“Otherwise, you could perhaps spend the time while you wait hanging your mirror upright, instead leaving it at this awkward angle you have it at,” he added, peering at her. “But do leave the link open; the moment everyone is connected, we will begin. Oh—hang the mirror sideways; it will help with what I’m going to be showing everyone. It’s been strung on the back for both vertical and horizontal. If you’ll excuse me, I need to put your link on hold . . .”
“Right,” she murmured, as he shifted his arm below her field of view and made the screen turn a rippling blue again. Straightening, she blinked, then turned in a circle, peering around the sunset-gilded Bower, her mind finally processing his last suggestion. “. . . Hang it from what?”
Somehow, Saleria didn’t think hanging it from the sap-dripping vines would be a good idea. Lacking anything else, she gave up and dug in her pouch. Grease pencil in hand—no mage went anywhere without some means of scribing power-focusing runes, and chalk was too easily dissolved in the open-to-the-weather Grove—she scribbled a line of markings along the upper edge of the mirror. Investing energy with a snap of her fingers and a lift of her other palm, Saleria floated the mirror up off the moss-cushioned ground. Then winced. It was the wrong orientation for Guardian Kerric’s request.
“Bollocks,” she muttered, and quickly scribbled a second set of runes along one of the long edges. A twist of her hand shifted the orientation of the rectangular frame from vertical to horizontal. It continued to pulse blue for a while more, long enough for the golden light of the setting sun to retreat up to the top of the Bower . . . which was when Saleria noticed something odd.
What she had thought were budlike, waxy nodules on the underside of the Bower weavings were now starting to glow. The light was soft and pastel, and would not be noticeable from a distance, but it was very similar to the pale blue glow of the warding stones set in the Grove wall. The nodules also came in more colors than blue. Soft pink, pale green, watery yellow, faint amber, dim lilac . . .
As the sun finished setting and dusk closed in, the different colors combined into a soft glow about as strong as the light from both Brother and Sister Moons when they were full. Saleria glanced up at the sky to make sure it wasn’t actually moonlight allowing her to see. Sister Moon was up in the east, slowly waxing toward the full of the coming summer solstice, but the larger curve of Brother Moon had already gone down, and had been a sliver, nowhere near full. Not for over two more weeks. The light cast from those nodes along the underside of the Bower was brighter than what the smaller of the two moons could cast, though not by much.
I suspect there is some long-forgotten way to make them glow brighter, too, Saleria decided, turning in a slow circle so she could peer at the fist-sized bumps. But I’ve always completed my rounds quickly, then tried to put the Grove out of my mind . . . and the few times trouble has stirred, I always patrolled the wall paths, not the interior. Her next thought annoyed her, furrowing her brow with a frown. What else do I not know about my own Guardianship, thanks to having had to waste the last three years of my life just trying to keep up with plant containment and prayer management?
Her annoyance was strong enough to thoroughly squash that inner voice, the nasally one that sounded like High Prelate Nestine. Bollocks to the lot of them! I am in charge, and I will decide what to do with this place. Somehow. With Aradin’s help, and maybe a few others’ . . .
The mirror chimed again, rippling into the image of Guardian Kerric. “There we go. Now that everyone is on the scrycasting together . . . allow me to make all the introductions.” His hands lifted in odd poking and snatching gestures, and small rectangles started to appear down either side of his centrally aligned image. “Starting with your top leftmost corners and going down each column, we have . . . Saleria of the Grove, Dominor of Nightfall . . . Migel of Althinac . . . Keleseth of Senod-Gra, Pelai of the Painted Temple . . .”
Saleria didn’t see her own image in the top left corner, but she did see a man with long, dark brown hair and the slightly slanted eyes of a fellow Katani, followed by a man with a more rugged face, round eyes, and shorter, darker hair. Both were clad in dark tunics, though they were cut differently. Following him were two women, one elderly, with a tanned, wrinkled face and gray-streaked white hair that fell in waves to her red-clad shoulders. The other had a very round face by comparison, with high cheekbones and almond eyes, though the most eye-catching things about her were the subtle markings drawn on her skin. Some continued all the way down onto her shoulders, visible beneath the straps of a sleeveless black vest. It was a garment that was far too daring for most Katani to have worn but which looked oddly right against her inked flesh.