Page 135 of The Sundered Realms

Liris had seen Nysia use protection spheres in ways she’d never imagined and never falter, be it in the face of a political enemy or a demon or a callout from her allies; if that wasn’t her element, she didn’t know what was.

But she said, “Elegant. Thank you for that.”

“It’s not enough.” Vhannor sounded disgusted. “I know Ormbtai is not the backup you would want, but I would have felt much more confident knowing that officially they were bound to support us. I’ll sneak out tonight to request backup directly from Ormbtai’s casters. I know a few of the higher-ranked, and I think I can convince them it’s worth their while. Still.”

“I doubt it would have mattered.” Liris leaned back against him, gazing at the beautiful, high windows inlaid with mosaic glasswork. “Of all the people I’ve met, I think these are the worst kind. As long as they’re comfortable, they’re not willing to do anything. It seems wrong that the elders should have been correct about this.”

“You don’t really think they have that many casters though, do you?”

She shook her head. “No. That was just to threaten the chancellor. Serenthuar never lets anyone do anything if they can’t be perfect at it.”

Vhannor grunted. “At least that means they’re unlikely to have prepared anything we haven’t seen before. Small comfort.”

Yes. Because the elders were so determined to not change, they’d burn themselves and the world to the ground.

But she no longer had to let them.

They subsided into silence, while Liris mentally traced the outline of the patterns around the windows, then physically with her finger on Vhannor’s arm.

“Hey, Vhann.”

“Mm?”

“That Gate Jadrhun found in Theiraos, that no one knew was there. Not even the top casters who’d lived there for years, who definitely would have been motivated to find any leverage they could. How do you think he knew?”

Vhannor shifted his hold on her. “It’s a good question. Casters didn’t design the Gates, so we’ve always been working backward in studying them. We know we can cross Gates to other realms, we know they’re different than demon portals because demons can’t use them, but like a portal, the size of the Gate matters in terms of how much can pass through. But we’ve never had a good way to quantify magic in measurable terms, or creating spells would be substantially more straightforward. There’s no way to map Gates without either stumbling into them or studying ley energy to find intersections, which—“

”—which is forbidden, to prevent a recurrence of the Sundering. But we can assume Jadrhun rejected that and went looking—“

“But he still would have had to learn how to find ley lines the way people have always found them.”

Search for the gaps in patterns, the unlikely circles; the natural holloways and the paths birds won’t cross.

Liris glared up at the ceiling for several minutes, trying to sort what she knew to ask the right question. “I feel like I’m on the edge of something, like if I just squint hard enough at the pattern everything will slot into place.”

“What do you usually do, in that case?” Vhannor murmured.

Liris winced. “Either squint harder or go to bed.”

“Then tomorrow is soon enough.” He kissed her temple. “You’ve had enough revelations for a year, let alone a day. Save some for tomorrow’s Liris.”

“There are always more revelations,” she said, but half-heartedly, still not moving. She’d do better looking for possibilities, not obstacles.

Ironically something she’d learned from Serenthuar’s perseverance, that it had not learned itself.

But—“I think my brain is still moving too fast to sleep.”

“Hmm.”

Something about the low, speculative note in his voice caused Liris’ core to stand up at attention.

“I have another suggestion,” Vhannor rumbled against her ear, “to give your brain a rest.”

Wait. Surely he didn’t mean—

He picked her up and carried her to one of the beds, setting her down gently.

Then with a quirk of his eyebrows, he crouched down at her feet and unlaced her boots.

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