I gaze out into the mottled darkness, trying to sort through my internal chaos. How many times can a person’s paradigm be shattered? I must be approaching a record. “If there are really Elves living under Crown City, how is it possible that nobody in Verdinae knows?”
“Because King Verdin worked hard to wipe out the truth,” answers Cygnus. “He couldn’t destroy the Everwell, but hecoulddestroy evidence that it ever existed. It’s been hundreds of years since the fyres. The only people who can remember are Elves, and he’s effectively eliminated their presence in the Hartlands. People believe what they’re told to believe. He wanted all memory of Ruin gone, and he’s nearly succeeded.”
My head churns with follow-up questions about Ragglestaff and Queen Soleste and Sandria and how all the fragmented parts are connected. One rises above the rest, and I turn back to Cygnus. “Have you been there? To Ruin? Is that where we are now?”
“No,” he says. “But I’ve tried. I came down here once, last year. I found a book at Belshire that told me about the Everwillow and realized the tree in the garden matched the description. So I went out to test it—by myself, since I’m apparently anidiot.Zero preparation. You can imagine what happened when I touched the trunk. It’s nothing short of a miracle I hit the water feetfirst. And then obviously, I got swarmed by skakabri. They chased me back to the water, and I was able to hide in the rocks, but not before they stung me here, and here.” He taps his back and thigh. “The poison worked fast. I’m still not sure how, but I managed the climb to the surface. I was half dead when I made it back. Fortunately, Ragglestaff was the one to find me. He knew what had happened at a glance because he’d tried the same thing years ago. So he treated me with antivenom, and he told me about the Goddesses’ Gates.”
“What gates?”
“The Everwillow portal is only the first line of defense.” Cygnus points toward the void. “Downthereis a maze, which leads to a series of portals that they called the Goddesses’ Gates. Ragglestaff said there should be three of them—one for Elowyn, one for Nocturn, and one for Rashielle. If you can get through allthree gates, you should be able to reach Ruin. But neither of us could make it past the skakabri.”
All this feels like too much to take in. My Talent prickles under my skin as my confusion builds into despair. How much of this information does Mother know? How much has she kept from me? Why is this ten-minute conversation with Cygnus more enlightening than eighteen years with her?
Yet again, I agonize:Why can’t she just trust me?
“What’s the point of all this?” I finally ask, forcing myself to take a calming breath. “What was your grand plan in dragging me down here?”
“I thought it was obvious.” He blinks. “We should work together to get through the gates.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “Are you insane?”
“No?”
“Cygnus, did you miss the part where the skakabrikicked our asses?” I grow heated. “We need to get the hell out of here as fast as we can! There’s no telling what else could be lurking down there. We are lucky to be alive!”
“People dieevery dayin this war!” he pushes back. “You don’t always have to watch it, butIdo! I don’t get the luxury of looking away. I’ve had to tell boys younger than me that they’re never going to walk again. I’ve had to physically tear mothers away from their children because they can’t accept that they’re dead. Some of the things that I’ve seen—” He breaks off, dropping his head in his hands.
Cygnus’s shoulders rise and fall through a few deep breaths before he tips his face back up. “People willkeepdying and suffering unless someone stops the imperial machine.” He jerks a hand toward the void. “Someone has to at leasttryand get through to them. There could be a whole army of Evermoreans down there waiting to fight!”
I’m watching him carefully. “Cygnus, if it were easy to get through the gates, someone would have done it already. Those gates are probably sealed by spellcraft. If they are, there’s nothing we can do.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Magic doesn’t have negotiable rules. You’re saying the Evermoreans have been down there for, what…hundreds of years? And no one has been able to reach them? You and I aren’t going to change that.”
“So you’re not even willing to try?” Cygnus snaps back. “To be clear: I don’t want to die down here any more than you do. The difference between us is that I’m not convinced we will.”
“Well, Icommendyour self-confidence.”
“It’s not myself I believe in,” he counters. “It’syou, Lyria. What you just did to the skakabri is unlike any magic I’ve ever even read about. If anyone can make it through the gates, it’s you.”
I shake my head. He’s either lying or more stupid than I thought.
“Then that would be your first mistake,” I say.
Cygnus exhales hard in frustration. “I don’t know what your mother did to make you so self-doubting,” he says. “Maybe it’s just something you do to yourself. But it’s not helping anyone. We have a duty to those people, Lyria.Ourpeople.”
My throat wobbles.
Gods-damn him.
I choose my next words very carefully. “Say that I did decide to help you get to Ruin. What, exactly, would that entail?”
“Simple. We try to get through the gates. If we get stuck, we start over.”
“And if wedie?”
“Commend our souls to Nocturn, I suppose,” he says easily.
