“Yes,” agreed Naomi. “She would have.”
“We’ll wait for it to lighten,” said Druanna. “Then find a spot where the iron shards have formed the closest thing to a bridge. If there’s nothing sufficiently stable, I’ll get across, and Scorio, you can fly Naomi over.”
“I’m more than capable of getting across myself,” snapped Naomi.
“Sure,” said Scorio. “So, we camp?”
“Why not?” Druanna unhitched her pack from her shoulder. “We could probably use our darkvision to find a way across, but the process would be laborious. Might as well wait for just enough light to take it all in at once.”
They had established an easy routine. Druanna set off to find fossilized ore deposits she could burn, and Scorio and Naomi set up their little camp, which mostly involved laying out a triangle of bedrolls, apportioning the dried rations they’d packed into the small pot, and massaging their feet as they waited for the Pyre Lady to return.
Thinking of Lianshi brought Leonis to mind, and Scorio found his mood subdued. It was too easy to remember their laughter, their friendship, and to think of all they had lost to Manticore. A dull anger smoldered in Scorio’s heart. There was grief, yes, but also resentment. The four of them should have been exploring this together. Leonis’ booming laugh should have enlivened their camps, Lianshi’s excited explanations filled out their understanding of each anomaly and detail they came across.
Instead, their old friends were strangers to them, and traveling directly to the Fury Spires.
“We’ll see them again,” said Naomi, reaching out to squeeze his arm. “Sooner or later. And perhaps you’ll become friends. They’re almost the same as they ever were. Great Souls are famous for rekindling friendships across time.”
“Weren’t they your friends, too?”
“Yes.” Naomi wrapped her arms around her knees again. “Yes. They were.”
A question occurred to Scorio. “You don’t think you’ll be reborn?”
Naomi shrugged irritably. “Who cares? I have no intentions of dying.”
“I care. If you won’t be reborn, I’ll be forced to wrap you in woolen bandages to prevent you from being hurt, and carry you everywhere in a little pack strapped to my back.”
Naomi’s eyes narrowed to knife slits. “I would really enjoy watching you try.”
“But you’re a Great Soul. All Great Souls are tied to the Archspire. Why wouldn’t you return?”
Naomi shrugged one shoulder irritably. “And repeat all this misery again?”
“You’d be reborn as part of an Academy class. Think of it: treated like one of the elite, given all the elixirs and pills you could desire, courted by the illustrious Houses…”
Naomi glared at him again.
“No?” Scorio laughed. “Fine. Then at least there’s a chance we’d be reborn together.”
“Who’s to say we’ll die at the same time?”
“Anything that manages to kill you would have had to kill me first,” Scorio said simply.
Naomi blinked, taken aback, then quickly looked away. “This conversation is depressing, even by my standards.”
“I actually think it’s -” Scorio cut off and twisted sharply to stare toward the eastern cliff face.
Naomi’s reaction was immediate. She leaped up into a crouch, spinning about to face east as she stared into the gloom. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” He caught himself. “I mean, no threat. I just… that feeling I’ve been having. That weight? It just… pulsed.”
Naomi relaxed a fraction. “Pulsed?”
“That’s the best word for it.” Scorio stared into the middle distance and tried to focus on the sensation. “No, more like… imagine a hammer hitting a massive bell. The way it would toll out, echoing. It was like something just struck the bell.”
“You can feel bells now?”
Scorio mock-scowled and pushed on her knee so that she twisted and fell over. Such was her grace, however, that she immediately corrected her stance. “No. Wait. There. Again.”
The pressure, the strange new sense, was located distinctly now to the east. And something about the pulse, the vibration - whatever it was - made it feel as if it was a good distance away. Miles? Tens of miles? He couldn’t tell.
It rang for a third time, and Scorio focused as intently as he could upon the resonance.
“Coal.” He sat up, surprised. “It tastes of Coal.”
“Tastes?’ Naomi’s mockery was gone. “You can taste Coal in it?”
“Yes. Familiar. It…” Scorio paused, a memory teasing him, almost coalescing. “A… what if it’s Nox? He saturated himself in Coal. What if this is what it feels like to sense him?”
“Then why is he ringing like a bell?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he’s calling for me? Like I called for him when I was trapped by Praximar?”
Naomi moved to kneel directly before Scorio. “This is important. Focus as best you can. Is it Nox?”
“I don’t know.” Scorio closed his eyes and reached out to that distant weight. Whatever had been causing it to ring out had subsided. “It felt… perhaps it felt familiar. But perhaps I want it to? I’ve been thinking of him since our last spar. Perhaps I’m tricking myself.”
“Perhaps you’re sensing him more clearly here because of the tunnel,” said Naomi. “Perhaps the canyon walls were blocking his signal before.”
“That could be true.” Frustration seized him by the throat. “But I don’t know. I can’t be sure.”
They remained thus in silence for a few more moments until Naomi sighed and sat over onto one hip, her side pressed against him. “If it were him…”
“Then this is the only place to cut across the valleys to find him,” agreed Scorio.
“If it’s him.”
“And if it’s not?”
Naomi hesitated. “Druanna won’t agree to chase after this without better reasons.”
“I know. I don’t think I’d ask her to.”
“Do you think we should venture off alone? What would we do if another razor wind hit us?”
“We’d survive. No, don’t scoff. My shield is strong, my Gold-tempered body stronger. I’d protect you.”
“This imbalance is going to make me sick.”
“The only way for you to catch up is to learn the Delightful Secret Marinating technique.”
“Which means Nox.”
He frowned and stared past her toward the far end of this new canyon. It was subtly disappearing into the deepening gloom.
“It’s a risk,” he said at last. “If we’re wrong, we’ll be out here alone.”
“I was never that excited to rely on House Kraken to begin with.”
“Druanna vouches for these people.”
“I trust Druanna, not her friends.”
“I know.” Scorio rubbed his face. “And there’s something to be said for being as powerful as we can be before we break into the Telurian Band.”
“Then should we go?”
Scorio activated his darkvision to better see Naomi. Her eyes were wide, her expression drawn with tension. It was a complete gamble. They had no sense of how far away the signal source lay. What was emitting it.
But he’d called out to Nox with his mind, his heart, his spirit. Was it absurd to think the Imperial Ghost Toad had responded?
He smiled. “When have I ever recoiled from the chance to gain more power?”
She punched him in the shoulder. “I’m the one learning the technique, not you.”
“You get stronger, we get stronger. Same thing. Let’s do it.” His soul suddenly thrilled at the resolve. “I bet it is Nox out there. He came when I called. We should go to him if there’s a chance he needs us.”
“Agreed.” Her smile was feral and lit up her face. “Then we’re agreed. We’ll part ways with Druanna here?”
“Part ways with me?” Druanna sounded more amused than surprised as she dumped an armful of ragged fossilized iron chunks between their bedrolls. “Bad idea, children. You didn’t even hear me approach.”
“That feeling I was telling you about before,” said Scorio. “It’s grown more powerful. We think it’s because of the tunnel. And I sensed Coal in it, somehow. Which was Nox’s essence.”