“Regardless,” Ezzyn cut in. “If this monstrosity broke, it would’ve destroyed the ley lines in Graelynd all the way up to the Valley.”
Zhenya nodded grimly in agreement.
Calya mulled over the implications, her mind tired despite her rest but equally incapable of letting go. “Think your word will be enough to convince the Upper Council to axe the Coalition? I’m filing a complaint.”
“I’ll be your cosigner,” Ezzyn said. “I imagine we can find quite a few interested parties to join.”
Zhenya went to a side table that had been set up in the cave, then returned to the sphere clutching an inkpot and a brush. She dipped her finger in the ink, adding a few drops of her magic to the vessel. Then, wetting the tip of her brush, she filled in the runes carved into each of the five wards embedded around the sphere.
“So,” Calya said, eyeing the old notebook where the Grae U mage had left it on the table, “you can read Eyllic?”
“Parts. Mostly just words that relate to inkmaking, some plant biology, that sort of thing. The writing in that isn’t modern Eyllic as far as I can tell, but some of the runes and sequences are things we still use,” Zhenya replied. “After studying the process used for the fake wellspring, and with the source poison available to us, we should have everything we need now.”
Calya looked between her friend and Anadae, who was smiling and nodding along with excitement in her eyes.
“Since we have you here, could you bring the culture closer?” Zhenya indicated a stool she’d been using to reach higher on the sphere.
Calya retrieved the poison brick from where she’d left it days ago, though it had been removed from the leather bag. It was still heavy as shit, but either the brick had lost some of its will or rest had restored a sizable amount of her strength, for Calya was able to carry it over with minimal huffing and puffing.
“You were able to touch it?” she asked, looking around at the gathering as she set it on the stool.
“Enough to access it,” Zhenya said.
“Self-preservation’s a foreign concept for Zhen if there’s research to be done,” Anadae muttered. The white-haired inkmaker blushed, but she didn’t refute the comment.
Lowe joined them in the cave, coming to stand beside Calya. “The Rhellians want me to go back with them,” he murmured.
Calya ignored the twinge in her chest, keeping her voice as soft as his. “Then you should.”
“You’re… okay, with that?” Confusion flickered across his face before his expression went back to a careful sort of neutral.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” she said, her opaque tone giving way to a tiny, sly smile. “I’m all out of Scarlett Kisses, at any rate.”
He snorted but was kept from answering as Zhenya inked the final line on the sphere.
“There!” She stepped back and added a dot of ink to the brick. One by one, the runes on the wards began to glow a brilliant yellow-white, filling the air with a soft, pleasant buzz. The mages within the sphere reacted, fingers twitching even though their eyes remained closed. Their magic, which previously had been floating freely around the sphere, now came together. Lines of light flowed from their hands down to the quartz stone in the floor, concentrating into a single, braided cord.
The dot on the block went from matte black to shimmering gold, and the poison cube within shuddered.
“Calya,” Zhenya said, “can you press the source against the glass?”
She complied, having to grip the block with both hands when it suddenly vibrated upon touching the sphere. “Whoa!”
A small spot the size and color of a grain of sand detached from the poisonous cube encased in the block and floated toward the edge of its ice-like containment. It touched the surface with a flash of light far bigger and brighter than its size suggested, causing a series of answering flares from the embedded wards.
Calya stumbled back, dropping the brick back onto the stool. Lowe’s arm went around her shoulders, steadying her. Slowly, he let his arm fall back to his side, but didn’t step away. Calya glanced sidelong up at him, her lips tensing with a tiny smile before she looked back at the sphere. She stayed where she was, close enough to subtly lean into him.
The plants within the sphere began to sway more vigorously, as if a gust of wind blew through the glass. Then, just as abruptly, they stilled. A single droplet of light formed at the tip of a blade of grass like a bead of magic-laced dew. It swelled to the size of a grape before it finally detached, floating up, bouncing gently on invisible currents in the sphere. With painstaking slowness, it wound down to the quartz set into the center of the floor, which was still surrounded by a ring of blighted ground. The golden bubble touched down at the edge of the corruption, not bursting but slowly sinking in as if sucked into the rock—absorbed like a water drop into paper, but instead of a splash it left behind a perfect circle of unblemished stone.
The murky green veins of corruption continued to pulse around the quartz focus, licking at the edges of the small dot of cleansed ground. But it didn’t penetrate.
Somewhere off to the side, Calya heard Ezzyn’s hoarse curse. An oath murmured not in fury but wonder. Zhenya turned around, eyes alight.
Eunny stepped up and clapped the younger woman on the shoulder. “Guess the Empire kept up at least one part of their deal.”
“But the wellspring didn’t work,” Calya said. “The Coalition sold out the Valley, sacrificed their own people, for a lie.”
“I’m not denying that part.” Eunny indicated the glass sphere, the wards set into the walls, and the plants growing inside with a slow sweep of her hand. “They gave us everything to make a poison just like what they unleashed in Rhell.”
