Page 9 of The Sundered Realms

And with it, the most advanced spellcasters of the Sundered Realms?

An elite spellcaster looking for her specifically was, to put it mildly, very bad news.

“Embhullor?” Liris echoed stupidly, because she couldn’t think what else would be in character to say. Void, she needed more practice talking to people.

She wasn’t going to get it. The castle was looming through the haze now.

Liris had thought she’d been... managing, if not excelling. She’d at least successfully escaped imminent death, and she’d negotiated not having any practical skills. The appropriate next step was... more complicated.

The only people she’d had contact with who lived outside Serenthuar were obligated to Serenthuar, which meant they couldn’t help her. Meanwhile, no stranger would believe a person with no connections making claims of an unknown but impossibly powerful language gifted to demons by a realm with the unimpeachable reputation of Serenthuar. The first thing they’d do was contact Serenthuar, and she couldn’t risk that.

So Liris had three tasks:

1. Stay hidden, so Serenthuar couldn’t drag her back as a sacrifice.

2. Make connections, so someone with the power to do something would believe her.

3. Write a guide to Thyrasel, so once they believed her the casters would have everything they needed to dispel whatever Jadrhun threw at them.

Liris hadn’t yet figured out a way to make the second goal happen without sacrificing the first, so she’d focused on the third.

Evidently, she had nevertheless made a critical error.

Possibly it was that she should have tried to fight the guards earlier, because when the cart pulled up to the castle, even more leather-clad guards with visible stamps came toward them—this was official business then, void it—bringing the number she’d have to deal with to escape even higher.

“Should I be flattered you think I’m that big a threat even tied up, or do you people really have nothing better to do?” Liris asked incredulously.

“We’ve been a little slow on action lately.” The guard shrugged. “But between you and me, impressing the lord of Embhullor is also a solid career move, so no one’s going to miss this chance. In case you thought you could talk me into fewer guards.”

Liris rolled her eyes as if that was not in fact exactly what she’d been trying to do, even as her heart thumped faster.

That meant they’d be working extra hard not to let her go.

Could she use that? If their clear advantage in numbers made them overconfident—

Then the guard leaned back, mockingly shrugged the same way a certain apprentice merchant did, and Liris knew all at once what they had on her, too.

Okay. Okay, that was good and bad.

The good news was that now she knew they were going to talk to her about languages, this lord of Embhullor wouldn’t shock her into revealing something she didn’t want to.

They couldn’t know much. Surely? She thought fast.

Working as a dyer had introduced her to the traders who brought supplies like paper to the castle, and that introduced her to one young apprentice who had been exactly what she needed. Tenoti was smart and wanted to move up in the ranks, and no one would help him. She sympathized.

Even more pertinently, he had access to stacks of paper she needed to record a Thyrasel curriculum, so Liris bargained with what she had: teaching him a language his seniors didn’t speak, so he could get better deals and make a name for himself without their help.

Letting anyone know how many other languages she knew was a risk, but minimal given what a backwater Yenti was. Tenoti was invested in keeping her secret because if he lost access to her, he lost access to her knowledge, and he wasn’t stupid.

Or so she’d thought. Then again, he probably correctly figured that the lord of Embhullor could set him up better than she could, and she couldn’t have predicted that this lord would appear in such a backwater without warning. Fortunately Tenoti only knew for sure that she knew that one language, which wasn’t so damning—she could have been lying about the rest.

So, now Liris knew where she’d gone wrong... but not what she should have done differently. And that was the bad news, because that meant that even her best effort wasn’t going to be enough to keep her away from Serenthuar.

But that was a problem for Future Liris. Right now, she had a new goal:

Wait for—

No.

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