Kire had her own share of complications and progress.
After coming back, Kire spent a week under orders not to exert herself. Elva fussed over her constantly, checking her injuries to make sure the Ring was healing the broken bones right, chastising Kire for removing the cast earlier than she was supposed to. Kire, to her credit, didn’t object to the house arrest, though she did, without success, try to pry Janes for details about important business. And Jan, to her credit, refused to answer, not even breathing so much as a word about work while Kire was recuperating. She knew, all three knew, that this wasn’t just so much about attending to Kire’s body, but her mind. So Kire rested. Within that week, Kire also made a ‘truce’ with her little cousins Etta and Precy, who were all ready to be mad at her for leaving them again until they actually saw her, after which all of them cried and hugged. Kire told them some of what she had seen in the other world: the refugees, particularly Aeron, and the food. The rest of the details she left out of her stories.
When the week was over, Kire insisted on throwing herself back into the fray. Janes still hadn’t told her about some of the reports, only those that were immediately pertinent to her. Kire rejoined Narda, Myka, and the crew of the Green Wench to harass the naval patrols of the turncoat provinces, though the two women didn’t listen to a single order from Kire until she told them in full detail what had happened to her, gleefully reminding her that she had lost her crown and that she wasn’t captain of the ship even with it. This occupied much of Kire’s time in exile: in concert with her remaining allies, they would win back territories bit by bit. It hadn’t been just the Gemini alone responsible for the schism in the continent. Before the attack, they had been striking deals not just with Ikegai but with the other enemies of the Wyvern house. Narda and Myka, having known the Paladin for a few decades by now, had noticed some change in their friend. While she had always thrown her whole body and mind at every task, this time Kire did so with an air that told them her heart was in it, too. Her failure with Ikegai and with losing the Capital had crushed her, made her doubt herself, even if she locked the pain and humiliation away to function. “So you’ve decided? You will sit on the throne?” Narda asked. Kire only smiled back at this question.
It was only after two months that Jan, finally receiving more confirmation, sat Kire down to tell her what she was keeping from her. “You’ve been trying to get information about how and where Ikegai had opened a world gate, have you?” Jan asked.
“I have. And I might have found it,” Kire said quietly. Jan unfurled a map, where several spots around the continent have been marked. She pointed to one area, and Kire raised her eyebrows. “You have, too?” she murmured, studying the map and its notes. The spot Janes pointed out was near enough her own hunches, but when she recognized the surrounding territory, Kire looked up at her. “Is this—?”
Janes nodded.
Three weeks after this, a blue portal opened within the wards in front of the mountain caverns where the refugees of Ziad stayed. Only, instead of one figure stepping out into the daylight of the other world, two stumbled out, rolling into the dirt, along with a big sack. “Are you MAD?” Kire yelled, climbing to her feet, breathing heavily. “You could have gotten us both killed, you giant idiot!” She wasn’t wearing heavy armor this time, though she did wear a leather cuirass and arm guards. She was dressed to anticipate the cooler air in the mountain region. Kire cursed in Taakalon repeatedly as she made sure the sack with its valuables wasn’t damaged too heavily. She had let her hair grow the past three months, though it was still short, growing just a little past her ear.
The woman who came with her, or rather jumped at her just as she had opened the portal, let out a booming laugh, despite the nausea she now felt. When she stood up, her muscled form was almost seven feet tall. “I made a promise to your cousins to keep an eye on you, Little Wyvernling,” she said, thumping Kire on her back. “I’m just fulfilling the promise! You know all about solemn oaths, right?”
“I’m going to kill you, Nard,” Kire seethed, hoisting the sack over her shoulder.
“Now, what? We’re in another world. Not much different so far—the sky isn’t green, or some weird color.”
Kire sighed. “Now, we wait. It’s impolite to barge into someone’s home, you know.”
Gavin looked up from his work in the kitchen. He had kept his head down the past three months mostly, doing whatever he could, sometimes helping Zeke and Ysaryn with the other less tolerant refugees, though after a while the promise of finding a new, more suitable home at least drove most of the refugees to work towards a common goal. They were so busy with these preparations that there weren’t a lot of time for magic lessons, which he didn’t particularly mind. His thoughts, however, still drifted back to Amria now and then. While he dared to think he was happy here, he also accepted that the curiosity for the land his mother had come from will be with him always.
He paced out of the kitchen hurriedly to look for the others. “Hey—did any of you feel that?” he said, pointing his thumb in the direction of the cavern entrance.
