Kaelen tilts his head, his brows drawing together. “How did you know who I am?”
“There are not a lot of men your age with the famed Valourian purple eyes, Your Highness.”
The “not a lot” surprises me. I wouldn’t have thought there were any.
“Call me Kaelen, please. I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you allow us entrance,” he says, steel beneath the polite words.
The scholars exchange glances.
“We think not.”
“It’s important,” I say, but Elianna speaks over me.
“I’m Elianna Lianonne, Air Touched, Twelfth Rank, Sorcerers’ Guild,” she says, head held high, a note of command in her voice. “I will not be denied entry without serious offense to the Guild … and my father. Is this your wish?”
The guards, who bowed low at her recitation of her name and rank, stare at her with narrowed eyes.
“You will excuse us to discuss this request,” Bean says. The two guards back away from us and hold a low-voiced conversation that only takes a minute.
“We cannot grant this request, but we won’t offer offense by leaving you here in the road,” Haven says, returning to her previous position between the pillars while Bean walks over to the gate and opens it. “We invite you inside for refreshments, and we’ll collect our Scholar Superior to meet with you.”
I flinch, just a little. “Scholar Superior” is far too similar to “Sister Superior.” A shiver of unease drifts down my spine.
“Thank you, Scholar Haven,” Andras says, gracefully dismountinghis horse and bowing low.
“You will leave your horses here, and the Pyrrhan soldiers,” Haven says, gesturing at Bern and Sergeant Neville.
“Pardon my forwardness, but how would you be knowing that, lass? We wear no identifying uniforms,” the sergeant says.
Haven’s lips quirk at “lass,” but she answers readily enough, if obliquely. “We know many things, Sergeant Neville. Bern, we offer condolences for your loss.”
Bern, in the process of dismounting, jerks his head around to stare wild-eyed at the scholar. “How … Thank you.”
“I can stay out here and help watch the horses,” Trick volunteers. “Maybe Soli should stay with me while you ask about the … things.”
“No,” I say. “I need to be there. I can feel it.” I resist the urge to touch the amulet and key beneath my shirt.
“Either none of you or all of you, barring the soldiers,” Haven says firmly, and I see a trace of regret cross her face that worries me.
I glance at Chitai, and our eyes meet. I can see she’s thinking the same thing.
Trap.
What choice do we have but to spring it?
Bern and Sergeant Neville take the horses, protesting the entire time, and the rest of us follow the scholars through the gate.
I lean toward Kaelen and speak softly. “They didn’t ask us to surrender our weapons. Maybe it’s not a trap?”
He shrugs. “Or they have overwhelming numbers, and no amount of weapons will make a difference.”
When the six of us cross through the doorway, we enter a magnificent rotunda that is, to me at least, entirely unexpected. The room has very high ceilings and must be a hundred paces across. The floors are marble inlaid with brilliantly colored mosaics. The columns ringing the room are also marble, carved into fantastical shapes of animals and birds, with prowling, leaping, and climbing snow leopards preeminent. The ceiling is bare stone.
“Does the temple extend inside the mountain?” From my reading, I’d had a vague idea of a building somewhere along the road or evenon the top of the mountain—a building that looked like Artemisen’s temple in Pallanhold.
“It does. In fact, the very top of our temple is technically inside Valourian.” A ringing voice echoes through the room. Its source is a very old woman descending a set of stairs. Haven and Bean rush over to help her.
She wears an emerald green robe, the exact color of the amulet, and she’s walking slowly because she appears to be at least a hundred years old. Her pure white hair is pulled back in a loose bun, and her face is all bone and hollows, as if age and time have wiped away any trace of fullness. But her dark-brown eyes gleam with intelligence, and I don’t immediately sense any unkindness in her, the way I always did with the Sister Superior.
