Tainir laughed. “You’ll see.” She ducked into the booth, and pulled the lever attached to one wall with a horrificscreech.
Something came rumbling down the cables out of the fog: a narrow, gondola-like carriage that swayed in the empty air and bumped up against the platform with a jarringthud.The walls of the carriage came up as high as Eda’s waist, with posts arching up over her head to the roof, which hung from the cables by a thick brass ring.
“Gods’ bleedingheart,” Eda swore. “I’m not getting in that.”
Tainir just laughed again. “You are if you want to go to the monastery! Barring wings, it’s the only way up.”
Eda ground her jaw.
“It’s not that bad,” Tainir promised. “I ride it all the time. The view is beautiful, and it always makes me think deep thoughts.”
Eda peered up into the nothingness of the fog, her heart tugging her onward. Somewhere up there, Tuer was chained in the Circle of Sorrow. Waiting for her. “Take me up,” she said.
Tainir opened a door in the side of the gondola and waved Eda in, piling her packs in a heap on the floor. It was larger inside than it looked; there was probably room for a half dozen people to ride at a time, which would be useful for the caravan. A narrow bench was built into the walls of the awful vehicle, and Eda sat down.
“Don’t worry,” said Tainir cheerily, “it’s never crashed, and I’ve operated it at least twice before.”
Eda sprang out of her seat, but Tainir had already shut and latched the door and returned to the booth, where she yanked on another lever.
The gondola rocked alarmingly and then began to move.
Eda sucked in her breath, grabbing tight to the sides of the carriage, peering out into empty air. The lift didn’t move very fast, just steadily, and after a few minutes she relaxed. The fog swallowed her, and she had the strange sensation of being lost in a place between heaven and earth, belonging neither to gods nor to mankind, wholly and utterly alone.
She didn’t like it at all.
Now and then, a piece of mountain poked through the mist, and she saw rocks and trees and far, far below, the thin silver ribbon of a winding river. The air clung to her, damp and cold, traced with the sharp tang of winter.
For an instant she thought she saw a crack in the sky, a winged shadow slipping through, crowned with fire. But when she blinked again, there was only the mist.
All at once the gondola bumped up against another wooden platform, and the door was pulled open and she was pulled out. She looked into the bronze face and dark eyes of an Enduenan man who was not old, but no longer young. He wore rough-woven robes of deep green, and a white scarf wound tight about his head. There was a silver mark in his left ear; his right hand was tattooed with the image of the Tree.
Eda knew instantly who he was. He had his mother’s eyes, the same regal way of carrying himself. “You’re Torane. Lady Rinar’s son.”
He nodded, his face tight with grief. “She’s gone, isn’t she?” His unaccented Enduenan reminded her fiercely of home.
Eda blinked and saw the old woman’s body, devoured by the waves. Something wrenched inside of her. “I’m sorry.”
He smiled, quiet, solemn, and pressed his hands around hers. “Come, Eda of Enduena. We’ve been expecting you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
TORANE HEFTED THE MAJORITY OFEDA’S PACKSonto his shoulders, leaving her with only her satchel. He led her down a well-trodden dirt path that hugged the side of the mountain, a steep cliff plummeting away into the fog on her right, and before they’d gone a few yards, the mist cleared and the monastery came into view.
Her heart stuttered. Tal-Arohnd was impossible and terrifying, a series of whitewashed stone structures built into the side of the mountain or—in some cases—builtout ofthe mountain. They looked unnatural, as if the slightest wind or rain would make them tumble off into the valley far below. “They’ve been there for centuries,” said Torane over his shoulder, reading her thoughts, “and they’ll be there for centuries yet to come. The stories say that the gods wove Tal-Arohnd with Words of protection, so neither storm nor blade could ever harm it.”
Eda didn’t doubt the truth of those stories; she almost imagined she could see the ancient Words, glimmering gold where they bound the monastery to the mountain. It made her uneasy, and with an effort, she pushed away the thoughts of gods and their earth-shattering power. “How did you know I was coming?”
“She said you were.”
“She?”
“The Denlahn Princess.”
Eda’s insides turned to sand. “Liahstorion.”
“She was here with her brother, the vengeful prince. He claimed he served Tuer, but there was such darkness in him I cannot believe it. I think he must have pledged himself to an evil spirit instead.”
Eda couldn’t stop the flashes of memory: Ileem and Liahstorion, standing in the rain as Eda first welcomed them to the palace. Liahstorion’s outburst during that first council session. Ileem sitting with Eda under a trellis of honeysuckle, the blossoms falling bright on his knee. Moonlight, gilding the rooftops with silver. Ileem’s warm mouth pressed against hers.
