Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga by Regina Watts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

“How wonderful.” Voice somewhat hushed, Foritsto released me and pressed his hands to his heart. “Ah! I can’t describe how pleased I am! Yes, Rorke—and what timing! Perhaps with this they’ll overlook your duel with Zweiding.”

“Unhappy with me as I expected him to be, is he?”

Looking grim to have broached the subject, Fortisto returned to his seat and reluctantly confessed, “I have it on good authority that he intended to cancel your application to the Order outright…but, for having returned the Scepter, surely you’ll be rewarded rather than disciplined.”

I wasn’t so sure—and, with Valeria to consider, I couldn’t imagine being welcomed into the Order and joining those who lived in the Temple. Still, I smiled on. “That is certainly the hope…though, I confess I am still frightened that my relationship with the Order will be forever altered.”

Looking empathetic, Fortisto reached across the desk to pat my hand. “All things will organize themselves as Weltyr will have them.”

“I know that to be true,” I assured him, nodding. “But, however that is, if you might be able to offer us advice concerning the whereabouts of Valeria’s ring, we would appreciate the information while we are still welcome here.”

“Well, for divination such as this there are two means. There are those questions whose answers we know deep down within our mortal frames, and those questions whose answers may only come by the grace of things outside of ourselves. We must exhaust the questions of the former before consulting the methods of the latter. When you last saw the ring, where was it?”

I leaned forward. “A spirit-thief absconded with it. We watched the creature steal off through a portal—someplace aboveground.”

Before mentioning the man who had looked like me, I stopped myself. The dreams of that hateful, pulsing hivemind and the keeper who also bore my voice—were these occurring in the same location as the one we had seen through the portal?

Avoiding the subject of either the dream or the doppelgänger for now, I suggested, “Is it possible that the spirit-thief intended to bring the ring to its originating colony? Its hivemind?”

Looking intrigued by this, Fortisto nodded. “It is, indeed. But what would they want with any ring of yours, Madame?”

“It is no ring of mine,” answered Valeria, “but of Roserpine’s.”

The kindly priest’s eyes grew wide. “The Ring of Roserpine—is that true, the very one?” While Valeria nodded, Fortisto laughed in astonishment and teasingly told me, “Well! A good thing we’ll be taking the Scepter back…goodness, with the Ring and the Scepter both, you might start getting ideas.”

“So where is the hivemind of the spirit-thieves is said to dwell, Father?”

Fortisto shook his head. “No one knows the exact location, though the dwarves of Rhineland are so especially vigilant about spirit-thieves that I think most of us can agree their primary nest is somewhere on the Old Continent.”

“Then the dwarves may know where the nest might be?”

“They might! They might, indeed. It certainly would be a worthy path of inquiry…but, of course, dwarves do not look particularly kindly among humans coming to their land. I’m not sure they’d tell you anything if you asked.”

I nodded, rising from my seat. “Well, that certainly seems like a place to start. Oh, Father! Talking through such matters with you always orders my mind—I hope I’ll have the liberty to visit you after today.”

“Fate is certain to none but Weltyr…and even he must read its threads, it’s said. The Omniscience of God must be allocated in such a means when the Lord takes on a knowable personage; otherwise, that personage could not maintain integrity. And the divine, knowing so much more than we, permits us to maintain our own integrity; to be the very creatures producing the threads.”

Thinking of Valeria’s spiders, I smiled.

After some discussion, it was agreed that Father Fortisto would come with us to the site of the duel. He would advocate for the accomplishment represented by the Scepter and argue that it at the very least merited a loaner sword from the Order to fulfill the conditions of my arrangement with Zweiding. When invited to carry the relic, he recoiled from it as I had. Valeria, therefore, pulled her hood over her face and bore it along the halls of the Temple on behalf of both of us. Orange dawn spilled through the windows, screaming across the floor and crawling up the wall as we made our way out to the training grounds on the far side of the gardens.

The gardens of the Temple were lavish, fit with orchards and edible plants such that in times of a siege the holy site could withstand an assault even if the city had fallen around it. Shimmering bluebirds chirped among the branches and dew glistened on the lips of every flower. Valeria cried with delight to step outside and see the offerings of its colors, its vines. It was almost a good thing that she was forced to keep her hood up to disguise her species; otherwise she might have left it down long enough to blind herself while looking at all the aboveground plants.

The murmur of the growing crowd was audible before we even saw the training grounds beyond the final row of hedges. On the dirt field I counted at least twenty of my fellows, a smattering of trainees, and, of course, Zweiding in his gleaming armor.

Elishta-bet, I noticed as we passed through the hedges, was nowhere to be seen.

Zweiding regarded me coldly but almost respectfully, his armor gleaming platinum in the soft light draping over the face of the city. “Someone said they saw you riding from town. I was concerned you fled our duel when you came to your senses, but that didn’t seem like you.”

This faint praise wrapped in insults had been so common during my childhood that I barely noticed it. “Weltyr’s call drew me on an errand in his name.”

“Bold of you to claim you still work in the