Telepathy?
Lo Quen's heart jolted.
Not only could this maiden survive in a land cursed and crawling with monsters, she even possessed such a remarkable gift.
He forced down his astonishment and shaped a clear reply in his mind: "My name is Lo Quen. I come from the Further East, from Yi Ti. As you can see, I am an explorer who strayed into this place."
At the same time, he felt his thoughts flowing across the contact of their joined hands.
Janice's beautiful left eye curved into a crescent, as if she understood.
She tried to pronounce his name, but it came out clumsy and broken: "Lo… Qu… en?"
She had twisted it into four awkward syllables, strange and foreign on her tongue.
Lo Quen almost laughed, shaking his head before correcting her mentally: "It's Lo Quen. 'Lo' is my family name— in the ancient tongue of the East, it means 'golden blade.' 'Quen' is my given name, meaning 'hidden strength' or 'concealed edge.'"
He explained in the simplest way he could.
A flicker of realization lit Janice's eyes, as if she had just unraveled a riddle.
Her gaze quickly sharpened with curiosity as she asked in his mind, "Wizard… the flame you summoned before… was that magic?"
Clearly, the Dragonfire that had incinerated the beast had left a deep impression. She even addressed him with respect.
Lo Quen answered at once, gentle but firm in correction: "Janice, don't call me 'lord.' My house is not noble in Yi Ti, and my name is little known. Just call me Lo Quen."
That was no lie. In his memories, the Golden Empire of Yi Ti had never been ruled by a dynasty of his name. As for the Great Empire of the Dawn, it lingered only in legend, with no record of the God-Emperor's bloodline.
He paused, then added a careful explanation: "As for that flame, yes, it is magic. It mimics the power of dragon's breath. You may call it 'false dragonfire.'"
He would not reveal his true trump card—his power to become a dragon. Better to let her think him merely a wielder of fire magic. In these ruins, the identity of a wizard, capable of defending himself, might inspire more respect—or fear—than that of a wandering adventurer.
"Tell me," he asked after a moment, "why are you here? Are you a native of these ruins of Valyria?"
"I am from Tyria, a few days' journey from here. I came with my sister to search for ghost grass. But near here, we ran into many 'Scaleclaws.' My sister drew them off so I could escape. We were separated, so I waited here for her to return."
Janice spoke slowly, but her words carried weight.
Lo Quen's mind reeled. So the stories were true.
There were still natives of Valyria—and Janice had a sister.
"The Scaleclaws you mentioned… those were the creatures I burned?"
Janice nodded. "That is what we call them. They were once men of this land. But during the Doom centuries ago, the blood magic in the air twisted them, turning them into what you saw."
"And your right cheek?"
Janice caught his gaze fixed on her scarred side.
Her slender body flinched as if pricked. Her left hand clutched tighter over the scaled flesh, knuckles whitening. Her beautiful left eye dropped beneath long lashes, heavy with shame.
"My face too is cursed. Every child born beneath the Ash is tainted by blood magic. We are born with scales. As we grow, they spread… until they devour us."
Her voice was soft, tinged with sorrow.
Lo Quen's chest tightened. So every survivor of Valyria was doomed to become one of those ravenous monsters.
Not wanting to linger on the wound, he shifted the subject. "Could you show me the ghost grass you were looking for?"
Her mention of ghost grass had startled him. He needed to see if it was what he thought.
Ghost grass—an eerie plant of the Shadow Lands far to the East of Essos.
It was said to grow taller than mounted riders, its stalks pale as milky glass.
The Dothraki held it in awe and dread alike. They whispered that cursed souls gave the grass its faint glow, and foretold that one day this pallid death-grass would cover the whole world.
If Janice spoke of the same thing—then how could it grow here, in the ruins of Valyria?
Janice caught the curiosity in Lo Quen's eyes, hesitated, then gave a small nod. She pointed through the mist and spoke into his mind: "That way… not far. That's where my sister and I were separated."
Sure enough, as she had said, they hadn't gone more than a mile before the landscape abruptly changed.
At the foot of a sloping hill stretched a gray-white "ocean," replacing the dead, silent forest of withered trees.
Countless tall, ghostly pale stalks grew in dense clusters, their stems straight, most rising higher than two meters, crowned with fine, equally pallid tassels.
They swayed endlessly in the fog, rustling with a sound like a thousand whispering spirits.
That sickly, unnatural pallor stood in stark, eerie contrast to the charred, lifeless trees around them, radiating an ominous presence.
Ghost grass—the death omen of the Shadow Lands—had here, in the cursed ruins of Valyria, formed a vast and terrible sea.
Lo Quen stepped cautiously to the edge, careful to avoid the leaves that seemed supple but might cut like blades.
He reached out and grasped a stalk as thick as his wrist. It was icy to the touch, its texture hard and smooth, like polished pale glass.
But the moment his fingers closed around it…
Something changed.
A surge of pure, concentrated magical energy jolted out of the stalk like a dormant current suddenly unleashed. It shot up his arm and poured ceaselessly into his body.
Lo Quen stiffened, his whole frame shuddering.
On the panel before his eyes, the number for Magic rose by one.
This ghost grass held raw magic that could be drawn directly into him?!
He looked sharply down. The stalk in his grip, which moments ago had glimmered with a faint milky glow, now dimmed rapidly, its light snuffed out as the energy drained away.
Its pale, jade-like skin dulled to a lifeless gray-brown.
Thin cracks spread like a spider's web across its surface. The once taut, vibrant stalk shriveled, brittle and hollow, as if every trace of life had been sucked from it in the span of a few breaths.
Lo Quen released his hold, and the husk of ghost grass crumbled soundlessly, collapsing into a small pile of dead powder.
A chilling thought struck him.
Could it be that the essence of this legendary death grass lay in nothing more than feeding on and storing the magic in the very air?