“If the wyrm dies quickly enough, we could just wait it out,” Keri observed. “Though I don’t like relying on something outside of our control.”

Liv shook her head. “That’s not what you’re thinking, is it?” she asked her father. “Wren, you said that Silica’s intelligent. She can talk, and she has a word of power. That means she can make a bargain, doesn’t it?”

Wren let out a whistling breath. “Maybe. There was a time when my people could co-exist with her, but that was before the Painted Sands Tribe died out. Whatever agreements they had with her in the past, I don’t know what they are, or where to start.”

“If this thing is really as powerful as you all seem to think she is,” Rosamund broke in, “then I’m worried about what could have hurt her this badly. The mana beasts around certainly don’t look capable of it. Is there something else in the desert that’s even worse, and we don’t even know what it is?”

“Or the Lady of Blood moved to eliminate a threat on her borders,” Ghveris rumbled, a moment later. “Silica served Iravata, not Ractia - and she has been free for a very long time.” The war-machine paused for a moment, and Liv guessed that he was contemplating just how long he’d been asleep, and how much the world had changed in that time. “Perhaps the wyrm no longer wishes to serve.”

“The short answer is that we don’t know,” Valtteri said. Liv’s father leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees, which caused the white-braids of his hair to fall forward like a beaded curtain, of the sort that Liv had seen in the markets of Lendh ka Dakruim. “Until we’re able to actually talk to her, this is all speculation. What we know for a fact is that she is wounded - and now that Arjun is here, we have a talented healer.”

Everyone turned to look at the dark-haired young man from the east. Arjun didn’t return anyone’s gaze, instead staring at the dry ground and the dusty rocks scattered across it. “I’ve trained to treat humans,” he pointed out, after a long moment. “And I’ve had a little bit of experience treating Eld and half-Eld. There are some differences, but the two species are similar enough to be sexually compatible and capable of reproducing. Hounds and wolves might be a good comparison - maybe even horses and donkeys. Not the same species, but they can produce mules. The point is, you’re asking me if I can heal a wyrm, and that’s an entirely different thing. I don’t know the anatomy, I don’t know their allergies or dietary requirements...”

“That shouldn’t matter though, should it?” Wren asked. “You’re going to use magic to do the healing anyway, and you’ve got two words of power meant for just that.”

“Three,” Arjun corrected her. “Liv’s grandmother got me a teacher for Ract while we were in Al’Fenthia, remember? But I haven’t really learned to use it.”

“And a depth of understanding is actually really important,” Liv pointed out. “You need to know what you’re doing and what a word is capable of to shape your intent. My father spent six years teaching me all the different things you can do with Cel - someone who imprinted the word tonight couldn’t just duplicate those spells.”

“Perhaps not quite all,” Valtteri murmured, and flashed his daughter a grin. “It was only six years of tutoring, in the end. But we’re getting lost in the weeds. Arjun, are you willing to make the attempt?”

“I can take a look at her, if she’s willing to let me,” Arjun said. “That’s all I can promise.”

“Alright. And I don’t think we should try sneaking in,” Liv said. “That sends the entirely wrong sort of message. We’re going to go in through the front door, this time.”

☙

There was more to it than that, of course.

They’d decided on a course of action, but everyone knew that an attempt at negotiation could go badly very quickly in normal circumstances - nevermind when you were setting out to talk with a wounded, sentient serpent who’d had over a thousand years to practice her magic. Liv’s father set about doing everything he could to prepare for all the ways in which things might go wrong.

It took two hours for Valtteri’s scouts to confirm three different ways into the ruins that hadn’t yet been sealed off by the wyrm’s stone magic, and by that time it was mid-afternoon, the absolute hottest part of the day. The sun-baked ground seemed to radiate heat upward, like the banked coals of a fire.

“It’s the worst time to fight,” Liv’s father flatly declared, and that meant that they were waiting until the sun went down and the desert began to cool off. Approaching Silica at night meant that the negotiating team, as well as the three parties of reinforcements, would all need magical lights to see by. Fortunately, having brought warriors from House Bælris solved that problem fairly handily.

“We’ll divide into five groups,” Valtteri explained. He’d found a length of sun-bleached, knotted wood somewhere, and now used it to draw in the dust. “Forty warriors, eight to each group. One part to guard the camp, one part to accompany the negotiators. The other three at each entrance that Silica hasn’t yet closed off. I want a variety of capabilities with each group. Ghveris, you’re not likely to fit into half-collapsed corridors or to squeeze through fissures in the rock. If you’re willing, I’d like you to reinforce the defense of the encampment.”

The juggernaut looked to Liv before answering, and she nodded. “That is acceptable,” Ghveris said. “I fight best in open space. If the wyrm assaults you, Lady of Winter, try to lure it out. If you can do that, I will seize its attention.”

