“Try this,” Suri said.
If it had been anyone else, Arion would’ve pretended to be asleep, but Suri could always tell.
Arion opened one eye. The Rhune mystic stood over her with a steaming cup. Just behind the girl was the old woman Padera. The two had become something of a team lately, joining forces to concoct primitive recipes to ease Arion’s pain. None worked. Knowing the two would continue to pester her until she drank, rubbed, or gargled whatever they brought her, Arion sat up and took the cup. Miraculously, the delicate vessel, called a Gifford Cup by the dahl’s residents, had survived the attack. The exquisite chalice was as out of place as Arion in that world of mud and logs.
Suri made a gesture indicating that the brew should be drunk. Arion sniffed the cup’s contents, then recoiled at the stench.
“You sure?” Arion inquired.
“Pretty sure,” Suri answered with an encouraging smile.
The hot tea was bitter but not nearly as repugnant as its smell. The liquid had a woody aftertaste. “What’s this one?”
“White willow bark.”
“Good for headaches?”
Suri nodded. “The best.”
Arion knew the young mystic was stretching the truth. If the concoction was the best, it would have been the first the pair tried, and they had gone through nearly half a dozen attempts. She took a second sip, which also made no improvement, but at least the steam was pleasant. The old woman didn’t speak Fhrey, so Arion forced a smile and nodded in her direction. Padera said something unintelligible and her sour face turned even more acidic. Suri had been teaching Arion Rhunic, just as Arion worked at improving Suri’s mastery of Fhrey. But Arion’s vocabulary was still limited to a few hundred words, and Padera hadn’t used many of those.
“What did she say?”
“She doesn’t understand why you aren’t getting better.”
“That makes two of us.”
Looking around, Arion saw that not much had changed since she’d lain down, except that now neat rows of wrapped bodies were carefully laid out in a mass grave. Each building was still destroyed. Logs, thatch, and rock foundations were scattered everywhere. She considered repairing the damage—not that she knew exactly how it all went back together—but she didn’t dare take the risk.
Earlier that morning before she’d gone to the forest, Arion had thought she’d finally mended. Her head hadn’t hurt for days, but now the throbbing announced most emphatically that her hopes of being healed were, at best, premature.
Months ago, after arriving at the dahl to bring Nyphron to justice, Arion had been hit in the head with a rock by one of the villagers. She’d yet to discover the culprit’s identity, but it didn’t matter. What had mattered was being completely cut off from the Art. After the injury, she couldn’t manage even a simple weave. It wasn’t until after the bandages wrapping her head were removed that the Art returned. Apparently, Suri had been afraid Arion would retaliate against the dahl because of the attack, so the young mystic had painted Dherg runes on the bandages, and they had inhibited Arion’s use of magic.
With the restoration of the Art, Arion had fought Gryndal, but by the end of the battle the pain had blinded her. She couldn’t walk and had to be carried back to bed. She hadn’t fallen asleep after the fight; she’d passed out. When she awoke a full day later, Arion was physically sick and emotionally devastated, but at least she had the Art once more, or so she’d thought.
Using the Art to extinguish Magda’s flames, then later to trap the giant, had brought the pain back. So while she was no longer blocked from accessing the power of the Art, using it was another matter.
“You’re awake. Good.” Nyphron waded toward her through a pile of thatch that had been someone’s roof. The Galantian leader was wearing his armor for the first time in weeks, the bronze shining brilliantly in the late-afternoon sun. He towered over her. “Do you still think a diplomatic solution can be found?” he asked, his tone forceful, aggressive. He wanted to fight—verbally at least. No surprise there, the Instarya tribe were the warriors of their people.
Suri and Padera rushed off, but Arion couldn’t avoid Nyphron so easily.
The pain was coming in hammering waves that blurred her vision as if from the pummeling of blows. She rubbed her forehead while making a pained expression, hoping he would get the hint and leave her alone.
He didn’t.
Nyphron gestured at the destruction around them. “Do you think this was a random accident? A rogue band of Grenmorians wandering some three hundred miles away from home? A weirdly large group who managed to avoid Instarya patrols, who walked right by Alon Rhist to smash this dahl for the sheer joy of it? And the storm? Was that just a freak occurrence?”
“No, I don’t think any of that.” Her words were slow, tired, and dribbled out of her mouth. He must grasp that she was miserable. Common decency should cause him to—
“So what are you thinking?”
She wasn’t. That was the point. Thinking hurt. Of course the attack was deliberate, but who exactly was being targeted? The Rhune village for Gryndal’s death? Nyphron for his defiance? And it was impossible to discount the accuracy of the lightning strikes. Had Prince Mawyndulë convinced his father that she was a threat for the part she had played?
“I think this isn’t the time to have this conversation. I’m tired, my head hurts, and I just want to rest.”
“Your hesitation has already cost us valuable time. Months have passed while we’ve lingered and done nothing.” He gestured at the devastation around them. “This is the result. We need to take this war to Fane Lothian himself.”
“War?” Now it was her turn to use an incredulous tone. “What war? Yes, Dahl Rhen has been attacked, but I really can’t blame Lothian for that. This dahl has harbored you and your Galantians, and one of its residents killed First Minister Gryndal. This was retaliation, plain and simple. But a war? What I need to do is defuse the situation, not fan the flames.”
“Are you really so naïve? This isn’t about a single dahl. Did they even tell you why you were sent to retrieve me? What my transgression had been?”
“Yes. You attacked Petragar, the new leader of Alon Rhist.”
“I chose to avoid arrest for disobeying an order, a directive to destroy the Rhune villages—all of them. Lothian wants the Rhunes gone. The fane has declared war.”
Arion did remember passing through a burnt set of ruins, but it wasn’t until then that she realized how it had been destroyed and why.
“But you can’t fight a war against Estramnadon. Will you kill your own kind? Break Ferrol’s Law? You can’t possibly be willing to be barred from Phyre. Living the rest of your life as an outlaw is one thing, but being banned from the afterlife is unthinkable.”
“I don’t have to do any killing myself. I’ll teach the Rhunes to fight. They can do the slaying. Raithe has proved that. They just need training.”
“And you think with a few lessons they can stand against the full might of the fane?”
Nyphron smirked, shifting his eyes as if she’d said something both amusing and distasteful. “The fane? What does Lothian know about war? What do any of those across the Nidwalden know of battle? We Instarya have protected them for centuries. If my host of Rhunes can present a credible threat, then the rest of the Instarya will join our cause.”