Balasar dozed for a while then woke to throbbing pain from head to foot. He considered trying to fall back asleep. It would surely be beneficial if he could manage it, but he doubted that he could.

And he didn’t feel like simply lying awake on the hard, stone floor, staring up at the cavern ceiling, and aching. If he got up, there might at least be something to distract him from his discomfort. So he pushed away his blankets and dragged himself to his feet, even though that made everything hurt worse.

Most of his comrades were sound asleep. Only a few of the floating orbs of glow remained, just enough to allow the healers and the sentries to do their jobs. Balasar considered applying to the former for relief. But he couldn’t ask them to squander their spells, medicines, and other resources just to ease his pain when other wounded folk were barely clinging to life. He decided to divert himself by chatting with one of the guards and, feeling like a mummy in his tightly wrapped linen bandages and malodorous ointments, hobbled toward the nearest.

He made it a few steps before his back cramped. He let out a grunt through gritted teeth.

Biri threw off her covers, jumped up, and hurried over to him. Her white scales and long, silver piercings were ghostly in the gloom. “What are you doing up?” she whispered.

“I just couldn’t sleep,” he replied, keeping his voice just as low and trying not to voice his distress.

Perhaps he failed at the latter because she put her arm around him and helped him to a spot where a bulge at the bottom of the cavern wall made a sort of bench. She helped him sit, then plopped down beside him.

“Better?” she asked.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Truly? I can fetch someone-”

“Thank you, but yes, truly. Medrash hauled me back from the brink. As soon as he gets around to giving me another dose of healing magic, I’ll be good as new.” He grinned. “Although apparently that won’t be until after Praxasalandos is fit to travel. I never thought to see the day when a Daardendrien would put a stinking wyrm ahead of his own clan brother. Nor do I understand why a creature capable of splitting into dozens of drops of quicksilver and then putting himself back together needs any help recovering.”

Biri smiled. “That is a mystery. I guess it makes a difference whether he’s changing his own body on purpose or some outside force is doing it.”

“I defer to the wisdom of a magus.”

They sat quietly for a few heartbeats. Then she said, “It will feel strange to divide the company, especially in the middle of this warren.”

“I agree. But there’s no scheme so harebrained that Medrash won’t try it if he imagines Torm whispered it in his ear.”

She chuckled. “Back in Djerad Thymar, everybody says you’re the reckless, feckless one.”

“Only when it comes to sensible pursuits like winning bets and chasing… well, sensible pursuits. Anyway, I suppose the first part of the plan isn’t entirely idiotic because we might actually be running short on time.”

And such being the case, he, Medrash, Khouryn, Nellis, and Prax would exit the caverns to the east, where they let out on the Plains of Purple Dust. It was a shorter hike than backtracking, and then the quicksilver dragon would fly his companions over the mountains. If everything went accordingly to plan, they’d reach Skyclave and ultimately Tymanther quicker than they would have otherwise.

“What about the second part?” Biri asked.

“Oh, that’s completely crazy, of course.”

Medrash had worked it out that enlisting the active aid of High Imaskar was all very well, but to maximize the chances of averting a war, somebody needed to make sure the news reached the Chessentans, then negotiate with them. He intended to make the trip with Ophinshtalajiir Perra-or whomever Tarhun sent-as he had before.

That was because it had occurred to him that Tchazzar, whom his people revered as their greatest champion, might be suffering from the same stain that had afflicted the Platinum Cadre and Prax. And if so, perhaps a paladin could resolve the conflict between Chessenta and Tymanther by using his gifts to scour it off.

Balasar was dubious. He still fundamentally subscribed to the traditional dragonborn belief that the only good wyrm was one who’d donated his head to decorate your wall. But even so, he’d paid attention to Vishva’s explanation of the difference between metallic and chromatic dragons and to Khouryn’s account of his one meeting with the “living god.”

“But you’ll go with Medrash anyway,” Biri said.

Balasar shrugged and regretted it because that hurt too. “Someone has to do the thinking. The rational kind, as opposed to demented ruminations about the will of the gods. And anyway, I’ve been stuck in the middle of this mess since the beginning. I might as well be there at the end.”

Biri looked down at her hands with their several rings, all of which had either an outre or a starkly utilitarian look that marked them as mystical tools rather than adornment. “Yes… well… I talked to Prax, and he says that carrying one more rider as far as the outpost where we left the redwings won’t slow him down.”

Balasar hesitated and thought how ridiculous it was that one maiden could so easily flummox a fellow glib and clever enough to infiltrate the Platinum Cadre and unmask Nala for the insidious traitor she had been. “You’ve done plenty already,” he said.

She sighed. “I hope you realize, it’s not every female who’d chase you down the gullet of a purple worm.”

“Thank you for that. I know I owe you my life.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want you to ‘owe’ me anything. I just want you to like me.”

“I do.”

“Then why does such a notorious lecher flinch whenever I smile at him?”

“Because it wouldn’t just be a dalliance with you. Not if our clan elders have their way. Not if you have yours.”

“So it’s the prospect of something permanent that’s unbearable?”

“Yes. No.” He groped for the words to express his feelings. “I’m proud to belong to Clan Daardendrien. But at the same time, for as long as I can remember, I’ve felt like if I let it, it would smother me. All the duties, the traditions, the expectations… I mean, some of it is fine. I joke about not wanting to, but I’m happy to go fight any bandit, giant, or wyrm that comes sniffing around. The rest, however, is…”

“Stifling.”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s all fine, but I think you’ve been so busy defending your precious independence that you haven’t noticed who’s clicking her claws at you. Ever since I broke out of the egg, my own clan elders have striven to make me as ‘marriageable’ as possible, and like most of our folk, they regard mages as ‘eccentric.’ Do you think they encouraged me to study wizardry?”

“I suppose not.”

“Then you’re right! I had to fight for it! Which makes you and me kindred spirits. So you know there wouldn’t be anything staid and proper about our marriage. We’d have the most scandalous, outrageous union in all Tymanther. Our elders would rue the day we met.”

Balasar laughed, then struggled to hold it in so he wouldn’t wake the exhausted folk snoring just a few paces away. “Well,” he said, “when you put it that way.”

Brimstone had finally acquired what he considered to be a proper instrument for his scrying, a trapezoidal sheet of polished obsidian in a silver frame. When he stared into it and whispered words of power, the blackness flowed to the edges of the stone, and images appeared in the center.

At first, Ananta had hesitated to peer through the magical window. But eventually the smoke drake had noticed her hanging back and invited her to satisfy her curiosity as she saw fit. She wasn’t sure if that reflected trust per se or the assumption that she wouldn’t dare try to use whatever she learned against him.