She laughed, a warm sound, and Tavi abruptly felt his heartbeat surge, and his muscles slowly began to unlock. “Clever. It is one of the things that make your kind appealing.” She paused, frowning thoughtfully. “In all my time,” she said at last, “no one had ever spoken to me. Until your kind came.” She smiled. “I suppose I enjoy the company.”

Tavi felt the warmth beginning to gather in his belly as the firecrafting finally gained momentum. Now he’d just have to be careful not to let it build too much. He might be tired of the cold, but he didn’t think that setting his intestines on fire would be any more pleasant in the long term. “But i-if I died, would you have anyone to talk to?”

“It would be bothersome, but I suppose I could find and keep track of some other bloodline.”

The shuddering finally—finally!—abated. Tavi sat up slowly, and reached up to rake his wet hair back. His fingers felt stiff and partially numb. Bits of ice fell from his hair. He kept the firecrafting going. “Like Aquitainus Attis?” Tavi suggested.

“Likely,” she said, nodding. “He’s a great deal more like your predecessor than you are, after all. Though I understand his name is Gaius Aquitainus Attis now. I’m not sure I understand why a legal process would alter his self-identity.”

Tavi grimaced. “It doesn’t. It’s meant to alter how everyone else thinks of him.”

Alera shook her head. “Baffling creatures. It is difficult enough for you to control your own thoughts, much less one another’s.”

Tavi smiled, his lips pressed tightly over his teeth. “How much longer before we’ll be able to send them a message and let them know that we’re coming?”

Alera’s eyes went distant for a moment before she spoke. “The vord seem to have realized how waterways are used for communications. They are damming many streams and have placed sentry furies to intercept messenger furies within all the major rivers and tributaries. They have almost entirely enveloped the coastlines of the western and southern shores of the continent. As a result, it seems unlikely that it will be possible to form a connection via the waterways until you have advanced several dozen miles inland from the coast, at the very least.”

Tavi grimaced. “We’ll have to send aerial messengers as soon as we’re close enough. I assume that the vord know we are coming.”

“That remains unclear,” Alera said. “But it seems a wise assumption to make. Where will you make landfall?”

“On the northwest coast, near Antillus,” Tavi replied. “If the vord are there, we will assist the city’s defenders and leave our civilians there before we march inland.”

“I am sure High Lord Antillus will be filled with pleasure at the notion of tens of thousands of Canim camping on his doorstep,” Alera murmured.