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 stomped and tossed his head behind the carriage. Instinctively she threw her arms around his arched neck, pressed her cheek against the warmth of hide and muscle. He calmed with her contact. Her own breathing slowed, she stopped trembling. She could almost imagine it was her own Condor she hugged.

“She’s, er, just having a fit,” she heard the professor telling Luke in reassuring tones. “Nothing to be alarmed about.”

Then closer to her, speaking softly, he said, “I’m sorry, my dear. I wasn’t thinking of the shock this would give you. It’s abstract to me, you know, this history. I’m used to seeing these 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 me.”

Karigan pulled away from Raven and scrubbed a tear from her cheek. “You need to tell me what happened here. All that you know.”

The professor glanced 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 mournful sigh of a breeze among the ruins brought to them the distant sounds of pounding and scraping, of tools thudding on rock. She gazed past the professor, up the side of the mount, and espied the movement of small figures 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 simply building over and through 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 ambitious excavation.”

Karigan watched the laborers in the distance, their pickaxes rising and falling. The mount, the ruins of Sacor City, were draped in a dull gray gleam. She turned back to Raven, stroking his dark neck, and it occurred to her she was meant to come to this time, to see this. She’d been . . . brought? It was still all too hazy to her. Westrion, god of death . . . as she plummeted through the infinite universe after smashing the looking mask, had he really caught 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 of mortals or their strivings, so why bring her here? She could only wait for the answer to unfold on its own, for the ways of the gods were mysterious, but no matter what it was, no matter what the death god 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 time, and make all this better.

“This was once a thriving city,” she said, the words catching in her throat.

“I know, my dear,” the professor replied. “I know. And I imagine you’ve seen enough for one day. A pot of Mirriam’s tea, or brandy if you prefer, would do us both good 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 more at the ruins. A glint of white high up caught the corner of her eye, and when she looked full on, it was gone. She blinked, wondering if she had imagined it. No doubt just the sun glancing off a piece of metal or broken glass.

Moving about the ruins was dangerous, no matter how light-footed an Eletian was. Mostly Lhean kept still during the day, hiding in crevices and depressions, fearing discovery. He spent his long days of stillness meditating, trying to make sense of this world he’d ended up in. Periodically, however, he rose to scout and take stock of what was happening to his surroundings. He’d first been roused by the sounds of tools hammering on stone a few days ago. It was not difficult to espy the laborers down below, one chained to the other, thin, wretched creatures of humanity, in rags, flogged by those who supervised them when they lagged, or as whim struck.

As if to demonstrate the danger of moving among 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 summit where King Zachary’s castle once stood. They dug and dug as if seeking the very foundations of the Earth. It was an enormous challenge 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 know what they sought and assumed they dug for treasure. Mortals had an insatiable appetite for precious things, and certainly the castle would have contained many. It did not matter to him, only that he needed to see what was happening around 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 from unnaturally-shaped rocks, and ate sparingly of the stores that remained from his journey into Blackveil. Very shortly those would run out, and he would truly weaken. Already his armor had begun to dim, looking neglected, its inner light fading. He’d have to make a decision about what to do soon, but where in this blighted land would he be safe?