We walked on a slim ledge with a precipitous drop to our right, revealing a yawning darkness. Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to see far into those depths, but something was creating light down there. I saw the blue smoke lurking on the ground, twining through abandoned ruins.

Then the light source itself held my attention.

It was a spear.

A golden spear rested on a stand in the cave’s center.

“What is that?” I realized I had stopped to look.

I pretended at ignorance, but I recognized the spear Thaena had shown me. And once I’d found a way to steal Khoreval, I’d be finished with the easiest part of my mission.

I had no false illusions about how difficult it would be to slay a dragon.

“A slower death than the last cave,” Xivan said, either ignoring my question or misunderstanding it. “I’m the only one who can walk there without dropping dead, since I already have. If the smoke doesn’t kill you, the stone will.”

I looked back at her. “The stone? What do you mean?”

“It’s a curse the Academy came up with when it proved too hard to dig the Yorans from their caves. They changed the caves themselves, turned them toxic. Rather like setting a castle on fire to force everyone out in a siege, except the castle is still burning a century later.”

My throat felt dry. “How many people lived here?”

“Thousands,” she answered. “And this is just one cave system. Hundreds were rendered unlivable in pockets all over Yor.”

I stared for another minute, feeling dread. As in Mereina, the blue smoke obscured a floor littered with the dead.

She put a cold hand on my shoulder. “We shouldn’t linger. Not here.”

I let her lead me farther on. The passage looked old, sturdy, and almost comfortable to me, given the Joratese love of cellar homes. We walked rather deep into the mountain, at least another half hour beyond the poison caves where the Yorans had once lived. By the time the tunnel opened into a cavern again, the temperature had turned warm.

The large cavern floor had been polished smooth and divided into sections. Living areas, I realized, although I didn’t know how useful or necessary they were for Xivan. Did she need to sleep? Did she need to eat?

If she did need to eat, what did she eat?

Also, the cavern was occupied. In one section, someone had drawn rings on the ground and set up wooden mannequins. A beautiful young woman was whacking a wooden practice sword against these pretend enemies, stopping to adjust her footing. She dressed in practical trousers and a loose-fitting shirt, and like Xivan, she looked Khorveshan.

But unlike Xivan, she looked alive.

“Here we are,” Xivan said. “Home sweet home, such as it is.”