“Four hundred,” Rose said, once the door was closed and the two women were alone. “It was bad enough when you told me that you’d live for two hundred years, but I thought, well, ‘everyone knows that mages live for a bit longer than ordinary people. It wouldn’t be so bad as all that.’ Blood and shadows, Liv, it’d be like me having a pet cat – you love ‘em, sure, but you also know someday they’re gonna get old and pass, and you’ll get a new kitten.”

Liv turned herself around so that her legs hung off the bed, leaned forward, and grasped the edge with both hands to support her weight. There was a part of her that wanted to give Rosamund a hug, just to make her friend feel better, but she was also worried about sending the wrong message. Not that she was even certain what the right message would be.

“You’ve only known me a little over a year,” Liv said, picking her words as carefully as she might make her way through a patch of briars. “It hasn’t really been shoved in your face before. It’s a different thing to see my ears, even meet my father, I suppose. You know that I’m older than you, but it wasn’t real until just now, was it?”

Still facing the wall, Rose shook her head.

“For me, it really started to hit home when my friend Emma got married,” Liv recalled. “I met Airis ka Reimis when I was twelve, did you know that? He kept calling humans fireflies, because he said they lived such short lives. It didn’t really make sense to me then, and to be honest it even felt a bit insulting. I didn’t like the idea that someone thought about my mother that way.”

“It is a bit of an arrogant way to think,” Rose said, with a huff of breath that was almost a laugh.

“Right? But so Emma - she was five when we met. I was about six, physically, so far as anyone could figure. The first time I visited her house she pulled out her rag dolls and we played together, and she was the only real friend I had for years. When she got married, Rose, I didn’t look more than fourteen or fifteen. She’s thirty now - she has children. And look at me. One pathetic courtship, broken off. I don’t even know what to talk to her about anymore. I feel like she’s grown up, and I’m – just lingering.” Liv closed her eyes, and was surprised to find them wet. She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

“You feel like you’ve been left behind,” Rose said.

“I do.” Liv nodded, and opened her eyes. “I think that’s part of the reason I took so long to break things off with Cade. Not the only one - he was the first boy who ever seemed to really care for me, even if he wasn’t perfect. It was nice. I thought, for a bit, maybe I could marry him and have a child or two. That once he’d passed, I could head north and have a sort of second life.”

“I don’t think you’d be happy doing that.” Rose finally turned around.

“I’m not sure,” Liv said. “I actually do want a child someday, I think. But I want them to have what I didn’t - two parents, and a place they can grow up without being called names. I don’t want my daughter to have to scrub chamber pots before the sun comes up. The idea of doing that with Cade wasn’t a nightmare or something – but I can’t do it right now. Not with Ractia in the west, and Benedict in the east.”

“That’s the thing.” Liv looked Rose in the eyes. “Saying I might live four hundred years, or a thousand years, doesn’t matter right now. Because I could die tomorrow, Rose. I’ve nearly died over and over again, this past year, but it could have gone the other way. If I didn’t have Luc to break open Karis’ armor. If Wren and Arjun didn’t pull me out at the Well of Bones. If you all didn’t keep me alive when we escaped Coral Bay. I’ve got enough power to make a difference, but not enough to be sure I’ll make it through what’s coming.”

“So you’re saying it shouldn’t bother me?” Rose sighed. “Maybe you’re right, but you’re not the one I thought would be arguing that. Does that mean you’ve made up your mind?”

Liv felt heat rush to her cheeks. “I – I didn’t like seeing you upset,” she said.

“Look, if I’ve misread things, just tell me,” Rosamund told her. “It’s always this horrid guessing game. Is this girl really sending me signals, or is it my imagination? Does she want a kiss, or is she just a friend? If I tell her how I feel, is she going to slap me?”

“I’m not going to slap you,” Liv said, with a grin. “No matter what. Unless you’re an utter fool. A mean fool, or something like that.”

“Alright, then,” Rose said. She took two steps over to the bed, leaned down, and pressed her lips to Liv’s.

At the moment of contact, Liv unconsciously stiffened with surprise. It wasn’t the same as kissing Cade, but it wasn’t a bad thing, either. She let her eyes close, and when they broke apart a moment later, she knew that Rosamund was waiting for a rejection. Bracing for it.

“Let’s not keep the others waiting any longer,” she said, quietly. Liv hopped down off the bed. When she reached the door, it opened for her without protest, and together the two women stepped into the hallway.

☙

By the time they’d retraced their steps to the control room with the view of the world turning below, Liv saw that Sidonie had managed to fill two facing pages of her notebook with a pen drawing of the continents. Arjun and Aira were seated on a bench, speaking, though they paused when Liv and Rosamund rejoined the group.

