"So there I was," Gabby said, "starin' as this girl kicks a grown man to the ground'n says, "Di'n't yer mommy ever tell ya not to hit a lady? Well, now ya know why; 'cause we ladies hit back. Hard." By the time backup 'rived, it was just cleanup; she'd taken care of all three of'm, their fourth got out when he saw how things were goin'. I'm glad she was only here 'cause her folks were workin' on a deal, if she'd stayed Guthwin might've found himself outuva job."
"Uh-huh," Gallus cut her off as Silverstream giggled. "Anyway, Silverstream, you said you fought with one of those... whatever it is that attacked you, what was the fight like? Did it have any weapons, armor?"
Silverstream swallowed the last of her giggle at Gabby's story, then said, "Sorry, Gallus, I don't remember that much. I could punch and kick them, and they didn't use any weapons, if that helps."
"What about tactics?" he pressed. "Did they seem to have a plan?"
...initiated and coordinated...
"They tried to sneak up on us," she replied, "and they tried to swarm us when I let out a cry for help, but other than that, I really don't remember."
He prepared to answer with another, "What about- ?", but she cut him off, saying, "Gallus, I understand what you're doing, and I appreciate you wanting to help, but I really don't remember that much, and I didn't see that much to remember in the first place. We're going to talk about this with Sir Cloudfloor and the rest of the Council anyway, could we please talk about something else?" Something other than cold, drowned Men trying to drag her away-
"It's important," Gallus protested.
"So's talking about other things," she blurted out. "I get it, Gallus, you want to work on the big thing, the important thing, opening the oyster as quickly as you can to get at the pearl. You're right, we do need to try to get the pearl, but... there's still the oyster, and it's still beautiful, in its own way. If we only focus on the pearl, we'll miss out on so much of life, so many beautiful oysters, and if we wait until we get enough pearls to look at the oysters..."
...19:22...
"...they might not be there anymore when we go looking. Little things like this, just people talking, are less important than what you're worried about, Gallus, and they won't last as long, which is why I want to enjoy it now while I can; if I don't, I might never get the chance to again. Like I said, we'll talk about the attack with the Council, and it'll keep until then; please, let it keep, and let us talk about other things, things that won't."
Gallus opened and closed his mouth several times, soundless arguments taking shape with every opening and being discarded at the close. Eventually, he sighed, composed himself, then nodded.
Silverstream softly smiled back, then turned to Gabby and asked, "Did you ever learn that girl's name?"
"Heard'r mom call'r 'Babs' once," Gabby frowned. "Dunno if that was a nickname, though. Pardon me for askin', but, how old're you, Silverstream?"
"Seventeen," came the confused reply. "Why do you ask?"
"Wond'rin' where all that came from," Gabby answered. "I 'spect deep-soundin' stuff like't from the Runery or the temples out in Githlaegir, not tall-girls like you. Not sayin' itsa bad thing, just that I was'n' 'spectin' it. Where'd'ya come up with it?"
Silverstream blushed. "My brother helped me come up with it." She flashed a loving look back the way she'd come, back towards the room where Terramar was waiting for her. "He's with the Anchor Watch, so sometimes he can't come home for a while. Whenever he knows that's going to happen, he makes sure to spend as much time with us as he can, taking pictures of his favorite oysters to make the long pearl-dives easier. He knows that he needs to prepare for the pearl-dives, and he does, but he knows it's important to pay attention to the oysters, too."
"Huh," Gabby nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, that does make sense whenya put it like that. Your brother soun's like a smart guy."
...the actions of Sailor Terramar...
"He is," she smiled softly back. "He really is. But what was that you said about temples in Githlaegir? I thought I saw some on the way here, though I'm not sure, it's kind of hard to tell with all the different architectural styles."
"The 'temples' of Githlaegir aren't actually temples. Most of them are either fortresses or monasteries, the former called temples because of the treasures legends say they guard, the other because people hear 'monastery' and instantly think 'temple with people living in it.' Most of the fortresses were built in the years before Griffonstone was founded, back when we called ourselves the Gledes instead of the Groverians. After Grover came and built us and Griffonstone, most of the fortresses were abandoned, the people who used them heading south where the Sun was a bit stronger, the land a bit less hilly, and life at least a bit easier. We ended up having to keep a few, though, bandits made the hills a base if we didn't. The monasteries were built after the Empire fell, either as fortresses by people waiting for the Empire to get back up or as homes by people who knew it wasn't going to. Yeah, most of the people who built them were religious, but they had bigger goals than praying; they wanted to keep what the Empire knew from getting lost, stop it from having to relearn stuff. Metalworking, farming, writing itself; we still know about that because the monasteries remembered it and taught us. Now that things seem to be getting back to normal, most of them will probably end up being abandoned like the fortresses, though there's talk about turning some of them into schools."
