Talasyn was to take the circuitous route, avoiding the watchful port cities and the main inland roads. She steered clear of the central bulk of the archipelago and into a cluster of outlying islands shrouded in mist that swallowed her wasp whole. For the next several minutes, she flew low over the water, every fiber of her being tense. The rumble of aether hearts was too loud in the silence. She half expected a Nenavarene patrol to catch her or a dragon to swoop down at any moment.
But there was no sign of movement on any of the surrounding islands. None that she could make out through the veils of fog, anyway. And neither Bieshimma nor his crew had spotted any hint of the gigantic fire-breathing beasts that were rumored to prowl the Dominion.
Perhaps the dragons were just a myth. A story to scare off outsiders.
Once Talasyn made it to the shore of the island where the Light Sever was located, she soared higher, sails catching the breeze, avoiding the patchwork of rooftops that indicated villages and the glinting metallic towers that were obviously cities, all nestled amidst clouds of greenery as though they were part of the jungle itself. When she docked her wasp, it was inside a large cave halfway up one of the many rolling mountains—a tight fit, and she estimated that she would have to hike for several hours to reach her destination, but at least it minimized the risk of any Nenavarene coming across an airship of foreign make.
She clambered out of the well and, with the aid of her trusty compass, carefully marked the cave’s location on the map that Bieshimma had provided. Even if she were to reach the Light Sever and successfully commune with it—and that was a big if—she would be in worse trouble if she got lost looking for her only means of escape.
She shoved a generous piece of hardtack into her mouth, chewing perfunctorily before washing it down with a swig from her waterskin. Once the meager nourishment was in her system, she began the long trek.
The miles between the cave and the nexus point were covered in dark green jungle, and the first problem that she ran into was the humidity.
Gods, the humidity.
Although most of Sardovia was cold year-round, Talasyn had spent fifteen years of her life on the Great Steppe, a region of extremes. She was used to the scorching, arid heat of a northern summer, not Nenavar’s damp variety that lay heavy on the skin and filled the lungs even in the dense, overgrown places where sunlight was a distant dream. She’d stripped down to a thin white smock and brown breeches, and she still felt as if she was being crushed in the World-Father’s unwashed armpit, drenched in perspiration and her breath emerging in harsh bursts after five hours’ hiking beneath a canopy of various types of trees that she had no names for. Their branches were draped in profusions of vines that she had to hack her way through with a light-woven cutlass.
The undergrowth contained a host of vegetation that was new to her as well. There were ferns that fanned out in plaited rows along the tree trunks, creeping shrubs whose leaves folded shut when she brushed past them, and plants that dangled red-lipped sacs filled with a clear liquid in which all manner of small creatures drowned. There were black flowers shaped like bat’s wings, yellow petals that looked like frothy trumpets, and enormous velvety blooms speckled white that gave off a foul stench of decaying flesh, making her gag.
The jungle also teemed with insects and birdsong, the branches overhead replete with jewel-scaled reptiles and furry brown things that could have been either rodents or primates skittering out of sight at her approach. There didn’t seem to be another human around for miles.
It was worlds away from Sardovia in every sense.
Talasyn hadn’t objected much to being sent on this dangerous mission because she had another goal—one that she’d kept from her superiors and even Khaede. No one knew about the disquieting sensations that hearing about Nenavar made her feel. No one knew about the uneasy familiarity that she felt for it. She’d set out for the Dominion expecting . . . something. What that something was, she couldn’t rightfully say. She was searching for answers to questions that she couldn’t put into words.
Thus far, however, there didn’t appear to be a lot of answers here. She was tired, coated in grime, and sweating out more water than she could drink without prematurely exhausting her supply.
In the afternoon, Talasyn climbed a tree to work out where she was. The tree looked sort of like an old man, hunched in on itself and covered in wispy leaves, its gnarled branches dripping with aerial roots. The bark was twisted as well, as though made of ropes of wood braided together, and it was riddled with hollows.
With the help of a grappling hook and the juts in the rough, thick trunk that served as natural footholds, it was an easy ascent, and along the way she encountered dozens more of those furry brown creatures that she realized now were definitely primates, even though they were no bigger than her palm. Most fled, but some froze where they clung to the branches with elongated digits and watched her guardedly through round golden eyes that took up nearly all of the space in their tiny skulls.
“Don’t mind me,” Talasyn huffed as she scrambled past three of the creatures. “Just passing through.”
These were the first words that she’d spoken out loud to another living thing in over a day. Far from being honored, though, the three little rat-monkey-things chittered indignantly and—disappeared.
There was no fanfare to it. One moment they were there and the next they were gone.
They had probably just scurried into the leaves too quickly for her to catch, but the overall impression was that they had willed themselves out of existence to avoid her talking to them any further.
“Story of my life,” Talasyn muttered.
By her reckoning, the tree was four hundred feet tall. When she hoisted herself onto one of the uppermost branches and broke through the jungle canopy, it was to the sight of this foreign wilderness spread out all around her in ridges that were carpeted a deep, dense green. The pale blue silhouettes of even more mountains loomed in the distance, wreathed in fog. Flocks of birds soared past her perch, their plumage splashed with every bright hue imaginable, their tailfeathers streaming out behind them like sprays of aether, filling the air with the flutter of iridescent wings and the mellifluous lilt of a song like glass chimes.
The wind blew cool on Talasyn’s face, a staggering relief from the humidity. It carried with it the scents of rain and sweet fruit. It carried memory on its monsoon currents, vague and fleeting but enough to make her tighten her grip on the branch for fear that she might fall from how it made her reel.
I’ve been here before. The notion took root in her mind and it refused to let go. I know this place. Images and sensations raced through her in a tumultuous stream, swiftly shifting, ever shapeless. But she thought that she could grasp—