“You have many?” I asked.
“Compared to most territories.” Erista shrugged. “Some claim they listen to the stories they share from the souls of warriors past, so they flock to our deserts. They are to be trusted more than any historians.”
“And I bet the ones we need aren’t in the capital,” Tolek said, racing back down the stairs with a journal in hand. He flippedopen to a dog-eared page, displaying a shoddily sketched map of Ambrisk.
“What is this?” I asked, noting the random markers he’d drawn across Gallantia.
“This is a poorly copied rendition of the map Dax and I found in the forest during that final battle. When we were separated from you, Santorina, and Barrett, and you all went to Ricordan’s manor, Dax took me to one of Kakias’s old camps. She kept this map there—something to do with the proximity to the mountains—Dax was never highly ranked enough to know the exact reasoning—but this is how we were going to find you before I called Lancaster for help.”
Lyria shook her head. “I’m not following how it’s supposed to help now.”
“Because, dear sister, something about this map has been bothering me. It was clearly imbued with magic somehow.” He grimaced, but went on, “For a while, I thought the nagging feeling was only because of that, and I told myself to forget it. But maybe it can help…”
Tolek dumped the map on the table in front of Cypherion, and everyone gathered closer.
“When we’re done with this hunt, don’t go into cartography,” Cyph muttered, leaning around Vale’s shoulder to study Tol’s handiwork.
“I’d be wonderful after I learned properly, and you know it,” Tolek argued. “But that’s beside the point. Kakias had these markings on her map. I copied them down, see?”
He gestured to smallX’sstrewn about the continent randomly. “Do any of these locations seem familiar?”
“That could be Palerman. Maybe Brontain.” I searched the scattered markings for any other familiar areas, and my second pulse sped. “Firebird’s Field?”
Cypherion pointed to one in Mindshaper Territory, an inch south of the mountains. “That could have been where the pit was. We were below ground, so we can’t be sure. And there’s one in Valyn.”
“Kakias’s map charted the emblems?” Jezebel gasped. “But why? Orhow?”
“Kakias was once supposed to search for them,” I recalled. “It’s why Bant shed his spirit into her. It didn’t work properly, but Kakias wanted power and knew if the chosen found these, they could stop her. She may have been rotten and twisted, but the queen was smart. She must have narrowed down ideas, so she could stop me from getting them when the time came.” I shook my head, tired of playing the game of our dead enemy. “What’s more important now is, where are the Soulguider ones?” I leaned closer, searching the desert on the small rendition.
“What’s in that region?” I asked Erista, pointing to anXthat was far west in the desert. I knew some about Soulguider terrain, but not enough to specify something so important.
Erista’s brow furrowed for a beat, then her mouth popped open. “Valyrie said to visit the land of your ancestors?”
I nodded enthusiastically, something finally,finally, coming within reach.
“She may have meant it literally.” Erista looked between Jezebel and me. “Your grandmother hails from the Lendelli Hills, does she not?”
“She does,” I said.
“This mark looks to be in approximately that area.”
“The Lendelli Hills,” I muttered. Where our maternal grandmother was born, a land she’d told us stories of our entire childhood. Of sand dunes and whispering secrets on the wind.
I stared at the map, wings fluttering in my chest as the group moved around me, and wondered what tales the spirits held for us there.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Malakai
I woketo the sound of a whip cracking in my ears.
Jolted upright to a sting shooting down my back.
My vision blurred, blood coated my skin, and my breathing was heavy?—
“Malakai.” Cool hands cupped my face. “Malakai, it’s okay.”
That voice sent a soothing wave through my body, tempering my racing heart. I blinked furiously and did my best to get my bearings, to count what was tangible in the room. No whips, no blood. There was a desk and a wardrobe and a fire in the hearth—that’s what I had heard cracking, not a whip.