Gabby blinked, then closed her mouth, staring at Gallus in astonishment. He bristled at her attention. "What?" he protested. "I'm allowed to know things, and the temples are interesting."
"She was probably just surprised to hear you talk again," Silverstream reassured him. "They do sound interesting, though. Which one's your favorite?"
"Ergenekon," Gallus replied, puffing up in pride almost exactly like Terramar. "It's held the pass into the Iron Gorge for thousands of years, throwing back bandits, rebels, and would-be emperors and empresses every time they've tried to break in. Even at its worst, when the Empire was crumbling and Gasena only had eighty swords to hold it, Ergenekon didn't fall, didn't surrender, even in the face of Gozlu the Traitor's army. She..." he trailed off as he noticed Silverstream's blank expression. Sighing, he asked, "You don't know who any of those people are, do you?"
"No," she shook her head, "but I'd like to."
Gallus took a deep breath, then said, "So, you probably know that the Empire didn't fall in a day. What you might not have known is that some people disagree on when exactly it fell, because some people tried to keep it alive even after Guto the Luckless died. One of their strongholds was Ergenekon, sworn directly to the service of the imperial throne ever since Grover relieved it during the Cold Age. Ergenekon was solidly Imperial, enough for Guto's wife Gulesin to justify heading up there with her kids and their guards after her husband's death, setting up a court in exile until 'the enemies of the Imperial Throne of Grover the Great desecrated the great monument of his city by their presence no more,' her words not mine. And it wasn't just a show court, she actually tried to make it work, rule and do justice to wherever still accepted Imperial rule. The problem was, that wasn't that many places; Guto's ancestors had let the realm rot, trying to squeeze as much out of it as they could while giving nothing back. Civil wars burned up whatever they squeezed out, forcing them to squeeze out more and more in order to pay their mercenaries, who they had to rely on after they squeezed the Imperial Army into a hollow shell. Griffonstone fell into so much chaos that the rest of the realm basically had to rule themselves, or let thugs with pointy sticks rule them.
"As for Griffonstone, Guto's death turned a word war into a sword one, every faction trying to seize a throne they didn't see was rotting. Guto's siblings, rival families, some of the mercenaries, the Electors who didn't seem to get that maybe trying to set up an elective government in a war-zone wasn't the best idea, even a religious army or two, all of them rose up and tried to take control. They tore each other apart, like dogs fighting over scraps, alliances forming only long enough to tear whoever was winning at the moment down. Mobs, soldiers, assassins, the city was more used to them than people trying to stop them." He shook his head, murmuring, "There were almost two million people in Griffonstone before the Empire fell. The next time they were able to count that, over a hundred years later, there were only three-quarters of one million. There's only one way to put it; after Guto's death, while the Empire was trying to keep itself alive and the capitol tore itself to shreds, Griffonstone bled. But," he sighed, "dwelling on that won't do any good, won't change anything. All we can do is try to keep it from happening again. Just like," a hint of a smile crossed his face, "Gasena did."
Silverstream's ears, falling somewhat in gloom, perked up again.
"Gasena was the commander of the Ergenekon garrison when Gulesin arrived," Gallus continued. "There weren't really that many of them, Iron Gorge was barely settled then, but she still trained them, forging them like Grover had forged Griffonstone. They were strong, skilled, disciplined, and Imperial down to their bones, serving the Empire even as the rest of their kin abandoned it. Gasena welcomed Gulesin and her children and swore allegiance to them, even though there were plenty of people just a few kilos away in Griffonstone who would be willing to pay good money for their deaths, and she served them as faithfully as her soldiers served her. The world would soon see just how faithfully that was.
"It'd been seven years since Guto's death, and things weren't getting any better. Only the Githlaegir still pledged allegiance to the Imperial throne, the rest drifting away while they tried to stay alive. Keyron was a war-zone, every would-be ruler trying to buy or force it to give up its grain, grain that the war's interruption of the harvest was making rarer and rarer. If it hadn't been for the fish they were able to squeeze out of Grover Bay and the coastline, Griffonstone would've starved. Of course, that didn't stop the infighting; what did was the Electors, for some stupid reason, deciding that they could trust Gozlu, captain of one of the largest mercenary companies in the city.