“That would leave Wren, Keri, and Rosamund to each accompany one of the support units,” Liv’s father continued, though he frowned at the title Ghveris used. “While Arjun, Liv and I go in to negotiate.”

“I need to go with Liv and Arjun,” Rose broke in.

Keri frowned. “I thought you said you couldn’t counter her word of power?”

“I can’t,” Rose said. “But I need to take part in the negotiations.”

Before her father could respond, Liv reached over and put her hand on top of Rose’s. “Can you tell us why?” she asked.

“I’ve been wanting to imprint Stai ever since the Foundry Rift,” Rose said. “I’d thought about trying to find an Elden house to negotiate with, because there’s no way I ever legally learn it in Lucania - not without marrying into the Tryon family, at least, which I’ve no interest in. Well, we’re already going to be bargaining with this wyrm who has the word. Maybe I can strike a deal on the side.”

“I understand wanting to take an opportunity when it comes,” Valtteri told her. “But that isn’t the priority right now. We can find someone to teach you that word later.”

“When?” Rose asked. “After this, we’re heading to Whitehill, where we’re going to be in a race against the snow melting. It’d certainly be convenient to have a mage who could raise walls and towers, when we’re getting ready for a war. And between Benedict, and whatever Ractia’s doing, I don’t see things slowing down anytime soon.”

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She turned to face Liv. “You’ve learned five words now, but you’re ridiculous. Arjun’s got four, but your grandmother didn’t bring a teacher along in her back pocket for me. Even Sidonie’s got three words imprinted, and she’s learning from Elder Aira. I’m falling behind. I don’t want to end up like Teph - someone who can’t keep up.”

“I’ve only imprinted one word,” Keri pointed out.

“And the number of words is less important than thoroughly mastering them,” Valtteri said. “You’d all be better off spending time developing your Authority. However, I can also see your point, Rose. And yes, the ability to have someone raising permanent fortifications at need in Whitehill would be quite useful. What Liv and I can do with ice won’t last in the same way. We have a few soldiers back at the dam who have experience in siege-magic using that word, and it’s part of how we’ve held that point. But every one of them I send back to Whitehill is one less we have to defend against Ractia’s assaults here. It would be worthwhile to have you there, capable of using the word.”

Liv’s father considered for a moment. “I don’t like it, but that means I will take command of the third group of reinforcements. Arjun has to go and speak to Silica, for obvious reasons, and Liv, you’re the one who needs to actually take control of the waystone.”

“Thank you,” Rose said, and Valterri nodded.

☙

The moon was just rising when Liv set the silver crown back onto her head.

She hadn’t worn it since leaving the Tomb of Celris for a few reasons - one of which was that she simply didn’t feel comfortable with the way people looked at her once she had it on. Liv wished it was shaped like something else: a rod, perhaps, or a brooch to pin a cloak, or perhaps even an actual key. Anything but a crown, which made it look like she was trying to pass herself off as some kind of queen.

The other reason, of course, was that outside of a rift they key didn’t seem to actually do anything. If it had other enchantments layered into the metal, Liv didn’t know what they were or how to activate them.

“You wear it better than Benedict does,” Rose commented, once the crown was settled.

Liv’s father, on the other hand, wore a grim frown on his face as he watched her. “It doesn’t seem worth it, does it?” Liv asked him. “To lose so many people just for this.”

“If it helps us defeat Ractia,” Valtteri responded, “- I won’t say it’s worth the cost. But at least I will feel as if my sister’s death was not entirely wasted.”

“Here.” Keri offered Liv her the set of bracelet and rings back. “It’s nearly full, after soaking in the ambient mana of the shoals all afternoon. You need every bit of capacity we can give you, in case things go badly.”

“I’m not certain that I do,” Liv said, holding the set of jewelry in one hand instead of putting it on immediately. “The Tomb of Celris - my capacity’s larger now. I can’t tell you the exact ring count; there hasn’t been time to do a test. More than thirty rings, I think.” She hadn’t actually said that part out loud yet, and did not relish the gasps of surprise from her friends, and the soldiers who would accompany them. She looked back and forth between Arjun and Rose.

“Rose, your capacity was lower than Arjun, last I checked,” Liv said.

“Fourteen rings,” the other woman responded.

“You put this on,” Liv told her, handing over the jewelry. “If we do have to fight, you’ll be up front with a sword, and I want you to have as much mana to work with as possible. If Silica is willing to talk, and Arjun makes the attempt to heal her, you can hand it over to him while he works.”

Rose nodded, and slipped the bracelet over her wrist, then set to work putting on each ring in turn. The chain-linked pieces of jewelry resized themselves to her fingers as the group watched.

