Falkan raised his hands at Sartaq’s sharp look. “I have not sought them out nor provoked them. I heard whispers of your hearth-mother’s trove of knowledge and thought to seek her counsel before I dared anything.”

“What do you want with them?” Nesryn asked, angling her head.

Falkan examined his hands, flexing the fingers as if they were stiff. “I want my youth back.”

Houlun said to Sartaq, “He sold his hundred yards but still thinks he can reclaim the time.”

“I can reclaim it,” Falkan insisted, earning a warning glare from Houlun at his tone. He checked himself, and clarified, “There are … things that I still have left to do. I should like to accomplish them before old age interferes. I was told that slaying the spider who ate my twenty years was the only way to return those lost years to me.”

Nesryn’s brows narrowed. “Why not go hunt that spider back home, then? Why come here?”

Falkan didn’t answer.

Houlun said, “Because he was also told that only a great warrior can slay a kharankui. The greatest in the land. He heard of our close proximity to the terrors and thought to try his luck here first—to learn what we know about the spiders; perhaps how to kill them.” A faintly bemused look. “Perhaps also to find some backdoor way of reclaiming his years, an alternate route here, to spare him the confrontation there.”

A sound enough plan for a man insane enough to barter away his life in the first place.

“What does any of this have to do with the stolen eggs and hatchlings, Ej?” Sartaq, too, apparently possessed little sympathy for the merchant who’d traded his youth for kingly wealth. Falkan turned his face toward the fire, as if well aware of that.

“I want you to find them,” Houlun said.

“They have likely already died, Ej.”

“Those horrors can keep their prey alive long enough in their cocoons. But you are right—they have likely already been consumed.” Rage flickered in the woman’s face, a vision of the warrior beneath; the warrior her granddaughter was becoming as well. “Which is why I want you to find them the next time it happens. And remind those unholy piles of filth that we do not take kindly to theft of our young.” She jerked her chin to Falkan. “When they go, you will go, too. See if the answers you seek are there.”

“Why not go now?” Nesryn asked. “Why not seek them out and punish them?”

“Because we have no proof still,” Sartaq answered. “And if we attack unprovoked …”

“The kharankui have long been the enemies of the ruks,” Houlun finished. “They warred once, long ago. Before the riders climbed up from the steppes.” She shook her head, chasing away the shadow of memory, and declared to Sartaq, “Which is why we shall keep this quiet. The last thing we need is for riders and ruks to fly out there in a rage, or fill this place with panic. Tell them to be on their guard at the nests, but do not say why.”

Sartaq nodded. “As you will it, Ej.”

The hearth-mother turned to Falkan. “I would have a word with my captain.”

Falkan understood the dismissal and rose. “I am at your disposal, Prince Sartaq.” With a graceful bow, he strode off into the hall.

When Falkan’s steps had faded, Houlun murmured, “It is starting anew, isn’t it?” Those dark eyes slid to Nesryn, the fire gilding the whites. “The One Who Sleeps has awoken.”

“Erawan,” Nesryn breathed. She could have sworn the great fire banked in answer.

“You know of him, Ej?” Sartaq moved to sit on the woman’s other side, allowing Nesryn to scoot closer down the stone bench.

But the hearth-mother swept her sharp stare over Nesryn. “You have faced them. His beasts of shadow.”

Nesryn clamped down on the memories that surfaced. “I have. He’s built an army of terrors on the northern continent. In Morath.”

Houlun turned toward Sartaq. “Does your father know?”

“Bits and pieces. His grief …” Sartaq watched the fire. Houlun placed a hand on the prince’s knee. “There was an attack in Antica. On a healer of the Torre.”

Houlun swore, as filthily as her hearth-son.

“We think one of Erawan’s agents might be behind it,” Sartaq went on. “And rather than waste time convincing my father to listen to half-formed theories, I remembered your tales, Ej, and thought to see if you might know anything.”

“And if I told you?” A searching, sharp look—fierce as a ruk’s gaze. “If I told you what I know of the threat, would you empty every aerie and nest? Would you fly across the Narrow Sea to face them—to never return?”

Sartaq’s throat bobbed. And Nesryn realized that he had not come here for answers.

Perhaps Sartaq already knew enough about the Valg to decide for himself about how to face the threat. He had come here to win over his people—this woman. He might command the ruks in the eyes of his father, the empire. But in these mountains, Houlun’s word was law.

And in that fourth peak, on Arundin’s silent slopes … Her daughter’s sulde stood in the wind. A woman who understood the cost of life—deeply. Who might not be so eager to let her granddaughter ride with the legion. If she allowed the Eridun rukhin to leave at all.

“If the kharankui are stirring, if Erawan has risen in the north,” Sartaq said carefully, “it is a threat for all to face.” He bowed his head. “But I would hear what you know, Ej. What perhaps even the kingdoms in the north might have lost to time and destruction. Why it is that our people, tucked away in this land, know such stories when the ancient demon wars never reached these shores.”

Houlun surveyed them, her long, thick braid swaying. Then she braced a hand on the stone and rose, groaning. “I must eat first, and rest awhile. Then I shall tell you.” She frowned toward the cave mouth, the silvery sheen of sunlight staining the walls. “A storm is coming. I outran it on the flight back. Tell the others to prepare.”

With that, the hearth-mother strode from the warmth of the pit and into the hall beyond. Her steps were stiff, but her back was straight. A warrior’s pace, clipped and unfaltering.

But instead of aiming for the round table or the kitchens, Houlun entered a door that Nesryn had marked as leading into the small library.

“She is our Story Keeper,” Sartaq explained, following Nesryn’s attention. “Being around the texts helps to tunnel into her memory.”

Not just a hearth-mother who knew the rukhin’s history, but a sacred Story Keeper—a rare gift for remembering and telling the legends and histories of the world.

Sartaq rose, groaning himself as he stretched. “She’s never wrong about a storm. We should spread the word.” He pointed to the hall behind them. “You take the interior. I’ll go to the other peaks and let them know.”

Before Nesryn could ask who, exactly, she should approach, the prince stalked for Kadara.

She frowned. Well, it would seem that she’d only have her own thoughts for company. A merchant hunting for spiders that might help him reclaim his youth, or at least learn how he might take it back from their northern kin. And the spiders themselves … Nesryn shuddered to think of those things crawling here, of all places, to feed on the most vulnerable. Monsters out of legend.

Perhaps Erawan was summoning all the dark, wicked things of this world to his banner.

Rubbing her hands as if she could implant the heat of the flame into her skin, Nesryn headed into the aerie proper.

A storm was coming, she was to tell any who crossed her path.

But she knew one was already here.

The storm struck just after nightfall. Great claws of lightning ripped at the sky, and thunder shuddered through every hall and floor.

Seated around the fire pit, Nesryn glanced to the distant cave mouth, where mighty curtains had been drawn across the space. They billowed and puffed in the wind, but remained anchored to the floor, parting only slightly to allow glimpses of the rain-lashed night.

Just inside them, three ruks sat curled in what seemed to be nests of straw and cloth: Kadara, a fierce brown ruk that Nesryn had been told belonged to Houlun, and a smaller ruk with a reddish-dun coloring. The tiniest ruk belonged to Borte—a veritable runt, the girl had called her at dinner, even as she’d beamed with pride.