The goddess speaks with my voice again. “One hides in the Boundaries and the other in the Scholars’ Temple. Both are now eitherguarded by unspeakable evil or almost impossible to retrieve. But find them you must.”
“And then we can free you?” Kaelen asks.
“In time. For now, we must restore balance to nature or snow will not fall in Altarra this winter. I cannot change that as I am now, but I will grow stronger as you find the keys and attach them to my amulet.”
“Then tell us exactly where to find them,” the sorcerer says, flinching as if I/we would strike her dead for daring to ask a question.
For all I know, I/we might.
I feel the goddess’s presence inside me falter. “I cannot see exactly where the keys hide, but when you find the first, my strength will increase. I will try to guide you to the next. Hurry, though. Hurry!”
The amulet only allows me to reach out to you briefly and at significant cost, Soli, the goddess’s voice says in my mind.I’ve overreached for now. Search inside yourself for the tools you’ll need to find me.
“But—”
And trust no one.
The light and heat and energy filling me drain away like rain down a spout, and I collapse, barely catching myself from smashing my face into the floor.
The king slowly walks toward me but stops six paces away.
“Was that truly the goddess?” he demands.
I’m gasping for breath, huddled on the floor, my hand still clenched around the amulet. I want to snap at him, but I have no idea what to say. Do I have the temerity to say that a goddess just spoke … through me?
Who else could it have been, though?
I force my breathing to steady, then look up at him. “She said it was,” I say, which doesn’t make much sense, but he nods.
“I commend you for your courage, girl,” he says slowly, but I can see and hear his reluctance to commend a nobody for anything.
He turns to the Air Touched. “What now? Do you know anything about these keys?”
Probably too much to expect that he’d thank her. Or me, for that matter. I’m the one who risked a fiery death, after all. And had a goddessinside me.
The sorcerer shakes her head, shock still stamped on her face. “Keys? No. I—Maybe. There were references to keys, but we … I took them to be jumbled hints about the amulet.”
“Why? Why would the goddess play games like this with the people trying to rescue her?” I mumble.
“If only we understood the ways of goddesses.” Kaelen crouches down next to me, his face grim. “Are you harmed?”
“No?” I blink and take an inventory of my mental and physical health. I feel … fine? Better than fine. The overwhelming presence of the goddess is gone, but a slight resonance of her energy remains inside me.
Holding me up.
It keeps me from jumping up and running, screaming, away from this room, these people, and the knowledge of what’s in front of me.
“If the snows don’t fall, the drought will worsen. People will starve. So, what do we do now?” Pallan demands.
I start to ask the king how he could possibly think I have any idea what to do next, but then I realize he was talking to the sorcerer.
“Now, we put together the company and send them to the Boundaries. Then to the Scholar’s Temple and on to Corvynne’s domain.” She holds up her hands and lets them fall. “Crossing Altarra will take time. They’ll need to avoid the Zhagarn and Fell as well as the usual bands of thieves and cutthroats. The icy cold of winter will arrive sooner than we may like, even without the snow.”
I can’t stay silent anymore. “I … I’m sorry, but are we all going to act like it’s perfectly normal that agoddessjust talked to us through me, an indentured servant?”
“Apparently, goddesses don’t care about class distinctions,” Kaelen says. He holds out his hand, and I stare at it uncomprehendingly until he gently grasps my arm and helps me to my feet.
I want to lean against him—againstsomeone, anyone, to keep me upright on legs that feel liquid with shock. But of course, I don’t. Servants don’t seek comfort from princes. “I just don’t know what to do now.”
