I rubbed my lower lip, reminded myself temper tantrums wouldn’t help my cause—no matter how good they might feel in the short term. “You don’t understand.”

“I think I do.”

“If Oreth is right—if Relos Var is right—I’m not even Joratese. And that matters a great deal.” I paused. “How did Relos Var know who my parents were? My grandfather didn’t know.”

Senera pulled up the inkstone she wore around her neck and then tucked it back under her gown’s neckline. “It’s this. If you ask it a question and use the stone, what you write will answer your question.”

I stared at her. What a useful toy. Such a useful tool that I felt like a naked baby trying to fight off lions.

Did they already know my motives? Had they known the whole time I was only here to steal a magic spear and kill their pet dragon? To undermine their invasion efforts?

She smirked. “It’s not foolproof. Ask a bad question, get a bad answer. And it won’t answer opinions. It won’t tell you events that haven’t happened yet. And my personal favorite: once you start writing, the stone won’t let you stop until you’ve finished answering the question. So it’s rather important to ask unambiguous questions. It didn’t end well for the last person Relos Var let use the stone. He asked a question so sufficiently vague he was still writing out the answer when he dropped dead from exhaustion.”

“So you’re the one who asked about my parents.”

Senera nodded. “Yes.”

“Who are they? Are they still alive? I want names.”

She chuckled as we neared the doorway she’d locked earlier. “Maybe if you’re good, I’ll let you know. Right now, I think it should just be my little—” She frowned. “What?”

I turned to see what she was staring at.

The door stood ajar.

I rushed inside. Brother Qown was missing.

36: AN INSUFFICIENT APOLOGY

Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since Tishar D’Mon made a lovely blue tsali stone

“So you have met my brother Darzin,” Kihrin said to Janel. “And hard as it may be to believe, Darzin was behaving himself.”

“If that’s his definition of ‘behaving himself,’ I have an arrow that’ll fix his problem,” Ninavis offered.

“Generous of you,” Kihrin said, “but I killed Darzin three days ago.”

Janel smiled. “I knew I liked you.”

“Did you ever find out who your real parents are—” Kihrin started to ask.

“I did,” Janel said quickly. “Eventually. And Dorna knew the entire time.” She gave the old woman a look.

“Oh, foal, it weren’t like that.”

Janel raised a hand to stop Dorna from saying more.

“But you do know now?” Qown asked Janel again. “Because I don’t want to read this next part unless you do.”