Skint was not persuaded. “But no one’s heard anything about her—anything—for more than a hundred years. Is this even a possibility?”
“I’ll admit it feels like the beginnings of the search for the missing Elfstones all over again,” Seersha replied. “A hunt through old journals, diaries, writings of people dead and gone, lost to us for too many years. But maybe this time we can make something good come of it. The Elfstones are still lost to us, but maybe Grianne isn’t. She was a powerful witch and a fierce Ard Rhys during her life. Perhaps she’s still something of both.”
She moved to an empty chair and plopped down. “What else do we have to do but find out? Go back to the Forbidding and try to get inside again? Go back into that madness that has already killed most of us and hope it does not take the rest?” She gestured at Railing. “What do you want to do, Railing?”
The boy discovered he was free of his restraints. He could move again, and he could talk. Still, he hesitated. “What I want to do is whatever it takes to save Redden. Do you really think this might be the way?”
“I think if it isn’t, there’s still time to try another. The Straken Lord made prisoners of the Ard Rhys and your brother for a reason. Whatever we do, we have to hope that means he wants to keep them alive and well long enough for us to save them. We have to hope there’s a way. While you search for Grianne Ohmsford, Crace Coram and I will search for a way back inside the Forbidding. We will attempt to bring your brother and Khyber out. We won’t just be sitting around with the Elves.”
“Remember that Oriantha is still in there, as well,” the Dwarf Chieftain added. “I saw what she could do when that dragon carried us off. She is someone to be reckoned with, and she is looking for your brother, too. I think Seersha is right. Nothing you could do at this point by way of searching for him would add to our chances. Stay here and look for the Ilse Witch.”
Seersha looked at him sharply. “Don’t use that name. The Druids don’t call her that anymore.”
Crace Coram nodded. “Doesn’t matter what the Druids call her. That’s who she was, like it or not. That’s who she still is—if she’s still alive—somewhere deep down inside. Maybe that’s who you want to find if you expect her to stand up to the Straken Lord.”
Railing was thinking it through. He had listened to the Dwarf Chieftain relate the story of his experiences inside the Forbidding several times. He had heard him speak of Tesla Dart and of what she had insisted was true about the Straken Lord and his obsession with Grianne Ohmsford. It seemed clear enough that he would do anything in his power to bring Grianne back, and that almost everything else was secondary. It was a fresh form of madness, and it might make him vulnerable. They needed to find a way to breach his defenses and undermine his control over the Jarka Ruus, and perhaps by doing so disrupt things enough to allow them to reach Redden and Khyber Elessedil. All that was true.
But it was also true that every day he was kept away from his brother left him riddled with guilt. Every day seemed to increase the chances they would never be together again. The Speakman’s prediction still haunted him. Only one would return. Only one. What if that one was Crace Coram, and those still left inside the Forbidding—his brother included—would not be coming back?
The others were talking again, Skint questioning Woostra further on the chances of finding anything new about Grianne Ohmsford and Seersha adding something about Aphenglow’s experience with the Elven writings. But Railing wasn’t listening.
“If you go,” Mirai said quietly, leaning close to him, “I will go with you.”