Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 680
hint of that when you were here--it’s all well hidden."
She shook her head. "One time a local priest took me on
a tour around the lip of a vast pit. He said it was bottomless. A
hot wind comes up out of it, and you can hear a sound like
constant thunder coming out of the depths. I found it
disturbing. I never went back."
"Yet it was the desals who spoke to you. They reached
out to do so. According to Mason, they wish to serve, and they
are the enemy of those." He gestured to the vagabond moons.
"We will make them our allies. The Titans’ Gates are a
fortress, and you and I are about to experience our second
siege, my queen."
She hugged herself against a sudden chill. "Don’t call
me that. I brought my people low." Angry and grief-stricken,
she turned and started to walk back to their camp. The horses
were visible in the firelight; both were looking in her direction.
"And what are you going to do with the world once you’ve got
it?" she shouted back to Armiger. "How will you succeed
where I failed?"
"I can do what you could not," she heard him say. "I can
conquer the Winds. The ones Mason calls Mediation will be
our fist converts." He followed her and when she sat down by
the fire, he sat too.
"I am no longer Mad Queen Galas--just Mad Galas, I
suppose," she said. "But my madness is nothing compared to
yours if you expect to lay your hands on each and every Wind
in order to turn them to your cause. That is what you intend to
do, is it not?"
"In a sense."
"Then why haven't you done it? Where is your army?
You’ve said that Jordan had the last piece of the puzzle you
needed. So now that you know all you need to, why are you