“I’m surprised she’s seeing us at all, if it’s been just a week,” Elissa said.
“Briar says yur important, so yur important,” Gared said as they came up to a door guarded by one of the biggest women Elissa had ever seen. Even indoors, she had a bow over her shoulder and a small quiver of arrows on her hip.
“ ’Scuse me a minute. Need to make sure she ent…” His face reddened. “Feedin’ or anythin’.”
Elissa swallowed her smile. Men could face demons and Krasians and everything else the world could throw at them, but a suckling babe was still too much for many of them to bear witness to.
He spoke to the guard, and she slipped inside, returning a moment later with permission to enter. The office was spacious, with great windows, their heavy curtains thrown back to let in the morning sun. The Mistress of the Hollow was seated on a throne behind a gigantic desk of carved and polished goldwood, but she rose as they entered, coming around to embrace Briar, heedless of his dirty clothes and ever-present smell. She held him a long time, kissing the top of his head, and Elissa knew then this was a woman she could trust.
Briar looked up as they parted, seeing the cradle in the back corner of the room behind the desk. “That…?”
“Olive,” the countess said. “My daughter.”
A wide smile broke out on Briar’s face. “Can I…?”
“Of course,” the countess said. “But quietly now. I’ve only just gotten her to sleep.” She turned to the others as Briar crept over, silent as a cat.
“Welcome to the Hollow, Mother, Guildmaster. Will you take tea?”
“Thank you, my lady,” Elissa said, reaching for her skirts.
The countess waved dismissively as she led them to couches around a tea table. “Please, call me Leesha. Briar’s told me what you’ve done for the Laktonians. There’s no need for formality here.”
“We did what any in our position would have,” Ragen said, “for all the good it did.”
“Most in your position would have fled home, not spent the better part of the year helping refugees and the resistance,” Leesha said as a servant poured the tea. “And I think the folk building the borough of New Lakton would say you did quite a bit of good.”
“You’ve done your research, mistress,” Elissa said.
“I like to be informed,” Leesha said.
“Our condolences for your loss,” Ragen said. “Halfgrip’s fame extended to Miln and beyond. The power your people held in the night with his songs was…staggering.”
“We would like to take the music back to Miln,” Elissa said. “It could safeguard travelers, caravans…”
Leesha nodded. “Of course. Nothing would honor Rojer’s memory more than spreading his music far and wide. We’ll send written music back with you for your Jongleurs.”
Elissa bowed. “Thank you, mistress. That is most gracious.”
“It’s the least we can do, considering our friend in common,” Leesha said.
Elissa raised an eyebrow. “Briar?”
Leesha shook her head. “The boy Ragen found on the road many years ago, and you raised as your own. Arlen Bales.”
Gared dropped his teacup, and it shattered on the floor.
—
“Do you think he’s still alive?” Elissa asked.
“Course he is,” Baron Cutter said. “Deliverer, ent he?”
“No one in all the world loves Arlen Bales more than I,” Elissa said. “He was a brilliant boy, and he grew into an amazing man. But I’ve dried his tears and cleaned his sick. Argued when he was stubborn and seen him err. Saw the hurts he carried and how he blamed himself for them. I don’t know if I can ever see him as the Deliverer.”
“It’s irrelevant in any event,” Leesha said. “Deliverer or no, he’s set the world on a path we all need to walk.”
“That ent the Deliverer’s job, dunno what is,” Wonda said. “I’ll eat my bow and the quiver besides, he ent alive. Folk seen him on the road, helping those fleeing Lakton.”
“No one saw his face,” Leesha said. “That could as easily have been Renna.”
“Arlen’s wife,” Elissa said. There were many regrets in her life, but missing the wedding cut deep. If any man deserved a bit of happiness in his life, it was Arlen Bales.
“Night, that’s right,” Ragen said. “Didn’t think any woman could settle that boy down. What’s she like?”
A pained look flickered over Leesha’s face, and Elissa gave him a subtle kick. Arlen had spoken of Leesha and what they shared—a spark doused by fear and panic.
Ragen lacked subtlety, but he wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t the first time Arlen Bales had fled a woman offering something too joyful for his tortured soul to bear. What kind of woman had finally reached him?
“Renna Bales saved my life,” Gared said. “Saved us all, when the Deliverer fell.”
“Fell?” Ragen asked. “Over the cliff with the demon of the desert?”
The baron shook his head. “ ’Fore that. When the minds came for the Hollow on new moon. Went out with Rojer and Renna to scout, and we found a world of trouble. Mind demons were digging greatwards of their own.”
“Night,” Ragen said. “Corelings can ward?”
“Only the minds, it seems,” Leesha said, “but their warding makes ours look like a child’s scrawl.”
“Fought like mad, but there were too many of ’em,” the baron went on. “Only made it back slung over Renna’s shoulder. Rojer told Mr. Bales what we saw and he jumped into the sky.”
“What?” Elissa asked.
“Took off like a bird,” Wonda said. “Thousands saw him, floating in the sky, throwin’ lightning at the demons like the Creator Himself.”
Ragen looked to Elissa. “How’s that possible?”
“He was Drawing off the greatward,” Leesha said. “Pulling massive amounts of power and throwing it at the demon wards before they could activate fully. But even a greatward has limits.”
“One moment he was glowin’ like the sun, then…” Wonda blew a breath. “Out like a candle. Fell and cracked like an egg on the cobbles.”
Elissa gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.
“Thought everythin’ was lost then,” Gared said. “No one was givin’ up, but there wern’t much hope. But then Renna Bales stepped up. Held the last line when every defense was broke. Held it until Mr. Bales came back to us. Two o’ them held hands as the tide came in, and threw it back into the night.”
“Ent dead,” Wonda said. “Man who can walk away from that…”
Leesha pursed her lips, then nodded to herself, getting to her feet. “Bar the door, Gar. Wonda, the curtains.”
Ragen, Elissa, and Briar watched in confusion as they were locked into the room and cloaked in darkness. Leesha unlocked a drawer in her desk, producing what looked like a large piece of obsidian, but they could well guess what it was, even before she fitted it into a slot on the wall and a wardnet sprang up around them. It circled the room and crisscrossed the ceiling and floor, casting them all in gentle wardlight.
“No sound will escape the room.” Leesha returned to her seat, taking her teacup and sipping thoughtfully. “What I say here must never be repeated.”
“Swear by the sun,” Gared said.
“Course, mistress,” Wonda added. Briar grunted his agreement.
Ragen took Elissa’s hand. “You have our word.”
“Renna Bales came to me the night we learned the Krasians attacked Lakton,” Leesha said. “She told me Arlen is alive.”
“Knew it!” Wonda burst, even as Gared roared a laugh, bringing his hands together in a resounding smack.
“Creator be praised,” Ragen whispered, but Elissa said nothing, knowing there was more.
“She also told me they would not come again,” Leesha said. “They’d become too powerful, and were drawing the minds’ attention to the Hollow, just as Ahmann was doing in Krasia. We needed time to grow our defenses, and so he left to give us that.”