Chapter 19: What the Mountain Left

In the fourth year, the geologists her people had sent back to the mountain site returned with a report. The volcano's eruption had created, in its destruction, a geologically unique formation: a mineral deposit of extraordinary richness, brought to the surface by the eruption itself, that covered approximately twelve square miles of what had been the mountain's eastern flank. The deposit contained three minerals that were not available anywhere else on the continent. Sera read this report in her council chamber in the valley and sat with it for a long time before telling anyone else. The mountain had destroyed everything they had. Their homes, their history, the graves of their dead, the life they had known. And in doing so, it had left them, in its ash, the most valuable undeveloped mineral resource on the continent. She was not sure whether to call this justice or irony. Probably it was neither. Probably it was just the way things worked: that destruction and gift were sometimes the same event, and the difference between them was what you did with what remained. She called her full council. 'The mountain left us something,' she said. 'Something that changes the calculation of everything.' She spread the geological survey on the table. 'Not for us alone. For all of our partners. Kador, Soleth, the river confederation. The mountain's gift is large enough to share.' Addo looked at the survey. At the deposit quantities. At the map of a mountain that no longer existed but had left its richness behind. 'You're going to use this to build a permanent alliance,' he said. 'I'm going to use this to give our partners a reason to want us to thrive,' she said. 'Self-interest is the most reliable foundation there is.' She looked at her council. 'We didn't choose this. We didn't earn it. It was given to us by the disaster that took everything else.' A pause. 'Let's not waste it.'