"They knew that if they managed to seize the palace, they would be in a much stronger political position, especially since they used those few soldiers they had to try to establish something similar to law and order, which the people in those few areas of the city where they had enough of a presence to do that and keep the other factions from breaking in loved; if they seized the palace, identifying themselves with Imperial rule, and then even just tried to reestablish order, the common people would swarm to their side. But the Electors were politicians, not soldiers, they didn't have the numbers to pry the palace from whoever held it at the moment; instead, they went shopping for mercenaries, and eventually found Gozlu, leader of an over-glorified bandit gang. He was a decent fighter, as were those under him, but where he was a master was crime and treachery. Griffonstone knew him for raiding Keyron for grain and selling it in the capitol for crazy-high prices, supposedly refusing to lower the price even when someone literally starving to death was one copper piece short. Somehow, this didn't raise any red flags for the Electors, and they offered him a post of some sort if he helped them take the palace. He agreed, used his grain profits to buy the services of any mercenaries who would stand in his way, and then cut his way into the palace, where, surprise surprise, he stabbed the Electors in the back and simply took control himself. Then, using the plan they were stupid enough to tell him, he declared himself Gozlu the First, Emperor of Griffonstone, and sent his goons out to 'restore order' by breaking the legs of anyone they said was disturbing it.
"It didn't work like the Electors thought, though; Gozlu's profiteering made most of the common people wary of him. He knew he was sitting on a tinderbox, and so he tried to fan the flames away from him, blaming the chaos in the city on 'outside enemies,' namely Gulesin and her court at Ergenekon. He regathered his gang, hired a few other mercenary companies, then marched out to crush her. Soon, he was outside Ergenekon, over 4,000 in his host facing less than eighty inside. He sent a messenger to Gasena, ordering her to 'surrender the rebels' and 'return to Imperial authority' or 'face utter destruction.' Minutes later, she sent back a reply; 'It is not I who commands the rebels here, nor I who defies Imperial authority, and if I be utterly destroyed here, I will face Death gladly knowing that I died true.' She did die true, but not then; somehow, by some miracle, she held out through the six-month siege, breaking it when she killed Gozlu during a sortie. Without him, his host fell apart, and soon so did the fragile peace he'd forged in Griffonstone.
"But Ergenekon held on. Gulesin knighted every surviving member of the garrison and gave Gasena every honor she could think of. She still dreamt of 'cleansing the citadel of Grover the Great of the usurpers' taint,' but Gozlu's attack and news from her spies in the city showed her she wouldn't be able to any time soon, so she went to work making Ergenekon a suitable capitol. To be blunt, she failed; Ergenekon's more imposing than fancy, and after the refugees started to settle Githlaegir only the Iron Gorge obeyed the court there. But it's not that that matters, it's the fact that she was able to try at all, that her descendants were able to try to retake Griffonstone at all; Gasena and everyone who followed her stayed true, and Ergenekon didn't fall, not even when the Imperial line fell with Guto the Last. They couldn't keep faith with the Imperial family anymore, they were all dead, but they could stay true to the realm, to the people, to their vows. And they did; giving refugees land in the Gorge, fighting off invaders, training the first Iron Fangs to go out and bring peace back to the Empire. For over two hundred years, Ergenekon has stayed true, even when faced with utter destruction. Even if the whole world stands against them, they'll stand firm, saying, "I will face Death gladly knowing that I died true.'"
Silverstream stared, eyes wide with wonder, as he finished speaking. Fire danced in his eyes, more fire than was in the story he told, however impressive. He stood taller, walked with a more confident stride, even his armor seemed to gleam brighter. His voice may have fallen silent, but his soul was still singing, words louder than thunder that she couldn't hear.
"That was beautiful," she whispered, dipping her head. "Thank you for telling me."
"Yeah," Gabby whistled. "You've gotta knack for storytellin', Gallus."
Instantly, his soul fell silent, and the fire in his eyes turned to ice. "It wasn't a story," he grumbled. "All that stuff really happened."
"She wasn't saying that it didn't," Silverstream reassured him. "She was just saying that she thought you told us its history really well, right, Gabby?"
Gabby frantically nodded.