“Elder Aira is willing to let me look through the healing spells House Keria has on record,” Arjun told them, his eyes shining with excitement. “She says there’s even records of an archmage level healing spell that uses all three words!”

“Not that you’re ready to learn it yet,” Aira said, patting Arjun’s hand with her own. “You need to work on combining two words before you get on to three. The difficulty of holding that kind of intent in your mind is beyond any of you, right now. In any event, we’ve done what I brought you all up here for. We shouldn’t push our luck by remaining any longer.”

“Could Ractia get up here? To the ring?” Liv asked.

“She has the waystone at Nightfall Peak,” the old woman said. “Yes, she could. I doubt she’s had a reason to yet, but I also can’t pretend to know everything this place is capable of. She probably doesn’t expect anyone still living to know it's anything more than a pretty ornament in the sky – otherwise, we might have found our passage barred. I don’t really expect her to appear on the waystone at any moment, but if she did, you children aren’t ready to face her yet.”

“Alright then. Pack yourself up please, Sidonie,” Liv said. “Perhaps once we’re back in Al’Fenthia, elder, you can tell us about how to know when we are ready. In the meantime, let’s see whether the eruption has settled. Arjun, I assume you’re going to want to help treat the wounded.” Her friend nodded. “You can stay with Airis and Vari, then, while the rest of us make sure that Aira gets back to the city safely.”

“I want to check Rose and Sidonie for mana poisoning once we’re out of the rift, as well,” Arjun reminded her.

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Liv nodded. “That’s fine.”

Once Sidonie had corked her bottle of ink – Liv wondered just how many of those the woman had packed, when she left Coral Bay – they all followed the elder back to the ring’s waypoint.

“If we hadn’t left the horses at the base of the tower,” Liv mused, “we could have just taken this straight back to the city, and then rode to the gap. As it is, I don’t want just Arjun going through the rift alone.”

“Waystones make things easier, but they don’t solve every problem,” Aira sympathized with her. They all crowded together on the stone, and the old woman reached down to touch the sigil for her mother’s tower. “Though if you really do plan to fight a goddess, there are a few things I’m going to teach you.”

Light flared, and they left the ring behind, returning to the world below.

☙

The trip back out through the Garden of Thorns was far easier than the journey in had been. The tower itself continued to acknowledge Aira as its mistress, and did nothing to bar their passage. The inner garden remained full of plants that could have killed any one of the party, if they made an unwary move – but again, they had a guide.

After reclaiming their horses, they eventually emerged into the fields that fed much of the north. The mana which filled the shoals was no longer a roiling, turbulent mess, and Liv could see how Elden farmers would be able to work here. Whatever mana beasts remained must have retreated to their dens, exhausted from days of frenzied activity. Liv could feel the moment they left the shoal: as Aira had said, it was like stepping from dry mountain air to the swampy moisture of the lowlands. A thoroughly unpleasant feeling, but she trusted that she would get used to it.

They took a brief rest – not only for the horses, and for a bit to eat out of their saddlebags, but so that Arjun could examine everyone for mana sickness. Liv and Aira passed inspection at a glance, while he frowned a bit at Rose’s wrists, and used Aluth to drain off some of the excess mana.

At the gap, they found that the warriors of the many houses were engaged in transporting the wounded back to Al’Fenthia. Vari rode over to greet them the moment the sentries let them through the picket lines.

“Whatever you did, Elder Aira, it worked,” the young Elden man said. He had a wicked looking scalp wound that had crusted with dried blood, and Liv wondered whether it was exposed because his helm had been ruined saving his life – or if he’d been foolish enough to take the helm off and expose himself. “My father’s taken the fittest warriors he could and rode back to Al’Fenthia, to reinforce Valtteri’s troops in Varuna.”

“My friend Arjun would like to stay here to help treat your wounded,” Liv said.

“You’re more than welcome,” Vari told Arjun with a nod. “Thank you.”

“The rest of us will be escorting the elder back to the city,” Liv continued.

“I can’t guarantee the road is safe, but usually the mana beasts withdraw back to the shoals when the eruption is over,” Vari told them, and Liv nodded.

“It was the same way at Whitehill where I grew up,” she said. “Any lingering threats shouldn’t slow us down.”

In truth, the only animals that really worried Liv at the moment were birds of prey. An eagle or hawk, driven mad and grown immense from mana exposure, could dive down upon them without a great deal of warning. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to have the Sherard word of power, after all, if one had access to a ready supply of raptors grown fierce in a rift.

By the time they made it back to Al’Fenthia, it was evening again, though Elder Aira’s presence meant the city guards let them through the east gate without any difficulty. This far north, even in early winter, the days grew short and the nights long, and while the party had set out at dawn, they’d made quite the journey.

