Was he implying I had been doing the same thing?

“Who became king?” Loren asked.

“Ryne won,” Belen said. “He had gained all but three students’ support.”

Easy to guess the three. Interesting how Jael and Tohon were still causing problems.

“Okay, so you and Ryne graduated and returned to your respective Realms. Why aren’t you there? Helping your people?” I asked Kerrick.

“I was there for two years, dealing with the plague and the waves of marauders.” He rubbed his face as if he could wipe away the memories. “We didn’t have the manpower to keep them out, and they terrorized and stole provisions from the survivors. They killed, as well. But they were hard to find and counter. They fought like the tribal people in the north.”

“Smart bastards,” Belen agreed. “They were in position to storm Alga castle and there was nothing we could do other than dig in and die fighting.”

“I sense a happy ending,” Quain said.

“We were saved by—”

“Ryne,” I said, guessing.

“Not him in particular,” Belen said. “But he sent a… What did he call it?”

“An elite squad,” Kerrick said.

“That’s it. They were just a handful of very well-trained soldiers, but man, they outsmarted the marauders, striking at night, targeting the leaders. By morning, the marauders were gone. Amazing.”

“He sent a few more elite squads, and in a couple months Alga was free of the threat and we started rebuilding,” Kerrick said. “After everything settled down, I handed leadership of the Realm over to my younger brother, Izak, so I could join Ryne in helping the other thirteen.”

“So we could help,” Belen said. “We spent a year with Ryne, and the three Realms north of the Nine Mountains were safe and prospering when we crossed over two years ago. You won’t find the horrors we have found on this side over there.”

“This side has Tohon and we already discovered Ryne’s elite squads can’t counter his…army,” Kerrick said. “Ryne was in the process of collecting more information when he sickened. And I’ve no gift for strategy. Ryne outsmarted Tohon five years ago—he can do it again.”

Which made Kerrick twenty-six years old. Which I didn’t care about. I should care more that they seemed so certain that Tohon needed to be stopped, or at least contained to his Realm. Except I didn’t quite understand why.

I remembered Tohon had worked at the Healer’s Guild for some time. As a life magician he was an invaluable resource to the Guild and he helped out before the plague. How bad could he be? Well, besides the whole bounty on healers. Hating healers wasn’t unique to him. Ryne hated them as well, and that was before the plague. And why didn’t I want to know more about Tohon? Cowardice again?

Everyone watched my expression.

I tried to keep it neutral as I asked Kerrick, “After the snowstorm, can we return to the Guild’s record room?”

“If it’s safe and not buried under tons of snow, we can stay there a couple days before heading north.”

Despite his claim, Kerrick knew enough strategy. He had linked my newfound interest in Ryne with the crate of documents we had uncovered. The best strategy would be to go back and look for more. Perhaps we would discover another box that would convince me to heal Ryne.

The storm blew for the next two days. We emerged from the cave on the third morning, squinting in the bright white sunlight. The forest had been transformed. It looked as if the clouds in the sky had descended to the earth. Piles of fluffy snow mounded on the lee side of trees and bushes, while open areas were bare.

Kerrick frowned at the drifts. “This is going to slow us down.”

“We have at least thirty days until the passes open,” Belen said.

“And over two hundred miles to travel. Let’s go.”

We skirted the deeper drifts and kept to the bare spots when possible. At times, the snow was knee-deep, and others it reached as high as our waists. The snow might appear to be fluffy, but it felt quite dense as I trudged through it, reminding me of the air and how Jael had been able to thicken it so much it had stopped my knife in midair. Worried she might send another storm, I glanced at the sky. Nothing but blue.

“What about our tracks?” I asked, puffing from the exertion.

“Not much we can do,” Kerrick said.

We reached the Healer Guild’s ruined buildings in the afternoon. About a foot of snow had collected in front of the slab holding the door closed. It didn’t take long for all of us to clear it. Belen moved the slab with ease. While Kerrick scouted the area, the rest of us descended into the record room with torches to search for more information.

That night, we camped at the foot of the stairs, so our small campfire could vent and we remained close to the exit.

“What happened to ‘no back door’?” I asked Kerrick.

“It’s not snowing.”

“What does—”

“It’s too hard to sense intruders in the forest during storms,” he said.

“Why?”

“The forest doesn’t like the wind snapping its limbs and branches. During a storm, it reacts as if being invaded by an army of intruders. But now, I’m pretty confident no one is nearby.”

I offered to take a turn on watch. Kerrick laughed at first, but when he realized I was serious, he allowed me to man the first shift.