The ice in Gallus' eyes refused to thaw. He mumbled an apology to Gabby, then fell silent again, his soul whispering back behind the armor it had tried to shine so brilliantly out of before. Silverstream wanted to try to lure it back out again, ask it what song it had been singing, but she knew that that would only make it clam up tighter; people like Gallus came out of their shells when they wanted to, not when she tried to open them. All she could do was try to help make him comfortable with coming back out of his shell, murmuring another thanks for telling her about Ergenekon's history.
He silently nodded in acceptance, and as he did she realized that his frustrated face also reminded her of Terramar, tight jaw and lips carved like the stone he was trying and failing to turn his heart into.
All beneath eyes faintly frosted with ice, covering a gathering storm.
This time, when they arrived she didn't split up with her parents.
The guards at the Council chamber had wanted her to, but Gilda mentioning that she knew some stuff about the kidnappers changed their minds.
Now, she sat at a great, round table, her mother on her right, her protector on her left, and several of the greatest Men in Griffonstone staring across at her. After some brief introductions and explanations, her parents had told them about what Auntie Novo suspected was behind the kidnappings, and then they turned to her and pressed her for details about the attack at Gemerelli. She'd answered all their (many) questions, now she simply slumped back in her chair like a sponge squeezed dry, waiting for their response.
The first response came from Sir Cloudfloor, hands steepled together in thought. "If I had any doubts before now, honored guests," he said, "your daughter's testimony broke them. Queen Novo's right; we're fighting fish-people."
"Just so you all know," Gorsair, head of the Sea Dragons, said while he traced a route across the blank marble of the table with his finger, "I might be the Council's go-to naval guy, but if our honored guests are right, I'm not dealing with this alone."
"Thank you for stating the obvious, captain," Maren of the Darkbolts snapped, nervously drumming her fingers on the table. "If you have anything useful to say, we would appreciate that more than your jokes."
"Gorsair is right, though," Grachus, representative of the banking House of Otto, replied. "He cannot respond to this threat alone; no one can. I'm not sure even Griffonstone united would be able to. These Athangan have an entire ocean to draw upon; we need to respond with the same. Griffonstone alone cannot face the Athangan, no, but with the might of the Draconic Islands, Mount Aris, Labrador, and Homestria-"
"-we might be able to impress whoever's still around when the Sun's a piece of coal," Maren cut him off. "One or two of them, perhaps, but all? No. Not in a million years. And how would you propose contacting them? In case you and your friends' palaces have led you to forget, electronic communication isn't exactly standard issue for the real world. Once you're more than a day's ride away from the cities, you're on your own. We have trouble getting autos charged in the Githlaegir, do you think the Cadmuns would just be able to take a phone call? Send envoys? Yes, send envoys through areas contested by enemies we're trying to gather allies against, wonderful idea, what could go wrong? And even if you did reach them, who's to say they're not already having trouble with the fish-people? The fish-people our honored guests warned us about want territory, clearly. When faced with conquerers like that, what do you expect people to do; march out to help protect someone else's home, or hunker down to protect their own?"
"Then what do you propose, Maren?" Geretta, leader of the Russet Reds, raised an eyebrow.
"Fortify," came the reply. "The harbor walls are waterproof, post a few archers there and we'll be able to hold the Bay. South, if we can hold the Guto, we can focus on holding back anything trying to roll up the coastline. North, we send every useless mouth in the city into the Githlaegir, though we'll also need to keep an eye on the sea north of the Gap. If we keep those boundaries, we'll be able to hold off the world."
"What about hunger?" Gorsair pointed out. "You said the Guto, not the Ganesium. Did you forget where Keyron was, or did you forget that we need it to eat?"
"The Ganesium's too far south," Maren snarled back. "We'd be overextended if we set our border there. The useless mouths can farm the Githlaegir; if that's not enough, we fish north of the Gap. If that's not enough... we manage."
"And I assume you're going to be the one to tell Guthwin that he needs to either evacuate or sacrifice a fifth of his people?" Gorsair crossed his arms.
"Better that than all of them," Maren retorted.
"Are you certain we can't hold Keyron?" Grachus asked. "Its defenses pale before Griffonstone's, yes, but they do exist, and if we held it we could strike at any assault on the Guto from two sides. If we fortify it-"
"It would take too long to fortify," Maren shook her head. "We'd need to cover all the coast, at least, and that's not including either of the rivers. We know they're in Gemerelli, they'd be able to strike us months before we're ready if they caught wind of what we're doing. The north bank of the Guto's as far as we can hold, to my eyes."
"What if we boomed it?" Geretta asked, looking at Gorsair. "If we used a boom chain, could we keep them out of the Guto?"
