Zu ran his hand across his bare chest and belly, sated and content. Yun lay beside him, her back illuminated by the slender crescent of Hlenice’s glow that peeked through her bedroom window. She studied him with curious eyes.

  “Do you grace these halls just to be with me?” she asked.

  “Shouldn’t you know? You are the prophetess after all.” He grinned a crooked grin.

  She nudged him playfully and flipped onto her back. “I will always marvel at you. Before I met you, I had begun to doubt that there were indeed mortals touched by the gods, those whose stars were obscured.”

  “Touched by the gods,” he scoffed. “Aren’t we all?”

  “Not like you. Why do you think you’ve not once been injured in combat?”

  “Because I practice. And I’m lucky.”

  “No one is that lucky. Koruzan must have foreseen your prowess, for she saw fit to touch you with her divinity. To suggest otherwise is an insult to your goddess.”

  “She must have a sense of humor then, for she would have foreseen my lack of faith as well.”

  “I wonder if all those who are chosen are as faithless. I’ve read for hundreds and hundreds of people over nearly a millennium. And in all that time, you’re my first.”

  “That many? Do you oft invite your patrons into your bed?” Zu wondered.

  “Not once,” she said with a sultry gleam. “But as I have never read your stars, you are not my patron, so I see no occasion to worry.”

  Yun padded to the door on bare feet and called for food. Murmuring and footfalls echoed from the stone corridor as she crossed back to him, her fair skin glistening in the moonlight. People could say what they liked, and he’d heard it all: she was too thick, face too fat, jaw too wide, nose too crooked. He reckoned they were intimidated by her age, her power, her wisdom. More likely, they were sore that she rejected their advances.

  None of that idle chatter bothered him. Yun was the most wonderful companion.

  Her hair blanketed Zu’s chest as she climbed back into bed. She propped herself up on one elbow and swept the long strands away from him. “Now, where were we?”

  “I think we were…” His words trailed off into kisses on her shoulder and neck.

  “Oh, I do like that,” she said, leaning into his affection.

  A few playful nibbles later, a young man hurried through the door with a tray in one hand and a pitcher in the other. Eyes fixed on the stones beneath his feet, he scurried to the bedside table and set them down before giving a quick bow and returning whence he came.

  Yun rolled to the edge of the bed and reached for the food. The tray wobbled precariously as she slid it off the table and atop the sheets between them. She bit into an apple slice. “Mm, delicious. Have some.”

  Never one to pass up food, Zu raided the offerings, devouring the apples, pears, cherries and grapes, the warm bread made with wheat from Chilika and the soft cheese from Parallax’s mountain goats.

  Yun stretched and yawned, her long limbs twisting around themselves like gnarled tree branches.

  “What was it like during the First Age?” Zu asked.

  “In a word: magickal,” she said, almost dreamlike.

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  “What about when the magick fled?”

  “Hlun’s heart,” she swore. “It didn’t flee, it was ripped from us. It felt like a lion latched onto my throat, clawed into my shoulders and bore me to the ground with all its strength.”

  “Do you still feel it?”

  She nodded. “Sometimes. The suffocating weight crippled me for decades. But it reached an equilibrium over time, as all things do. The hardest part is living with the sublime memory of what it was to be filled with such abundant magick. How light and free I was. It’s like being banished from the mountain’s peak to the foothills and left to wallow in the ever-present shadow of the colossus.”

  “Gru.” Zu squeezed her hand. “Was it that way for everyone?”

  “The oracles felt it keenly, for obvious reasons. The elves, who relied heavily on magick, still haven’t recovered—nor the magickal beasties, if the rumors be true. Witches and wizards and sorcerers are all but extinct. I’d wager everyone on Ex’ala suffered a nagging tug they wished they could be rid of. A part of me envies all of you who were born after the Corruption.”

  “Were you here when it happened?”

  “Yes. Not ten paces from where we lie. I watched Eroa’s will burning through that window, a brilliant purple-blue blaze that smoldered on the horizon for years.”

  “Years?” Zu asked, incredulous.

  “Oh, yes. Have you heard of Kryshtaad?”

  Zu shook his head.

  “It’s one of The Chronicler’s favorite tales. Kryshtaad was the grand elven city where the mighty Il’Idur and his human followers rose up against their oppressors, where the weave of magick was corrupted. It burned for decades and left nothing but a wasteland, a scar upon Ex’ala that will never heal.”

  “How far is it from here? I think I’d like to visit someday.”

  “Why would you want to visit?” she laughed.

  Zu shrugged. “Why not? I find history inaccessible unless I witness it firsthand.”

  “You are a curious one.” She pointed out the window. “It’s about a fortnight’s ride west and a bit south, before you reach the coast. The city is naught but ruins, and most of those were buried under the sand by a maelstrom that followed a century later. All over Ex’ala, magickal towers crumbled into dust when the weave was rent asunder.”

  “Is that what happened to the temple’s roof?”

  She nodded. “After the Corruption, even the latent magick used by architects became unpredictable, as it did here. One day we noticed a crack spidering across the ceiling. The next, the roof caved in. During the First Age, the use of magick had grown so commonplace that masons would strengthen their stonework with simple wards incorporated into their marks. But after the magick failed, many buildings weakened and eventually collapsed. Those that survived were constructed using the coveted runic magick of the dwarves. Unlike wards, runes are permanent, hence the magick is as well.”

  “If magick still exists in the world, why can’t people call upon its power like they used to?”

  “All magick comes at a price,” Yun began. “Even back then. But since the Corruption, the cost has increased immensely. The simplest incantation could leech years from your life, a lesson many practitioners learned the hard way. Few had the willpower to abandon their life’s work, even once the risks became known. Having that power at your fingertips, it was addictive. ‘One more spell,’ they would tell themselves, only to die a spectacular and horrific death.

  “The art form died alongside its wielders. Druids and shamans continue to practice some magick, but they don’t pull it directly from the weave. They draw power from their surroundings. The druids harness ambient energy from the trees and animals, while shamans rely on their companions and townsfolk. Even so, they risk absorbing and expending corrupted magicks to unintended consequence.”

  “Can they tell when the magick they draw upon is corrupted?” Zu asked.

  “Sometimes. Other times, it can take years for the corrupt magick to reveal itself. But once the energy is unleashed, it is impossible to contain. Everything is connected by the weave: all of us, all of nature, all of Ex’ala.” She waved her hand around, a slice of apple pinched between two fingers. “Over time, the Corruption spread and thinned out, like a puddle of tainted blood pooling on cobblestones, until it seeped into every crack and crevice. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t staunch the flow. In the First Age, magick was as reliable as your blade.” She pointed to Zu’s yari resting against the wall. “Under normal conditions, it failed only if the caster’s will was too weak. It is quite the opposite now. And even if the spell appears to succeed, often a dark tendril latches on and wriggles its way into either the caster or the subject.”

  Zu’s thoughts turned to Yechvan. “Could it cause a person to see the dead?”

  “I suppose so, though I’ve not seen much magick in the past few centuries. The orcish shamans are still active, as nearby as the foothills to the southeast, but I can’t say I’ve known magick to give someone the ability to see to the dead. Unless it is merely a cruel trick of the mind. That seems more likely.”

  Zu pondered that for a time. Did the spirits of their companions actually visit Yechvan, or were they simply the delusions of a guilty conscience? But the more he contemplated Yechvan’s predicament, the more questions he found.