Vorn said it, short, two syllables, nothing like anything I knew, or anything that I could pronounce.
“What does it mean?”
“Roughly?” He considered. “The ones that are unknown.”
I sat with that for a long moment.Unknown.
The mist rolled past us. A steamhole somewhere nearby breathed its pale light upward into the dark. The valley held a specific kind of warmth, and I was aware of my magic in my chest, quiet now, but present. Always present.
“What happens,” I said slowly, “when people who carry too much inside them choose differently?”
Vorn looked at the valley. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I think Thiece might.” He paused. “I think it might be a buildup of…something. Like water behind a dam.”
“Dams break.”
“They can do.” He turned to watch me. “Or the water finds another way through.”
I thought about Skallfen. About the Frosttaken, and the Hulgrim, and the Drift Wolves racing over the snow. About the column in the dark below Iskaeld, pulsing slow and patient andalive. About my magic, boiling in my chest for weeks, surging without direction, finding its way out whether I chose it or not.
“She thinks I'm part of this?” I asked.
“Not you specifically.” He fell silent for a moment. “But people like you, across the kingdoms. The ones who hide rather than learn. The magic accumulates.” He looked at the valley again. “Iskaeld is a place I don’t care to go to. It’s a place of wild, raw magic. Even I can feel that. It… pools naturally.” He paused. “It draws things to it.”
“Things?”
“Like goes to like, Amarya.”
“Or it pushes things out,” I countered. “The creatures came from somewhere.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s unstable.”
That would also make sense if the equilibrium shifted. Things that lived in the deep places of the world come toward the surface. Things that were sleeping would wake up.
“Things that were myth stop being myth,” I said softly, so softly I didn’t think he’d heard me.
“Come on, let’s go talk to Thiece.”
“Can I refuse?”
“No. You’re my prisoner, remember.” He held his hand out and when I took it, he pulled me to my feet.
“Only when it suits you,” I muttered as I followed him.
“Or only when it suitsyou,” he countered.
I chose to pretend I never heard that.
Around us, the settlement was settling into its own version of night. Quieter, slower, but never fully still. People moved with that unhurried economy. The children had disappeared into the low stone structures.
“It’s late, she could be sleeping,” I said as we walked. It wasn't a question.
“She’s not.”
He was right. He entered her house as if he were welcome, and she sat on a low couch, the way people sit when they have been in that spot for a very long time, and the spot has learned the shape of them. Her pale eyes found me before the door had fully closed, and they stayed there with that unblinking quality I was beginning to associate with everyone in this valley.
Vorn stood slightly behind me. Translator and witness both.
Thiece spoke. Short, musical, nothing I could follow.