"Not if they can swim deeper than half a dozen strides," Gorsair scoffed.
"And even if that did work," Maren added, "that wouldn't solve the bigger problem of the coastline; there's at least 150 kilometers to cover, and that's assuming it's all a straight line. Without proper fortifications, something we don't have the time to build, we won't be able to hold it unless we keep only a zakat to hold here."
"Could we reinforce that zakat with the citizens?" Grachus asked. "Most of them have probably had at least some experience fighting, after all."
Maren paused, curling and uncurling her fingers. After a moment, she sighed, shaking her head. "They'd still be green. Sure, they might be able to use a sword or a shield, but they wouldn't know discipline, and 'soldiers without discipline' is just a longer way of saying 'corpses.' They could free up a few hundred or thousand from peacekeeping, but other than that, they can best help us by staying away from the front lines."
Geretta leaned forward in her seat. "I sent a company to investigate Gemerelli after the attack on our guests. Do you think that-"
"If they're not back in three days," Maren shook her head, "they're dead. Gemerelli's enemy territory, now."
... (L)...
Geretta looked like she was about to reply, but she fell silent as Sir Cloudfloor rose to his feet, the silence that had rested on him since his first words spreading out to cover the rest of the chamber. Even Silverstream's thoughts hushed in an instinctual awe.
"Councilors," his voice shattered the silence, "whether we hold or abandon Keyron, we'll still need to defeat the fish-people. Where we'll need to will change, that will not. So, I ask you; are we able to?"
Maren nervously rubbed her hands together. "Depends," she eventually replied. "Both the honored guests' intel and their daughter's story make it sound like we'd be able to crush them one on one, or even in a small enough group, but if they have the numbers..." She swallowed. "The girl said she and the captain were able to fight off four even when they were surprised. I'd say if they outnumber us around eight, maybe eight and a half, to one or less we should be good, but more than that..."
Silverstream shivered; she could see the Athangan, an unstoppable tidal wave of drowned faces sweeping over the land. They would outnumber Griffonstone by more then eight and a half to one, she knew, though she didn't know how; something primal, almost instinctive, told her that the children of the Sea far outnumbered the children of the land, as certainly as that what took flight eventually drifted or fell back down, or that what lived would one day die. It was a fact, and against it all their bravery was doomed to fall, to crumble like a sandcastle against a wave, drowning beneath the onslaught of the Sea's children.
She turned to Gallus, staring intently at the council. Then she saw him, eyes closed and head bowed, his hair limply drifting in the currents of the Sea that drowned his home, his sword sheathed in rust and barnacles. And, to her horror, she could see the same fate awaiting the others in the chamber; Sir Cloudfloor, Grachus, Gorsair, Geretta, Maren, Gilda, even her parents: all overwhelmed, all drowned, all dead. The Sea wanted them, and the Sea would have them.
And they would face Death gladly, knowing they died true.
She blinked; where had that come from? Looking around, she found the source in Gallus' shadow, standing bold and grim though its caster hadn't moved, its unmoving lips roaring the thunder of his soul that she'd been unable to hear earlier. With or without hope, we'll fight, it whispered boomingly to her, because what we fight for is worth it. Griffonstone's just a scratch of stone, but it's a scratch we carved, and we won't allow anyone to just take it away; if they want it, they'll have to pry it from our cold, dead hands.
But they will, her heart quivered in reply.
Life still fills my hands, Gallus' soul rumbled back. Until life leaves them, I'll fight on like Gasena did.
A knock came at the far door.
Sir Cloudfloor's hand went to his sword hilt. "Who's there?"
"The Arch Rune-master," a thin voice piped in, "Chief of the Runery, High-mage-"
"Thank you, Gleedle," Maren curtly cut him off. "Is there a particular reason you're here now and not when we asked you to be?"
"It was my fault," another voice, a woman's, replied. "He was helping me with some research."
"What sort of research?" Sir Cloudfloor asked, gesturing for Gilda to let them in.
"Something that may save Griffonstone, good sir," the thin voice answered as the door opened, revealing a man in grey robes accented by copper standing beside a well-dressed woman, the latter holding a book under one arm...
...and in the other hand, the finger of an Athang.
"Our research has borne great fruit, my companions," the Rune-master continued, smiling widely. "We now know what our enemy is."
"We already know that, Gleedle," Maren snorted, "as you would have if you'd made it here on time. Our guests from Aris have informed us of who our enemy is."
"But did they tell you," the Rune-master smirked, "how to fight them?"
