Page 24 of The Sundered Realms

Chapter 4

Etorsiye. A realm divided into regions centered on castles overseen by warrior-nobles, who apparently still have to learn how to wear ceremonial plate armor even though it’s fallen out of use. The climate isn’t the polar opposite of Serenthuar’s, but it’s close. People tend to be very pink, which reminds me unpleasantly of Ormbtai renderings.

But I’ll always have a soft spot for the place where I tasted hope for the first time in my adult life.

They returned to the castle long enough for Lord Vhannor to send a report ahead and to arrange for Etorsiye to send and station troops able not just to patrol, but to hold off demons. The swamp Gate wasn’t big enough for a sizable force to invade through, as long as someone was watching.

Meanwhile Liris stared down Tenoti, who’d gathered and fetched all her notes on Thyrasel for her. He apologized for giving away her secrets and asked if he could keep the non-Thyrasel notes from the language she’d been teaching him.

“Yes,” she finally said, “but you’ll have no more help from me.”

He looked disappointed but not all that sorry—presumably because he thought Lord Vhannor would reward him. Until the man in question appeared and said, “I will arrange to send you language study materials, but that is all you receive from me until you prove yourself capable of more than self-interest. Ambition is admirable, but not at others’ expense.”

Only then did he look stricken, and Liris felt better leaving him behind.

It also made her like Lord Vhannor better, which was dangerous. A person who appreciated what she was capable of and was apparently going to help her instead of limiting her... Liris wanted that so badly that she needed to be cautious.

She had to make sure to remember this was going to benefit him and his goals. He wasn’t doing this because he just wanted to help her.

That was a dream. And she’d wasted too much of her life believing her dreams were reality.

Never again.

Yet another cart took them the first leg of their journey. Liris had an impossible number of questions to ask but fell asleep instead.

She woke up when it let them off, and Lord Vhannor pressed a package of dried meat into her hands with instructions to eat while he set up camp. Liris wanted to help but also hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so she shoved it in her face so she could be more useful lest he leave her behind—and then she fell asleep again.

When she woke up next, it was wrapped in a blanket, to the sound of birds chirping and a pen scrawling on paper.

“Ah, she moves at last,” Lord Vhannor said. “Good morning. Food is ready.”

Liris sat up, scented soup, and nearly fell over, startled at the loud growl that emerged from her stomach.

Lord Vhannor’s lips twitched.

Was that almost a smile from the Lord of Never Showing Emotions?

So maybe it was at her expense, but Liris was too hungry to bring herself to be embarrassed. She slid the blanket off of her, sucked in a breath at the unexpected cold, bundled back up in it and made her way over to the pot sitting on the ground.

“You’ll have to eat out of the pot,” he said. “I’m not carrying extra bowls. Just use the ladle for the soup.”

Liris removed the iron lid and inhaled the aroma of soup with a spicy broth.

“Where were you hiding this yesterday?” She lifted the spoon and blew gently to cool it.

“Pockets.”

Liris’ eyes widened. “Wait. You shrunk the pot? How—“

“It’s an extremely complicated spell for even a small item,” he cut her off.

It must be, or else everyone would use it all the time.

Serenthuar most of all, to fit more goods through its main Gate.

Guessing the direction of her thoughts, he said, “There’s no way to make it work at scale. You’d need huge numbers of advanced spellcrafters and the infrastructure to support them, and—“

“At a certain point adding more bodies to the problem only complicates it further, yes, I understand the concept of the complexity horizon, thank you.”

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