“It was our song to the One Tree, they say, that began the Severance and the evil that followed, when some elves rebelled against the Singer and chose destruction.”

Kieri huffed. “The Severance happened long ago, and your responsibility lies with your own acts. Today you did us more than one good service. I am not angry with you, nor do I blame you. But I would ask what you can add to my knowledge of these iynisin, as the elves call them.”

“The kuaknomi have some powers beyond ours,” the Kuakgan said. “We depend on the bond of kinship with trees and the taig and can do no more than kinship allows. The kuaknomi draw their power from hatred—from Gitres Unmaker.”

Kieri had heard the iynisin called kuaknomi before, in Tsaia. “Did you know what it was without seeing it?”

“Oh, yes. We feel the taig all the time, you see, as elves do, and the trees felt their most dire enemy near.”

“I thought fire was their worst enemy—or the scathefire at least.”

“Fire is the nature of dragons and their young,” the Kuakgan said. “The young do not burn out of malice, but joy. Kuaknomi, though, hate trees especially and delight in tormenting them.” The Kuakgan paused, looking past Kieri around the room. “Kuaknomi blood is corrosive to living things and to things that were alive. See where the carpet is blackening as with fire? And your wounded—if such blood touches an open wound, that is very bad. Do your physicians know about the dangers—?”

“I doubt it,” Kieri said.

“You and others have much blood on you—some of it kuaknomi by the smell. If you are wounded even slightly, you need treatment now.”

“I’m not,” Kieri said. A bruised shoulder was not a wound. “Can you help my physicians with the wounded?”

“We will try,” the Kuakgan said. “I will call the others. We were going to ask if we could visit the ossuary and the bones of your ancestors, but this is more urgent.”

“The ossuary? That seems a strange desire for those who live in groves,” Kieri said.

“It may seem strange, but to us…” The Kuakgan paused, frowning. “I am not sure I can explain it. When we find bones in the forest, they … they tell us things. Not only how the animal died but who has passed. I felt an urge to visit your ossuary.”

Kieri thought suddenly of the connection he’d discovered between the ossuary and the King’s Grove mound. His face must have shown something, because the Kuakgan’s gaze sharpened and he said, “What is it, Lyonya’s king?”

“We must talk,” Kieri said. “But first I must speak to my Council. Please help with the wounded, as you can, and I will talk to you later.”