She laughed, surprising herself. “Very impressive.”
“It’s possible I’m even more talented than the Goddess of Serpents, wouldn’t you say?” He closed his fist to douse the fire as the server girl returned to their table.
“What can I bring you?” she asked him.
“Nothing except a bit of information.” He nodded at the window. “Tell me about the Forbidden Mountains. Why are they so foreboding?”
She grinned. “You really want to know?”
“Oh, yes, I really do.”
“Well, who really knows what the real truth is, but my grandmother used to tell me stories about them. About how they’re not mountains at all, but gigantic guardians that protect the Sanctuary from the rest of the world. And that any witch or exiled Watcher who ventures there will not only have their magic stripped away, they’ll be blinded, too, so they won’t see the dangers threatening them right before their own eyes. She had so many stories like that.” The girl’s eyes grew glossy. “I miss her so much.”
“Where is she?” Lucia asked.
“She died only a short time ago. I lived with her further west, she took care of me after my parents died. Now I have to work here.” She glared around at the inn. “I hate being stranded in the middle of this wasteland.”
Lucia listened carefully, realizing only now that she hadn’t needed to use even a small amount of her magic to draw the truth from this girl. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Sera,” said the girl, then shook her head. “Apologies, I shouldn’t burden you with my many problems.”
“It’s not a burden at all.” Lucia captured the girl’s gaze. She could be a wealth of information. There was no way Lucia could let her walk away without first magically wrenching every detail she could out of her. “Tell me, Sera, did your grandmother tell you stories about gateways to the immortal world? Stone wheels in various locations around Paelsia?”
Sera drew in a sharp breath, as if someone had wrapped a hand around her throat and squeezed. “No. No, she never said anything like that.”
“Was your grandmother a witch?”
The girl hesitated, her expression growing tense and pained. “Y-yes.” Her bottom lip began to tremble. “But there were rumors that she was much more than just a witch. There was gossip and whispering that she used to be an immortal, one who exiled herself to marry my grandfather. That sounds foolish, I know. And of course she never admitted that to me. People would talk, and Grandmother would just ignore them.”
The witch from last night had been very strong and had fought back against Lucia’s weakened magical influence. This girl, however, didn’t resist, which would keep her discomfort to a minimum.
Lucia concentrated and drew that magical shroud tighter around Sera. “What else did your grandmother say about the mountains? About their magic?”
“She . . . she always made sure to remind us that mountains themselves aren’t magic. They just protect something else that is magic. Right in the middle of them, that’s where the magic can be found.”
Kyan listened attentively, hanging on to every word Sera spoke.
“Thank you very much for your help, Sera,” Lucia said. “You can go now.”
Sera nodded, shook her head as if she’d just emerged from a disconcerting and unpleasant dream, then wandered away from their table.
“It wasn’t all that far from here that I was awakened and able to take mortal form,” Kyan said. “I believed Melenia was responsible for that, but now I’m not so sure.” He stared out toward the mountains again, now with much more interest than before. “There’s something out there, little sorceress. Something powerful enough to draw me forth from my cage, something that released me without your magic playing a part in it.”
“Those might only be stories, like Sera said. The kinds of stories grandmothers tell their granddaughters to make sure they don’t wander off alone into the mountains.”
“Perhaps it’s just a story. But perhaps it’s the answer we’ve been searching for all this time.” He looked back at her and frowned. “I know I said we should stop looking for the stone gateway . . .”
Lucia stood up from the table, emboldened by her experience with Sera and ready to dive back into Kyan’s mission once more. “You’re right. This could be it. That’s what the Forbidden Mountains hold—the magic we need to draw Timotheus out of the Sanctuary, and to release your family from their prisons.”
“So we’re in agreement.”
“We are. We’re going to the center of the Forbidden Mountains.”
CHAPTER 30
CLEO
LIMEROS