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As her own cries faded away, Raven’s whinnies broke through to her, resonating through her grief He sensed her distress She rose unsteadily to her feet, brushing away the professor’s solicitous hands She staggered to where Raven stoe Instinctively she threw her arainst the warmth of hide andslowed, she stopped treged
"She’s, er, just having a fit," she heard the professor telling Luke in reassuring tones "Nothing to be alar softly, he said, "I’ive you It’s abstract tothese ruins, and it did not occur to me what it would do to you I’ve been terribly callous, and I hope you’ll forgive an pulled away from Raven and scrubbed a tear from her cheek "You need to tell lanced from side to side as if to ensure no one eavesdropped "Not here I do not trust that no one can hear"
The caw of a crow shattered the silence around them It bobbed on a limb of crooked sumac, beak open, its cries raucous But there hadn’t been true silence, Karigan realized The ht to the, of tools thudding on rock She gazed past the professor, up the side of the ures hard at work, wielding tools that glinted in the sunlight
"What’s going on up there?" she asked
The professor followed her gaze "Silk’s project, I daresay Those aren’t archeologists on a dig, but a gang of slaves clearing a road"
"A road?" Nothing of the old Winding Way or other streets of Sacor City was visible to her eye It appeared the slaves were sih the ruins It felt like a desecration "Dr Silk’s project is a road?"
"No," the professor said "The road will lead to the project site An aan watched the laborers in the distance, their pickaxes rising and falling The lea his dark neck, and it occurred to her she was meant to coht? It was still all too hazy to her Westrion, god of deathas she plu the looking ht her and left her here? The only thing that would interest Westrion in what had become of Sacor City and the realm was the souls he could collect He wouldn’t care about the politics ofher here? She could only wait for the answer to unfold on its own, for the ways of the gods were mysterious, but no od wanted of her, she would do what she could to reshape this future, and she would do it from the past Somehow she would return home, to her own ti city," she said, the words catching in her throat
"I know, ine you’ve seen enough for one day A pot of Mirriaood about now Shall we return to the house?"
Karigan gave Raven one last pat and, as she prepared to enter the carriage, she glanced once ht the corner of her eye, and when she looked full on, it was gone She blinked, wondering if she had i off a piece of erous, no ht-footed an Eletian was Mostly Lhean kept still during the day, hiding in crevices and depressions, fearing discovery He spent his long days of stillnessto make sense of this world he’d ended up in Periodically, however, he rose to scout and take stock of as happening to his surroundings He’d first been roused by the sounds of tools hao It was not difficult to espy the laborers down below, one chained to the other, thin, wretched creatures of hued by those who supervised theed, or as whi the ruins, on the first day the slaves began work, their efforts caused a small avalanche of rock and debris to tumble on them Three did not survive, but they were replaced on the second day
Another group worked on the su as if seeking the very foundations of the Earth It was an enore to move the rubble of the castle, and derricks and booms had been raised to lift the debris the slaves could not Here, too, accidents happened; a slab crushed a pair of workers It was as if the castle, even in its ruin, resisted the invaders
Lhean did not knohat they sought and assu for treasure Mortals had an insatiable appetite for precious things, and certainly the castle would have contained many It did notaround him
He was still undecided about what to do, stranded here in this harsh land, the silence of what had been Eletia grieved him He slaked his thirst on the acrid runoff of dew or rain that trickled froly of the stores that remained from his journey into Blackveil Very shortly those would run out, and he would truly weaken Already his arht fading He’d have to hted land would he be safe?