Side A – Yasgrid
Yasgrid’s return to consciousness showed her that she was exactly where she’d expected to be – in a barred cage inside one of the Fate Dancer’s larger tents. There was a disappointing element though. As a dangerous prisoner, she felt she should have at least warranted a few armed guards stationed close enough to keep an eye on her. Instead, she was all alone.
Or, as alone as she got these days.
“Thanks for helping with that,” she said calling Endings to her hand in the form of a scalpel.
“The Bearer must be protected so that they can complete their quest,” Endings said.
“Did all the Bearers know that?” she asked.
“They all knew I would protect them,” Endings said.
“But did they know they could hold you inside like a stone beneath their skin?”
“You are the first to make that specific request,” Endings said.
“I should tell Kayelle about it then. Might save her too.” Yasgrid briefly wished she’d thought of it before Kyra had stabbed her during the battle with the Trouble army, but discarded that thought just as quickly. She’d had no warning of Kyra’s strike and setting Endings up to function as makeshift armor had taken more than a little bit of mental sculpting. Also if Endings was protecting her, she couldn’t use it to vanquish Troubles. Not yet at least.
“I suppose the question now is whether I stage a failed escape attempt too?” she said, checking in with her appendages to see what state she was in.
“I cannot advise you on matters outside my dominion,” Endings said.
“No worries, I wasn’t talking to you,” Yasgrid said and peered into the shadows at the rear of the tent.
The lights had been setup around the door, which seemed sensible enough. People entering the tent would need the light to see, especially if their eyes weren’t adapted to the darkness. Given how dim the lights were, Yasgrid’s cell was only partially illuminated and the back of the tent was cast into even deeper shadows by the crates and tarps that were ‘casually’ placed around the area outside the cage.
Yasgrid could have used Endings to “detect” the person in the shadows, but that gesture would have lacked the friendliness of the face smashing haymaker she’d hit the gate guard with.
So instead she waited.
And her unseen watcher waited too.
“You can just ask me you know,” Yasgrid said, breaking the silence before another minute went by.
Only emptiness answered her.
In theory, it was possible there was no one there. Yasgrid knew better than that, but it was at least plausible enough that her watcher didn’t feel compromised.
Throwing Endings close to her watcher wouldn’t be especially violent.
And Yasgrid was sure she could miss.
But she still held back.
Minutes later there was a small rustle that pulled away, deeper into the shadows.
“Before you go,” Yasgrid said. “I have to ask. Have any of your distant sentries failed to report in since last night?”
“Yes,” the woman who spoke appeared beside the crate as though she’d been standing there for an hour and Yasgrid had simple overlooked her. She was striking in a ‘made of steel mined from within her own heart over several decades’ manner. Her expression wasn’t guarded, it was fortress-like.
Yasgrid had seen those eyes before though, and those cheekbones, though on a much younger face.
“Was she one of them?” Yasgrid asked. There was no need to say Kyra’s name. Not when her mother would know exactly who Yasgrid was talking about.
Side B – Nia
Nia had expected Osdora to have a number of rationales for why she was venturing to the Darkwood. None of them were even vaguely close to what Osdora had come out with though.
“The Darkwood doesn’t have any connection your mountains?” Nia said, trying and failing to think back to any sort of magical drumming the Elves might have developed which would link them.
“Everything’s connected,” Margrada said. “The bones of the mountains go down to the roots of the world.”
“You talk about the Roots of the World too?” she asked, amazed at the common phrasing appearing in both their languages. “But you don’t have any trees. No proper ones I mean.”
The mountains had plenty of forests but the trees were all far too tiny to support even a village in their canopies.
“Ha, you really weren’t pulling my leg, were you? She’s really an elf,” Gossma laughed, elbowing Osdora.
“You know when I lie to you they’re better lies than that,” Osdora said.
“But, wait,” Nia said, struggling to get the conversation back to Osdora’s bizarre claim. “Even if everything’s connected, how could the Darkwood have anything to do with Shatter Drumming?”
“It can’t,” Osdora said. “But it does. I heard it. I know it. The song you played was amazing. I never would have imagined it could be done. Not on that scale. Not that fluidly. But what I heard under those trees? It was…it was something I don’t have words for. I would need a drum to explain it.”
“You’ve got one,” Gossma pointed out.
“I play one note on that and I’ll ruin their song. And I don’t know if I can capture what I’d need to express with a whole concert much less a single song.”
“Which is why you’re going there in person,” Margrada said.
Nia wanted to object, to point out that Osdora could hear the song of the Darkwood again whenever she wanted. All they needed to do was find a time when Yasgrid was free and they could drum Osdora back to the Darkwood again and again.
Except it wouldn’t be the same.
What Osdora had heard had all been filtered through the song Yasgrid and Nia had played. Being there in person? Drumming there in person? That would provide a real connection to the magic of the Darkwood.
There was only one problem with that idea that Nia could see though.
If Osdora, or any outsider, tried to touch the Darkwood’s magic, the Darkwood would kill them.