Sir Cloudfloor's eyes lit up, though he made sure to hide it; Silverstream could only see the faintest pinpricks of hope behind his walls of suspicion. "And your research has?" he asked, no hope escaping the gate of his voice.
"Indeed, good sir," Gleedle nodded, looking like a cat given a bowl of cream. "Indeed, it may very well have given us a way to preempt war with the Athangan at all."
"Gleedle," Gorsair chuckled, "if you want us to listen to you, maybe you should cut the demon impression and just tell us what you found."
Here, Gleedle's face fell a bit. "It is not merely this information that requires finding," he warned. "It revealed a tool to us, the Basin of Water Control, a magical item of immense power; if we were to wield it, we could deny the Athangan the tides they need to maneuver. Sadly, it appears that the Basin is not in the Runery's treasury, nor any other place in the city; it's creator, out of fear that their creation might be misused, sent it to the Temple of Grail to be sealed away. As far as the records available to us show, that is still where it lies."
"Githlaegir," Geretta murmured. "Four days there and back, three if whoever we send rides hard."
"We need every sword we can get in the city," Maren argued, "not heading north chasing children's stories."
"I don't know," Gorsair rubbed his chin. "We're fighting fish-people, those stories might have something to them."
"Even if they do," Sir Cloudfloor said, "Maren's right, we can't afford to send any of our soldiers away. Which is why it's fortunate," he glanced at Silverstream and her parents, "our guests arrived when they did."
Silverstream squeaked as her mom's arms wrapped around her like iron bands. "What sort of place is this Githlaegir?" her voice muttered. "Is it safe?"
"Safer than Griffonstone would be, if war came," the knight whispered.
Ocean Flow's face paled.
"It's okay, Mom," Silverstream reassured her. "Gallus was actually telling me about it on the way here, it sounds like it's fine. We'll be safe there."
"And you'll still have us," Gilda added. "You're still our walking pay-chests, we're not letting you out of our sight."
A brief chuckle went through the room at that, one that helped loosen her mom's arms a bit.
"In all honesty," the knight continued, "you wouldn't be in any more danger there than you already are here. We've pacified the hills as best as we can, and if any stray thugs do run into you, they know better than to attack a patrol in my armor. As for the temple, this is one place I know the stories are wrong; the worst 'traps' you'll find are barricades, pits, and the results of age. So long as you're careful, you'll be fine. If worst comes to worst, Gasiy can take you to Ironpeak."
"Or Ergenekon," Silverstream smiled.
The knight nodded his head thoughtfully from side to side. "Ergenekon is on the way to Ironpeak, yes, but against our current enemy the higher you can get, the better. You might rest there, but if things get that dire I won't want you to stay there."
"Oh," her cheeks flared. "That, uh, yeah, that makes sense. Sorry."
"Nothing to apologize for," the knight shook his head.
Silverstream nodded, then sank into her seat, trying to hide her blush. As she did, though, she felt a gauntleted hand wrap around one of her's, and looked up to see Gallus' glove gently holding her fingers. Blinking in confusion, she looked up at him, and saw him give her a small smile, one that the grateful look in his eyes showed her was much larger on the inside.
Some might look at his actions and think of romance, but Silverstream saw deeper; he was acting out of gratitude, not affection, thanking her in ways too sublime for words. Her mentioning Ergenekon, listening to him talk about it earlier, meant something to him, something more than mere attraction, just like Terramar's Anchor Watch uniform
(...Officers Archfoam and Seamist...)
meant more to him than a simple piece of cloth. Why? Did he like history as much as she liked architecture? Was he that big of a fan of Ergenekon? Was he simply not used to being listened to? What had caused the ice he'd tried to cover himself with to melt? Why was his soul shining so much brighter now?
Whatever the reason, she thought as she returned his smile, I'm glad I could help.
"Then it's decided," Sir Cloudfloor's voice dragged her back out of her thoughts. "In three hours, our guests and their guards will leave for the Temple of Grail, find Gleedle's Basin of Water Control, then bring it back to Griffonstone enkissur, as soon as they can. Any objections?"
A chorus of shaken heads answered him around the table.
He nodded, then looked at Silverstream and her family. "The fate of Griffonstone rests in your hands," he said. "Don't drop it."
Silverstream's shoulders almost buckled beneath the sudden weight she felt burdening them, the weight of the fate of a city with roots deeper than mountains. "We won't," she replied alongside her parents, and hoped it was the truth.