Klara lounged against the wall in the main room of Vera’s Revenge, arms folded. Everyone else stood or sat around the table, yelling. Yeger wanted to kill every Warrior and Alchemist in Serovnya. Elana wanted to know why they showed up in the forest—as fortuitous as it was. Yuri wanted to leave Serovnya. Now. Only Mikhail remained silent, a frown creasing his forehead.

  “Shut up!” Yuri yelled from his place at the head of the table, his back to the curved windows. Slowly the group quieted and Yuri continued, his voice calm, but a vein on his forehead throbbing beneath scar tissue, “As captain of this airship, I am the one who decides where we fly. Serovnya isn’t safe for us, Alchemists have clearly marked Vera, which means no more trading here. We should have enough fuel to make it to Novagrad, then we’ll cross the border to Machtvoll. I have contacts there, they’ll get you all work—those who don’t want to sign on with me as some added muscle.”

  “This is stupid!” Klara said as she pushed from the wall and stomped to the table, slamming her hands on it and leaning forward, staring her uncle down. “You’re running. That’s your solution? You see, the greatest threat to Serovnya since the gates open and you run?”

  “Listen, girl,” Yuri said, “We’re one airship. There’s nothing we can do to change the flow of this war, even if we wanted to.”

  Klara shook her head. “That’s not true. You have one of the fastest airships in Serovnya, with a highly trained crew. Where Ledavsk fell, Katavsk can stand. There’s only one way into the mountains, and that’s by air. You dominate the skies, Uncle.”

  “Right,” Yuri said. “So we take down one Alchemist airship… ten more follow! They’re richer than you can imagine, Klara. Vera might be fast, but she’s small, and old—and someone drained half a cell worth of hydrogen from her. The Alchemists have been trading airships for uzhasgart constructs with Machtvoll for decades. I dunno where they hide them, but rest assured, they have them. They have felled entire forests in Machtvoll to feed the Alchemists’ hunger. And believe me, I know their thirst for airpower. I was there when it began, I watched the first airships land at Kosgrad. I saw the greed in the Alchemists’ eyes as they studied them.”

  Klara’s frown deepened. “And so that’s an excuse not to try?”

  “I’m not fond of dying,” Yuri said, shrugging.

  “Fine,” Klara said, turning on her heel and stalking to the door. “Please return me to the ground. I’m not leaving Serovnya. Anyone who wants to join me, can.”

  “Klara, wait…” Yuri said.

  She reached the door and yanked it open, but waited.

  “I’ll play… If you have a plan on how we can stop the Alchemist Guild, tell us.”

  Klara ground her teeth, her mind racing. Why did everyone always want a plan before they did the right thing?

  “I may have a solution,” Elana said.

  Hardly daring to hope, Klara returned to the table, eying Elana expectantly.

  “All right,” Elana said, standing. “The only reason Yuri, Mikhail and I are alive today is because I sacrificed a significant amount of Sila—uzhas—to do so.” Elana must have noticed the confused looks of half the people in the room because she said, “That stone golem? That was a part of me. The Sila and I are no longer separate beings, but one. And I can assure you, we despise being mined and murdered to be turned into weapons, into coil train rails, into frames for buildings.

  “The Alchemist Guild draws its wealth from one location. A mine on the far side of the Gromadnyy range. That mine is where the Sila is closest to the surface, trapped in stone, unable to flee from the Guild’s greedy fingers. If you can get me into that mine, I can bond with the Sila buried there and free it. All of it. Doing so would cripple the Alchemist Guild.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Yeger cocked his head. “I saw that monster in the clearing. Why do you need our help to get into the mine?”

  Elana turned her attention to him and spoke slowly. “Because that ‘monster’ is dead. And did you not see the weapons they were using against us?”

  “So they use those weapons in the mines?” Yeger asked. “Wouldn’t that kill the uzhas instead of capturing it?”

