she returned from the darkness, Liv’s first breath was hot and damp with the scents of flowers and earth.

She turned about, to see stone walls half formed, lit by the campfires of the Elden warrior who were cooking their dinner. Liv felt disoriented for a moment, because she had left one encamped army simply to arrive at another, in a completely different environment.

Two sentries approached, a man and a woman both carrying polearms, but before she could even introduce herself to them, Liv heard a familiar voice calling across the jungle night.

“Livara!”

She turned just in time for her father to catch her up in his arms and hold her to his chest.