“You’re not what I expected, you know,” Landryn said, holding Femira’s gaze. Neither are you. “Don’t get me wrong,” he rushed on, “it’s not a bad thing, from what I’ve known of Keiran women, they’ve often been…” he trailed off.

“The word you’re looking for is oppressed,” she concluded for him, “Keiran women are not free people. They are slaves to their families.”

“I didn’t want to offend you… but yes,” he said, “you’re strong, like Reldoni women. Moreso even, and you don’t hold back what’s on your mind or from doing what’s right.” She felt a little guilty when he said that. He seemed to genuinely believe that she wanted to do this to help people and she couldn’t help but feel a pang of remorse for lying to him. If she was so caught up in doing the right thing she would tell him about his brother. But what good would that do for her? Garld had given her power, and he had the skills and ability to give her more. She didn’t like the way the conversation was making her feel so she decided to shift the topic.

“You suspected that these Kraglings were here… why? Does it have something to do with the soulstones?”

“What did you know about soulstone before joining us?”

“I didn’t even know they existed,” she answered, truthfully.

“Neither did we, up until recently,” he replied, “references to them existed in the histories but there were no records of them after the Fall of the Sorcerer Kings. But then two years ago, a team of stoneshapers were tunnelling into the Pillar, extending the palace and they came upon a hidden room. We didn’t even know any of the passageways went that deep into the Pillar.”

“What was inside?” The thief inside of her leaping at the prospect of hidden treasure rooms in the Reldoni palace.

“Runestones… lots of them. The rarer kinds too; stormstone, bloodstone and diamonds. Some had rune engravings that the scholars in the Palace had never seen before. There were stacks and stacks of lost documents and knowledge from the Age of the Sorcerer Kings. Among them were Elyina’s journals.”

Femira’s mind flicked back to the conversations she’d had with Garld and Misandrei before her soulforging ritual. They told me that Elyina’s journals had been discovered in the Pillar and it sparked the invasion of Altarea for the soulstone. She didn’t realise it at the time but now when her mind brushed over it, the night she’d sneaked into Averstock’s mansion and Vestyr and got the jump on her. He’d said that she had ‘no right’ to the journal. She’d foolishly assumed it was his. They must have been Elyina’s journals… or at least parts of it. It was fairly obvious that Vestyr and Allyn were working together to try to piece together how soulforging worked. Were they trying to create their own Soulforged runewielders? Vestry himself was evidently Soulforged—he’d all but admitted the fact to her—so why would they need to steal the journal? And more importantly, why had Garld needed to steal it from Averstock in the first place? Was Averstock another thread in all of this?

“It was quite the stir in both the Royal Council and War Council,” Landryn continued on, “and with the ongoing feud with the Reinish, the increasing tension with Altarea and the Keiran… it seemed a solution was dumped on our laps. We were already building our military for years and now with solid evidence on the existence of soulforging…”

“There wasn’t any soulstone in the cache,” Femira acknowledged, “you needed one to test out soulforging. The invasion of Altarea was to capture the soulstone.” She knew all of this already from Garld but she was curious whether Landryn would admit it to her.

“You knew it was there?” He looked at with surprise, “we believed the Altarean highborn to be unaware of its existence. If not for Elyina’s journals indicating she’d hidden one there, we would never have guessed.”

She debated telling him the truth. He was being so forthcoming with his information, and the amount of lies she was telling were mounting so high she was beginning to lose track. Surely Garld wouldn’t care if she told him the truth; that she wasn’t really Annali. She could tell him that much, couldn’t she? She could keep the knowledge of his brother’s murder back for now but it would be nice to able to talk to him as Femira—not Annali.

“I…” Femira faltered. He looked up at her, light from the flickering fire dancing across his face. “Garld told me,” she lied, deciding to hold back. Drad was standing watch not far away and Kendrick and Selyn were also close enough to hear if they were awake.

“Ah, I see,” Landryn replied, “Garld trusts you… He is a good man and I trust him with my life, knowing he places such confidence in you gives me comfort.” She felt herself smiling at that, it was good to know that Garld trusted her. She’d felt it when he’d done the soulforging ritual with her but it was reassuring to know that the feeling hadn’t all been in her head.

“Did Garld do your soulforging ritual too?” she asked, curious.

“He did,” Landryn winced, “it was…”

“… painful?”

“Putting it lightly but yes… also enlightening. I was a strong runewielder before, but now it’s like my edir is an ocean and I’m a tidewall barely holding it back.” She’d felt something similar after becoming soulforged, the waves of her edir pulsing out from her, far stronger than they’d ever been before.

“So if you only found the soulstone in Altarea,” she thought aloud, “yourself and all the bloodshedders only recently became soulforged.”

“Garld and I began recruiting for the bloodshedders after Elyina’s journals were uncovered. We wanted to have a trained force of elite runewielders ready to be soulforged when we found it.”

“And these monsters… the Fomori. They’ve only started appearing again since then?”

“Reports have been filtering in for months even before the invasion of Altarea. We know that it’s not isolated to here, other creatures have been spotted on the fringes of the Simirwood too—not Kraglings specifically—but creatures matching other descriptions of Fomori from Elyina’s journals.”

“So it might not be connected? The soulstones and the Fomori?”

“We aren’t the only ones with a soulstone. The Honorswords are soulforged, I have no doubt in that. The Aeth have long held the secrets of their enhanced runewielding ability but I would wager there is soulforging at play there also.”

“Do you think someone is creating monsters with a soulstone?” She asked, a chill running up her spine.

“I don’t know… but it does seem like too much of a coincidence that the Kraglings would appear here now.”

“Is this why you’ve been recruiting so heavily for the bloodshedders? You wanted us to fight these Fomori?”

“My father sees the soulstone as a means to reclaim Reldon’s former glory and many in the War Council agree with him,” he replied. Femira got the distinct impression that it was not how Landryn felt about the matter. She was about to press further but it seemed then that Landryn didn’t want to discuss it any further.

“We should get some rest,” he said abruptly and rose to his feet, “we have a long day ahead tomorrow.” His eyes turned towards the cliffs where they’d discovered the Kragling nest, and then over to the ruined village. “We’ll ride north to the other destroyed villages, we’ll uncover the other nests and hunt down the alpha.” Then he turned back to look at her with an empathetic grin. There was a passion in his eyes that she couldn’t help but feel excited by. “We will also need to formulate battle strategies on the road. We’re going to fight these creatures.”