Trent looked better.

  When I’d left him yesterday, he’d been weak. Which, considering what he’d been through, I was surprised that he’d been standing at all.

  But the man leaning against the doorframe was bright and full of life. His skin was naturally pale, but it was a strong milky white now instead of the ashy, sickly pale that it had been. His brown eyes were focused and sharp, not vacant and distant. Whatever he’d done had brought him back to how healthy he’d been at the start of the year.

  “Trent!” Ether got up and rushed over to give him a hug.

  “Are you done with your investigation?” I slowly got to my feet. I didn’t bother asking how he’d gotten through the privacy bubble. He was a Tier higher than Gesai and had been around a lot longer. I had a feeling he’d know how to break into a privacy bubble that was at least the same Tier he was.

  “That’s what you want to ask him?” Ether’s fixed her red eyes on me.

  “If I don’t ask him now, I probably won’t get a chance to later.” I offered Gesai my hand to help her stand up. She looked at my hand for a moment, then shook her head and stood on her own. I shrugged. It wasn’t an insult that she hadn’t taken it. She was still afraid of hurting me and I could respect that.

  “We didn’t find out anything more useful than that there had been a gate there.” Trent put his hand on Ether’s shoulder. “But, I was able to figure out why that location was used, so now we know where to look for others.” Trent grinned. “Harror is stationing guards at all of the potential points around her city, and I’ve shared this information with Tres, Klix, and Mive.”

  “You figured it out?” Ether unwound herself from my father and moved over to stand by me. “How?”

  “History has always been a fascination of mine.” Trent shrugged. “When the Primus desolated my mother, I was hoping that I could find a way to bring her back, discover a way to strike back at the Primus, or at the very least, decipher who they are.”

  “And?” Ether prompted after he paused for too long.

  Trent laughed. “I didn’t find out any of those, but when my brother took over the city, I realized that the gates into the Dungeon didn’t reappear in the same places that they had been when Vowler had ruled the city.”

  I remembered the lesson that we’d had earlier in the year about cities. When a God was desolated, the city mantle was cast into the lower floors and the Dungeons in the city merged into a single Dungeon. That was the main Dungeon and where the Mantle of the Gods would wait for someone to come claim it. Once the city mantle was claimed by a godsired, the main Dungeon would split into multiple Dungeons depending on the strength of the God who had claimed the Mantle. So it was possible to gauge how strong a God had been when they claimed the Mantle by the number of gates in a city and the rarity of each of the gates.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “So your brother had more Dungeon Gates than your mother?” I assumed that was what he had meant by his earlier statement.

  “They have the same, actually.” Trent held up three fingers. “The main Dungeon was in the same place, and that never moves, but the other Dungeons…” There was a twinkle in his eyes. “Showed up in a different place.”

  “Wait, so you’re saying that the portal that we went through was where there used to be a gate to a Dungeon when a God before Harror owned this city?” Ether’s jaw dropped.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Trent smiled. “Somehow the cultists have figured out a way to reactivate the old Dungeon Gates and connect them to an artificial Dungeon…” His head waffled. “If it’s even an artificial Dungeon.”

  “What do you mean, if?” I tilted my head. “Hogo showed me how he was able to add monsters to a floor and control things with the Dungeon Core.”

  “Harror pointed out how he is able to do that as well.” Trent grinned as he took in the look on our faces. “Apparently, there’s a way to grow the rarity of your Dungeons by feeding it crystals from other Dungeons, but the cost is very cost-prohibitive.”

  “This goes back to your theory that all the Dungeons are connected somewhere.” Gesai spoke up. “Which means that they didn’t create a new Dungeon, they simply—”

  “Revived one that was already there.” Trent finished for her. “Which, if that’s true, then it could be very dangerous if the other Gods learn about.”

  “How so?” From the reaction of the two women on the roof, I should have known the answer to that question already. “Don’t the other Gods need to know about this potential security breach?”

  “A God’s power is directly tied to the size of their city.” Gesai straightened her shoulders. “Not only would this allow the Gods to expand how many Dungeons are in their cities, but it would also allow them to link their Dungeons to other cities. If they connected the Dungeon Core to one of their Mantles…”

  “They’d be able to essentially walk right into another city.” Trent nodded. “And if they connected their Mantle to a Dungeon in another city using one of the Dungeon Seeds…”

  We all stood there in silence. No one wanted to utter the words of what could happen. Trent had talked about how any God who took a second city Mantle was instantly targeted by the other Gods in the Ward, but this was worse. Being able to steal Mantles without having to go to war or enter a godless town would mean that a God would be able to absorb a city without the other Gods realizing that one of their own had been robbed. I almost asked if it was possible that it would go unnoticed, but considering Arlo had taken the Wurn Mantle and no one had noticed yet, let me know that it was definitely possible.

  “So…” I swallowed. “What do we do now?”

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