Braiden flinched. Wouldn’t the wizard want to explore deeper? Was he only doing this for Braiden?
But Valefour chuckled. “If you leave now, then you’ll never know the true purpose of the Heirloom.”
That stopped everyone in their tracks. Braiden’s jaw dropped. “How do you know about the Heirloom?”
But he already knew, didn’t he? The answer was Granny Bethilda. It always was.
“I suppose you’ve already guessed. It was decades ago when I met your grandmother. And it was decades longer when we first stepped through the portal to this place you now call your dungeon.”
Everyone held their breath. In the great burning meadow, the only sound was the flickering of little flames in the grass.
“There is a portal not far from here, a doorway we used to access your side of the world. We thought it would hold for as much time as we took to explore the place you call Aidun. We never would have guessed that the door would snap shut behind us.”
Ophidia sighed. “And that’s where your lineage comes in. Bethilda Beadle was a good soul who never judged us for the twist of our horns or the red of our skin. And just as well, because we needed to find a magic-user who knew how to work with the fabric of reality — someone who could repair the threads that frayed around the rip between your world and ours.”
A weaver, Braiden thought, a shiver of excitement running down his back.
“So we designed this device for her to assemble,” Valefour said. “And we would have helped build the Heirloom, too, but we cannot travel far from the portal for too long, broken as it may be. We found out the hard way.”
He gestured around the fiery cavern. This must have been the fruit of the portal’s influence, its terrain encroaching on Aidun’s ground. Valefour’s home hell might have been lovelier than anything Braiden had imagined.
“First comes the wracking pain,” Ophidia said, “then the failing body, and eventually, death. We lost a few of our number finding out. And my husband is a competent fighter, but we still aren’t scouts or rangers. We’re mainly tinkerers.”
Hence the Heirloom, and hence the secret card in the storage room. All the threads were coming together now.
“I invented the chatterbox,” Newt said proudly, rocking on his feet. “Singular. Only the several hells will know how they learned to self-replicate.”
Over by the fire, the chatterboxes snickered.
Valefour rolled his eyes away from the ring of messengers. “Your grandmother tried her best with what was given to her, but perhaps it was too much to ask. She had yet to even open her shop, barely starting her own family.”
This all led back to before Braiden was even born. He pushed his fingertips into his temples, trying to ground himself in reality, his head spinning from the very breadth of the story.
“But her visit to Yhip Valley and the othergoats — I still don’t understand why she never told me.”
“To protect you,” Augustin said. “She didn’t want you getting involved with the Heirloom.”
Valefour nodded. “Or with us. It was a lot to ask of Bethilda Beadle. She was a seasoned traveler, but not much of an adventurer. No offense meant, of course.”
“None taken,” Braiden said. “I’m only here because of my friends. Well, and because you lured us down here. Come to think of it, why didn’t you just ask us? You could have said something that first day you walked into my shop.”
Elyssandra huffed. “And you certainly didn’t have to orchestrate this whole kidnapping attempt just to bring us to this level. Not to toot our own horn, but all we’ve ever done is try and help people.”
The demons glanced at each other with weary, knowing looks. Ophidia shook her head.
“Look at us. Look at how humanity reacts to our presence. You think us deceptive, amoral, and evil. We only did what was expected of us.”
“Truth, now,” Valefour asked. “Would you have believed me had I told you?”
Braiden stared hard at the ground, his belly cramping with shame. They were right, too. There was no demonic stronghold, no sinister citadel, only this meager encampment. Three tents and a campfire in an underground garden of flames.
It was too difficult to let go of old prejudices, but he was willing to try. More than that, he meant to make amends.
“Whatever it takes to see this to the end,” Braiden said, his words trailing off, unsure of how to finish the journey when he couldn’t even finish his sentence.
He drew the bundled Heirloom out of his backpack, offering it to the demons. They unwrapped it, then gasped at the gleam of flames against its lacquered wood.
Ophidia smiled, then drew a finger along the corner of her eye. “It’s lovelier than I could have imagined.”