  “Well…” Elana began, then sighed. “No. It’s complicated. The Sila in the clearing had bonded with the stone, making it a part of itself. The Sila in the mines is merely travelling through the stone. Living inside it, but not a part of it. The weapon will destroy only Sila that has bonded with stone.”

  “So it can travel through stone… but it’s trapped?” Matvei interjected, his nasally voice grating on Klara. “That doesn’t sound like trapped, that sounds like stupid.”

  Elana’s cheeks burned red. “I don’t know why it’s trapped, all right? Something is hindering it from escaping, but the Sila I’m bonded with has been so far removed from it we can’t remember any more. Something about a vein of iron ore shifting beneath us and being too close to the surface and going dormant on contact with below freezing air. We don’t know for sure.”

  Matvei opened his mouth for doubtless another question.

  “How or why it’s there is irrelevant,” Klara said. “What would be helpful to know though, is how the depths you can fly.”

  “Oh, that,” Elana said dismissively, but Klara caught the satisfied glint in her eye. “I can’t fly. Sila can move what it dwells in and what you call uzhasgart—so long as it has a direction connection. I merely anchored the uzhasgart in the tree and used that to move around.”

  “What connects you?” Mikhail asked.

  “The Sila itself in its gaseous form. It’s barely visible to your eyes unless it concentrates in one location.” Elana pointed to a spot by the wall. The wall rippled, shimmering and growing hazy. Then a barely defined cloud condensed into view.

  Mikhail gazed at the Sila on the wall, the corners of his lips twisting down ever so slightly. “So that’s directly connected to you?”

  “By a thin line of Sila, yes,” Elana said. “With telepathy extract you can see it as a cobalt glow.”

  “Where else is it?” Yuri asked, a note of discomfort in his voice.

  Elana chuckled. “Don’t worry, most of it is lying in the mainframe. I assumed you wouldn’t appreciate trekking through it.”

  Yuri shuddered but said nothing.

  “What else can you do?” Mikhail asked.

  “The Sila gives me all the power of the telepathy extract I created,” Elana said. “I can see the mind of anyone around me within about one hundred yards. Through any kind of material.”

  Klara gaped at her. “You can read our thoughts?”

  “No. Not read. Your mind just looks like a swirling network of grey threads—there may be a way to read the threads, but I haven’t worked it out. Someone using telepathy extract has a cobalt mind, and both people can communicate. Much the same way I communicate with the Sila. I never got to really test it before they murdered Sofia.”

  “Keep working on reading us, all right?” Klara said. “That skill could be very helpful.”

  Elana ducked her head.

  “So,” Klara said, “we’re still left with needing a way into the uzhas mine. Any suggestions?” She looked around the room, only to be met with blank stares.

  “You’ll never work it out,” Yuri said.

  Klara scowled at him. “Yes, I will.”

  “No. You won’t…” Yuri paused a moment, then dropped his head to his hand, massaging his temples and sighing. “I can’t just let you kill yourself… Look, kid, if you wanna break in somewhere it’s best to know the layout of the location. That can be done one of two ways: one, you go in yourself and have a poke around. Or two, you find someone who already knows their way around.”

  Klara cringed at the thought of sneaking around the uzhas mines. “I suppose I can try…”

  “Don’t be daft,” Yuri said. “You’d fail in seconds.”

  Klara bristled. “I would not—”

  “You would,” Yuri interrupted, slapping the table with a bang. “Alchemists only hire men to serve in their military—haven’t you noticed? Anyway. I happen to know a man who has an intimate knowledge of the mines.”

  “You’ll ask him then?”

  The barest of smiles creased the scarred and weathered skin around Yuri’s eyes. “I’ll help you, Klara, but that one is your job.” He stood. “I’ll just get you to Ruslan.”

  “Where is he?” Klara asked.

  “Oh, just the heart of the Alchemists’ domain,” Yuri said, marching to the door. “Kosgrad.”