“I can’t explain it,” Xavier said.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
Iveris pointed at Laric. “Why don’t you just tell him about the place that your grandmother had, and about the dead mage?”
Rowan’s eyes widened as she looked over to her sister.
“What?” Iveris said. “I don’t like this dancing-around-everything business. I’m tired.”
“If you’re tired, get in the back of the wagon,” Xavier said, motioning to it.
Iveris groaned, and then she marched past Xavier and climbed into the wagon. Laric looked at his sister, caught her eye, and then nodded. Joselle joined Iveris.
“So, the three of you have anything that you want to tell me?” Xavier asked.
“Do you really want to do that here?” Laric asked.
“Better here than once we get back in the city.”
“You were smuggling things for my grandmother,” Laric said. “Protecting them from mages. Why?”
Xavier frowned a moment. “I see. Well then, that’s a bit more of a conversation than I was ready for. How about we get back, and then we can talk. Climb in.”
He turned back to the wagon and waited for them.
Malcolm joined the others, while Rowan and Laric stayed put.
“Something’s wrong?” Rowan asked.
“I don’t know,” Laric said. “All of this is wrong, I suppose. It just feels like there is more going on here, too much that we don’t understand, and I’m not exactly sure what to make of it. Nor do I know if there’s going to be any other way that we’re going to be able to deal with any of this.”
“No,” she agreed. “I’m sure that we don’t know what we’re going to have to deal with, but I’m curious if there is anything here that you’re particularly concerned about. You know that your grandmother was involved. And as far as I can tell, you trust what she did.”
“I do, but I also worry about what she did and why she was keeping it from me.”
“Maybe she wasn’t keeping it from you. She was teaching you, Laric. She wanted you to know aspects of this. And she did teach you the key to it, after all.”
Maybe that was it. His grandmother had been working with him in some ways and had wanted him to know certain elements of what she could do. If she hadn’t wanted that, she would not have shown him so many of the different spellslips that were essentially spellcraft forms, and she would not have given him the means to fully understand some of the elements of power that she wielded.
“Xavier can help,” Rowan said.
“Are we sure?”
She laughed. “That’s the issue?”
“What?”
“You don’t know if you can trust him.”
“I am about out of trust right now,” Laric said. “It’s been hard to know who I can trust and who I can’t.”
She shrugged. “I get that, but I think we need to make sure that we are at least trusting each other.”
“I didn’t mean that I didn’t trust you,” he said.
“Good. So let’s get in the wagon, go back with Xavier, and see what he knows.”
Laric looked back at the mountains and focused, feeling a vague sense of the power that he was aware of. There was energy out there, and potential, he suspected. Distantly, he could feel some of that lingering connection to Sashaak, even though there was no way for him to see Sashaak. At least, not without the dragon gifting him that connection. All Sashaak would have to do would be to show Laric what he saw, but right now, that was not the case.
Once Laric and Rowan climbed into the wagon, Xavier turned the horses and started guiding them back.
“Heard reports that something was happening outside the city,” Xavier said, looking over. “Although I wasn’t expecting it to be you.”
“So you came out here to do what? Check? I wouldn’t have expected that my grandmother had given you access.”
“You’d be surprised what she gave me,” he said.
“Why?”
“You don’t think I should have access?”
“No, it’s not that,” Laric said. “I’m just curious why she trusted you.”
Xavier hesitated before answering, and when he did, he kept his gaze fixed straight ahead. “What do you really know about Korthal?”
“Just the stories that we’ve heard.”