“Has my grandson gone through the waystone yet?” Aira asked the commander of the guard, while the gates were secured again behind the group.

The commander, a woman with the sides of her head shaved and her remaining dark braids pulled back tightly against her skull, nodded. “He came through the gates more than an hour ago, elder, and made straight for the waystone. We marked the flash of light not long after.”

“I will return to the manor to speak with Saana,” Aira said. “You children are welcome to come with me; I imagine you could use a hot meal and a change of clothes. I would also understand, Livara, if you wanted to go through and check on your father in Varuna.”

Liv hesitated for a moment, but it truly wasn’t much of a choice. “We’ve dealt with Ractia’s distraction, which means she’ll either hit them as hard as she can, or pull back and wait for a better opportunity,” she reasoned. “If I go there for nothing, we haven’t lost anything but a bit of time. Better to be safe.” She wheeled Steria around to address Sidonie and Rosamund. “Would you like to come with me, or accompany Elder Aira?”

“I’ll make certain the elder makes it back safely,” Sidonie offered, and Liv could tell that she would be pestering the old woman with questions the entire way.

“Let’s see the jungle, then,” Rose said, and the two groups split.

They rode beneath the lanterns hanging from the trees above, passing in and out of each globe of light. There were too many people walking the streets of Al’Fenthia to make their way at anything faster than a walk: the last thing Liv wanted to do was accidentally hurt someone by charging Steria through the city at a gallop. Still, the delay made her nervous, and she knew that she wouldn’t truly be comfortable until she’d seen her father and the state of the fortifications at the dam.

The guards let them into the trading district with no difficulties, but Liv couldn’t help but feel the eyes of the encamped Lucanian soldiers on her as they rode across the quarter to where the waystone was guarded by Elden warriors. Liv couldn’t imagine how the king’s spymaster, or Bennet Howe, could have gotten out of the mountains and back to Valegard quickly enough to reach Al’Fenthia, but she half-expected to see one of them striding across the street to arrest her. She resolved not to remain in Al’Fenthia for long: now that the eruption was over, she would bring them more trouble than help.

The guards nodded to her as she passed, but didn’t challenge the two women. “Could you hold our horses until we return?” Liv asked one of them.

“Of course.” The guard inclined his head and accepted the reins of each horse in turn once Liv and Rose had slid down out of their saddles.

“This one,” she said, leading Rose across the expanse of white stone to show her the glyph for the base in Varuna. “In case you need to find it on your own.”

“I don’t have the mana to activate most waystones anyway,” Rose pointed out. “But I can help you carry the load for this one.” They both knelt, touched their palms to the stone, and then waited while the magic carried them to the jungle.

“Blood and shadows it's hot here,” Rose exclaimed, the moment they’d come back to themselves. “And wet. I already feel disgusting. I’m going to be sweating like a hog the entire time we’re here.”

It was still light in Varuna, Liv saw, though the shadows had lengthened with evening. The fortifications around the waystone were a hive of activity, with warriors rushing this way and that. The thundering rattle of Antrian weapons filled the jungle, and as soon as she heard it, she knew exactly what was happening.

“The wall’s this way,” Liv said, and grabbed Rose by her hand. She pulled the other woman along in her wake as she made her way up to the newly built battlements. There, Elden warriors faced off against a line of Antrian war machines that had emerged from the jungle.

She recognized the enchantments the mechanical soldiers used: mana shields to protect themselves, and the same weapon mounted at the shoulder that Karis had used against her. The metal tubes spun, cracked like thunder, and spit out something like an arrowhead in great quantities.

Walls of stone, earth, ice and metal rose to meet the onslaught, while streams of fire lashed out from the wall to test the Antrian shields. Liv watched for a moment, then frowned. “They’re not pushing forward,” she half-shouted to Rose. “They aren’t committing to an assault.”

“It’s a probing assault,” her father’s voice called, and Liv turned to see Valtteri, Wren, and Airis walking toward her. “Your friend captured their scouts, so I don’t think Ractia is entirely certain what is happening. When they saw the flash of the waystone, they moved up to the edge of the treeline, and began testing our defenses.”

Liv looked back over the expanse of cleared land between the fortified walls and where the machine soldiers stood, just at the edge of the foliage. They fought differently than when she’d confronted Karis alone: an entire rank of the machines held the front, joining their mana shields to protect the Antrians in the second rank.

“I expect them to pull back once they’re certain we haven’t sent troops to Al’Fenthia,” Liv’s father told her. “But if you’d like, you can help to hurry them along.” He smiled, and Liv couldn’t help but return the expression with a grin of her own.

A few minutes later, lightning began to fall down from the sky onto the Antrians.