No one answered.
Roan guessed it was magic. She’d seen it before and had concluded that such things worked on different principles than ropes, pulleys, and wheels. Roan began wondering if magic wasn’t just another methodology. People thought the bow and arrows she made were magic. Maybe magic was just something people couldn’t understand. Perhaps, if she studied it, she might learn how magic functioned, how to harness its power in a practical, calculated manner. What a thing it might be if anyone, by the simple flipping of a lever, could illuminate a home with magic light.
“Roan!” Padera called. The old woman hobbled up, pointing at the damaged tower. “Get your bag and follow me. Now!”
Roan reached for her panic bag—a small satchel she kept filled with the most commonly needed emergency items—an extension of her pocket idea. Inside, she’d placed needle and thread, string, rope, a small but sturdy stick, salt, clean cloth cut in strips and some in squares, a tiny chunk of pure silver, willow bark, her bound knives, a tiny hammer—this one named Banger the Light—a cup, and a small saw. She grabbed it from the corner of the smithy and ran after Padera.
“Arion and Suri were in that tower,” the old woman said as they hustled across the courtyard. A small cluster of men stood outside the Frozen Tower peering in at the open door. Roan and Padera pushed past those at the entrance. Then Padera stopped and grimaced at the steep stairs. “Go on, I’ll wait here.”
Roan climbed the shattered remains of the spiral steps. She only had to go a short way before finding both Suri and Arion, lying together.
“Arion? Suri?” Padera shouted from the bottom of the stairs. “Are they dead?”
“Well, they look…bad,” Roan replied. She drew closer and bent down. “Suri is still breathing. Arion isn’t. Yes, Arion is…Arion is…” She didn’t want to say it.
“How is Suri?”
Roan shook the mystic’s shoulder. “Suri?”
She didn’t respond.
“No wounds but she’s not waking up.”
“Damn her,” the old woman cursed. “She’s tried it again.”
“Tried what?” But Roan wasn’t really paying attention to Padera anymore. She stared at Arion as she lay on her back, awkwardly bent, her eyes still open, staring up at the sky where the top of the tower had been. The Fhrey was thousands of years old, bald, and absolutely the most beautiful thing Roan had ever seen. Even in death, in that awkward position, she was still lovely. Roan reached over and closed Arion’s eyes. That was better. Now she looks like she’s sleeping.
“You there!” Padera shouted in her ragged voice. “Go up and carry them down. Bring them to the smithy.”
“Is it safe?” someone asked.
“Safer than not doing what I tell you! Both of ya, get up there!”
Roan recognized the two men who came up. She thought their names were Glen, and Hobart, or Hubert. They were from Clan Menahan, as was obvious by the pattern of their rich blue, green, and yellow leigh mors. They approached the two Artists, looking terrified.
“Just pick her up! She won’t bite,” Padera shouted as if she could see them.
The two men looked at Roan with pleading eyes, searching for assurance or at least sympathy.
She nodded whatever approval she could give.
Suri and Arion were both tiny things, and the two men had no problem carrying them down, clutching the two like babies, heads slumped against their chests. By the time they were out of the tower and crossing the courtyard toward the smithy, the bells were ringing again. Day two of the war was about to start.
* * *
—
Once more, Persephone cursed her lacerated stomach, the bed, the raow, and anything else she could think of as she struggled to sit up and suffered for it. Stabbing pains jolted her from gut to toes.
“We don’t know exactly,” the young man said. His name was Aland, a soldier from the Third Spear—Harkon’s Clan Melen battle group. Short, young, and thin, he had been assigned runner duties and become the official voice of the war for Persephone. “I got reports of flashes of light near the north tower, explosions, and….”
“And what?”
“The top has been ripped away, gone like the Spyrok.”
“How many hurt? How many dead?”
“Ah—two I think, one Fhrey female and a Rhune girl.”
Persephone, Moya, and Brin looked at each other.
“Well, which is it? Hurt or dead? Are you saying Suri and Arion are…are they all right?”
“I don’t know their names, but one is dead and the other can’t be woken up.”
Tears were filling Brin’s eyes, while Moya stood stiff, her jaw clenched.
“Anything else?” Persephone asked the young man standing at attention at the foot of her bed.
“Just that the men have formed up inside the gates, and the archers were ordered to the walls. Lord Nyphron has decided not to engage them today.”
“And the Fhrey army?”
“Lined up on the far side of the ford, but they aren’t advancing yet.”