Twelve moons after their departure from Belzetarn, Keir stood atop a ridge looking to the west, out over many more dim ridges creasing the shadowed land for as far as she could see in this moment before the dawn. The sky was light, a pale blue with a golden tinge. She waited, a bit breathless, for the sun to rise behind her. Soon . . . soon . . .
Then the feathery tops of the strange trees just downhill from her flushed brilliant green, as well as those on the slope across the valley. Each trunk rose branchless to a great height, where a mop of fronds puffed out, sheltering fruits with hairy rinds. Keir had never seen the like of them, nor Gael either, although Gael said he believed they were common in southern climes. Beneath them, gigantic ferns thrust like fountains from between smaller-leaved shrubs and a tangle of vines.
The warm air stood very still. Later morning would bring a breeze.
With the light came birdsong, a cacophony of twitters and more raucous squawks.
The panorama was very like one of Gael’s sketches of a vignette from the frame of the fifth panel of Olluvarde, the one showing the airship safely arrived and the children disembarking. The vignette depicted an airship settling at a mooring tower surrounded by the bizarre branchless trees.
She and Gael had assumed that the airship of the ancients must have made regular journeys inland, until they studied the sketch more closely and realized that the airship in the vignette was different from the one in the larger mural—smaller, with different designs on the envelope covering its air bags, but possessing its own lodestone. Just one, not two.
The discrepancy had prompted them to scour the other sketches for details they’d missed. Gael cursed himself for not copying all of the elegant stonework. Keir was merely thankful that he’d rendered as much as he had.
As near as they could tell, more than one airship had survived the storm that had batted one vessel to its doom in the roiling sea. Definitely two, perhaps three, had escaped to the mainland. Which meant that there had been at least three lodestones—two from the largest airship, one from the smaller—and maybe a fourth stone, if the third airship really had existed.
Gael had been heartened by the possibility that—subtracting the gong’s lodestone from the total—they had two or three stones they might find. It raised their chances of success. Keir dreamed that they might unearth all of them. She could teach other healers how to use the lodestones and between them restore many more trolls to health.
She gazed a moment longer at the view before her, watching the long shadows of the ridges retreat as the sun rose, and inhaling the rich, spicy scents floating from the exotic foliage. Then she turned away, walking back to the short bluff that sheltered their tent. Was Gael awake yet?
She peered in through the open flap.
Her blankets lay where she’d left them, unfolded on her side of the tent. On the other side, still under the top fold of his blanket, Gael was just opening his eyes.
Keir felt the corners of her mouth turning upward. Gael looked healthier than ever before, far more robust than when he’d dwelt in Belzetarn. His ankle never clicked these days, and he moved easily, without the soreness in his joints that had troubled him. But the repositioning of his energea nodes had not only granted him greater comfort. His skin had firmed up and possessed a better color, with a slight flush beneath its clear olive tone, rather than pallor. The lines bracketing his mouth and eyes had faded. The eyes themselves were brighter. And his nose had returned to the merely aquiline, no longer elongated and hooked from his troll-disease. He looked human.
He is human, Keir reminded herself. All trolls were human; humans suffering from an illness. And once she acquired an intact lodestone, she would heal them, as many as were willing.
Gael smiled back at her, his eyes warm. “I think I’ll bathe in the spring after we’ve topped off our waterbags, if you don’t mind,” he said.
Keir grinned. “I’ve already refilled them,” she said. “And bathed.”
He sat up, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Have you, now? Then I’ll wash before we break our fast, rather than after.” He rummaged around in one of the haversacks, drawing out a piece of the knotted root that they’d learned developed a fresh-smelling lather when rubbed.
“Don’t you dare bathe before we’ve checked our direction,” Keir chided.
Gael lifted an eyebrow—teasing her—then tipped the polished teardrop from the pouch that he still kept pinned at his waist.
The constellation of its scrolling energea lattice had changed gradually over the moons they’d been traveling. The protrusion that pointed back to Belzetarn had retreated until the array filled a bumpy, but symmetric sphere. No lodestone was near enough to disturb its configuration.
They’d travelled onward, inspecting the array each morning.
Keir allowed her inner sight to open. What would she see this time?
Gael turned the teardrop as she watched, and her breath caught.
The scrolls of aching gold jostled one another as they twirled, moving to allow the longest of their number to protrude beyond the others. It pointed ahead, across the ridges.
“Gael!” Keir gasped.
“I see it.” He leaned forward, reached for her hand, and brushed the back of it with his lips. “We’ve been seeking hope,” he said. “Now we’ve found it.”
Keir realized she was crying. She’d thought she’d regained hope on the day when she’d healed Gael, but now she realized that it had merely been the lifting of despair. This was hope.
“Our world will change,” she whispered.
Gael nodded, smiling gently. “Yes.”
Sovereign Night is the next book in the series!
What dark secret lurks within the Glorious Citadel at the heart of the city-state Hantida?
Gael, an illicit mage, hunts redemption with Keir, a healer who helps all who cross her path. Gael loves her loyalty to her calling—and to him—but knows that mere friendship must suffice.
Together, the two seek a cure for the affliction that not only erodes their bodies and minds, but keeps them apart. The magical lodestone that holds their salvation lies hidden in the Glorious Citadel where the city-state’s sovereign dwells.
Posing as physician and physician’s aide, hired to preside over entertainments hosted within the Glorious Citadel, they find their quest for healing entangled with the corrupt and deadly undercurrents spiraling among the courtiers and servitors of the palatial stronghold.
The trail of clues—a would-be assassin startled from the shadows, twin handmaidens stealing from the library by night, and heavily-armed warriors called reavers smuggling kidnapped victims into the citadel precincts after sundown—leads toward the ancient artifact they need, but also to the risk of a horrific death.
Both Gael and Keir must learn honesty about who they love, who they hate, and who merits their championship, or lose not only each other but life itself.
Sovereign Night is the suspenseful second novel in the Gael & Keir epic fantasy series. If you like vivid characters, high-stakes mystery, and immersive world-building, then you’ll love J.M. Ney-Grimm’s riveting adventure tale.
Buy Sovereign Night to discover the real treasure at the labyrinth’s heart today!
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The Tally Master, Chapter 23 (scene 106)
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