“Your soldiers will provide light,” Valtteri said. “Give the rest of us half a bell to get into position before you try to enter the ruins. If it turns into a fight, I’ve given two of them instructions to send up a flare, so you’d better close your eyes. With any luck, it will dazzle Silica and give you a moment to create some distance.”

With that, Valtteri, Wren and Keri each left, accompanied by eight Elden soldiers, to take up their positions at one of the entrances to the ruins. Ghveris simply watched, keeping both the great stone doors and Liv’s team within his field of vision. Liv noticed that he’d already opened the hatches on each of his shoulders, and extended the rotating barrels of his ranged weapons.

“Did they teach you to use those in your dreams?” Liv asked, while they waited. “We think the people they left sleeping at Godsgrave are living in dreams designed to make them loyal to the old gods, to get them ready to fight.”

Ghveris nodded. “I woke from a dream of battle, to see an Eld and a human in front of me. They did not need to attack; in that moment, I did not question that they were the enemy. A thousand years of dreams, and they could give me nothing better than visions of blood and death.” The great war-machine clenched his armored gauntlets into fists.

“Go,” the juggernaut said after a moment. “I will be waiting here.”

Liv nodded, turned and set off toward the twin stone doors set into the side of the cliff. The columns worked into the rock gleamed bright under the light of the rising moon and the ring in the sky overhead. Arjun fell in on her left, and Rose on her right, with the eight Elden warriors her father had assigned to them coming up behind. Liv left her wand in its sheath at her hip, but she wore her armor, and Rose had done the same. She didn’t want it to look like they were mounting an assault, but she also didn’t want to be caught unprepared.

As they approached the great doors, Liv felt the crown on her head reach out and connect with the ruins. It was sudden: one moment, she felt nothing, and the next, between two steps on the dusty ground, awareness bloomed. Unlike the Tomb of Celris, there were barriers: things that Liv could not see, things that she could not command. But the ruins of Feic Seria acknowledged her, at least, and so the massive doors swung open.

Their movement was not smooth or easy, and Liv suspected it had been a long time since the mechanisms were forced to perform their original function. There was a great grinding sound, and she guessed that a large amount of dust had gotten into the moving parts of the entrance. Her thoughts wandered, while she paused at the threshold: if Silica wasn’t using the doors, how was the great wyrm getting in or out?

The doors shuddered to a stop, swung inward into the darkness. Liv stepped forward, and mana-stone lights flickered to life along the top of the corridor that reached into the mountain. If she’d come even a month before, she would have been looking for one of the enchanted glass panes that the Vædim had placed to provide maps to visitors. Now, with the crown on her head, she knew exactly where to go.

Liv led her friends past ancient galleries of statues, through rooms that had once been alive with feasting and dancing. There were indoor gardens, with beds of dirt long devoid of any seedling. There, the ceilings lit with enchanted sunlight, engraved with Savel, the same word of power that Keri and his family had preserved. Clay pipes ran the length of the garden rooms, suspended over the beds of earth, and from the holes Liv found with one exploring finger, she guessed that water must have once run through them.

It was all too small for a wyrm, of course.

Liv wasn’t certain just how large Silica would be, but she’d seen the monsters that Calevis and his House Iravata soldiers had brought to the Foundry Rift. Serpents of that size might be able to slither through the corridors of Feic Seria, but they would have torn the side rooms into pieces by the mere fact of their passage. And the wyrm they were seeking was supposed to be greater than any of the creatures those Eld controlled.

There was only one place in the ruins that would contain something as large as what Liv and her friends sought, and she led the way straight there. The soldiers at her back had summoned floating globes of sunlight that hovered behind and above them, the exact same spell that Keri had used in the Tomb of Celris, and the warm light cast by their magic made the mana stones in the ceiling seem dull by comparison.

As they approached the center of the ruins, Liv could hear the pained groaning of a wounded creature. The walls and floor seemed to shudder with the tossing of Silica’s enormous body, and the scent of blood hung heavy on the dry air.

“Here we are,” Liv whispered, pausing before another set of doors at the end of the corridor they’d been following. “Remember, we’re going to try to speak with her,” she cautioned the soldiers behind her. “No one draw a weapon unless the wyrm attacks first.” She waited for every warrior to meet her eyes and nod before she permitted the doors to open.

Moonlight spilled down from the starry sky above, into an enormous bowl at the center of the mountain, entirely surrounded by cliffs. There was a lake at the center, and it reflected the night sky above, so that two moons mirrored each other, two rings shone in the darkness. The sunlight of eight hovering orbs spilled out into the secret place at the center of the mountain, and fell upon great, scaled coils.

An enormous, serpentine head, the size of a castle, lifted up from the ground, turned toward Liv and her friends, and opened its eyes. The great pupils, as large as boulders, glittered the color of polished amber.

They had found Silica.