41
Petron sat back in his chair with a groan, rubbing his aching thighs as he studied the conduit once more. He’d been at it for days now, always managing to find an excuse to disappear here to the queen’s study, confident Lodan and the others had things firmly in control. And though he intended to focus on other things, rifling through the stacks of papers and tomes that filled half the room, he always found himself in front of the conduit, eyes skimming over its carved surface, trying to find whatever thread he could pick that might unravel its mysteries.
Yet no matter how much he willed it, no revelation occurred. No progress to speak of was made. The last discovery he’d stumbled on was purely by accident, and even that was only a strange trick of magnetisation. It didn’t seem to have
