Mama Freda nodded. “I heard it from her brother.”
“But why didn’t she—?”
“Because she’s trying to be so strong,” Mama Freda said, standing up. “Wit’ches don’t celebrate their birthingdays with pastries and well-wishes.” The old healer brushed past Er’ril on the way toward a side door. “Come. It is time we waked her.”
Er’ril had to force his feet to follow. He felt the fool. After five hundred winters, would he ever understand the female heart? He sighed as he crossed toward the door.
When it came to women, even the impossible riddle of the Weirgates paled.
ELENA WOKE WHEN she heard voices in the main chamber of her tower rooms. Though she could not make out the words, she recognized Mama Freda’s accent and the clipped cadence of Er’ril’s native Standish. Elena closed her eyes and stretched her limbs. She had been dreaming of home, of her mother’s singing as she baked in the kitchen, and her father’s laughter as he came in after a long day in the orchards. She kept her eyes squeezed shut. How she wished to return to that dream, instead of to this world of blood magicks and demon armies.
As the voices drew nearer, Elena forced her eyes open. Her bed-chamber was windowless and dark, giving no sense of how much time had passed. But if Er’ril was here, then the moon must have risen. He must have come to wake her.
She scooted up slightly. The darkness of her chamber was not complete. In a corner, upon a pedestal of silvery Tauesian marble, rested a tattered black book with a burgundy rose etched in gilt on its cover.
The Blood Diary. Elena’s talisman, birthright . . . and burden.
From the cover of the tome, the gilt rose glowed softly now, an azure hue not unlike moonlight itself. The moon was calling for the book. Elena knew that as the moon ripened and rose to its zenith, the glow would deepen to an inner fire. Then the book could be opened, and the path to the stars bridged once again.
A soft knock on her door announced the others. Elena shifted up in the bed. “Come,” she called out.
The door opened. “Did you sleep well?” Mama Freda asked as she peeped her head inside.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Good, good.” Mama Freda pushed the door fully open and crossed to the bedside table, bearing a long, flaming taper in one hand. The old woman lit the single lantern as Er’ril entered.
Elena eyed the plainsman. She noticed the slight way he favored his right leg and how his eyelids narrowed as he bore weight on the limb. Though he hid it well, his leg still pained him from the dagger wound. As he approached, she saw he had changed from the finery of the Great Hall to his usual Standish riding clothes: black boots, worn brown breeches, and a green leather jerkin over a rough-spun beige shirt. He had even tied his raven hair back with a strip of red leather.
For some reason, the familiar clothes eased Elena’s heart. Here was the Er’ril she knew and trusted.
Elena pushed back her sheets. She still wore her bedclothes. As she slid from the sheets, the lantern flared brighter. Elena caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the washbasin. Again she felt that twinge of shock. Who was that stranger in the mirror? She touched her face. Her hair spread to her shoulders in a fall of gentle, fiery curls. Her eyes, still the green of the young girl, were now flecked with gold in the lantern light. A spell cast aboard the Seaswift had stolen four winters from her, maturing her prematurely. Her hand traced from her face down the curves of her new body. Though she had grown accustomed to this physique, moments like now still occasionally surprised her.
“The moon is almost risen full,” Er’ril said. “We’d best prepare.”
She nodded. “I thought we’d go atop the tower here.” She quickly pulled a thick woolen robe over her bedclothes, sashing it in place, and pushed her feet into a pair of warm slippers.
Once dressed, she crossed to the Blood Diary and reached for it. The glow of the rose had grown richer in just the short time. Her fingers hovered a breath before touching the tome. From this night forward, nothing would be the same. She sensed the shift of worlds under her feet. But there was no turning back. Taking a firming breath, she took the book in her two ruby hands. Raising the tome, she turned. “I’m ready.”
“Then let us go.” Er’ril led the way out of the bedchamber to the main room. He crossed to a wall and swept back a tapestry to reveal a hidden door to a short staircase that led to the roof. With Er’ril ahead of her and Mama Freda behind, Elena climbed the stairs. The evening’s chill reached her, blowing down from the open roof. As they stepped free of the staircase, a breeze flapped the edges of her robe. She drew the sash tighter around her, then clutched the book to her chest.
Behind her, the old healer’s pet squeaked at the cold and buried itself tighter against Mama Freda. “Are you warm enough, child?” Mama Freda asked Elena, holding up the lantern.
“Yes, but there is no doubt that winter nears.”
“We can still return to the rooms below,” Er’ril said. “The book can be opened anywhere.”
Elena shook her head and crossed to the stones of the parapet. The circle of the moon had climbed fully from the sea. “No. I would like to open it here, in the face of the moon.” She lifted the book. From its cover, the rose glowed brightly.
Er’ril and Mama Freda retreated to give her room.
She was reaching for the cover when the roar of a dragon shattered the night’s quiet. Elena cringed down over the book, protecting it, but she quickly recognized the trumpeting voice. It was Ragnar’k.
Elena straightened, and the trio moved to the parapet’s edge. “Something must be wrong,” Er’ril said as he stared out over the city of A’loa Glen.
Suddenly a black shape shot across the silver of the rising moon and dove across the towers, aiming for them. Mama Freda raised her lantern high while Tikal mumbled, “Big bird, big, big, bird.”
The dragon glided over the thousand spires of the ancient city, drawn like a moth to the light. Once near, it circled on a wingtip overhead. A small voice called out from the beast’s back, but the rider’s words were lost in the winds. Er’ril stepped to the side and waved an arm for Ragnar’k to land.
Roaring, the dragon dove to the far side of the roof, and with a sweep of its massive scaled wings, it alighted on the distant parapet. Silver nails dug deep into the stone, holding its perch. Black eyes, aglow with starlight and moonlight, studied them coldly.
Two figures were saddled on its back. Elena recognized them both: Meric and Sy-wen.
The elv’in prince slid from his perch and landed on the parapet stones, dancing a moment to keep his feet. He seemed oblivious of the long drop behind him. Being a creature of the wind and air, heights were not something he noticed. Meric hopped from the stones to cross toward the gathered trio. He dropped to a knee before Elena, head bowed. “Princess of the Blood,” he said breathlessly.
Elena found her cheeks growing heated even with the cold. “Get up, Meric. Enough of this nonsense. What has brought you here so urgently?” Elena nodded toward the dragon and Sy-wen.
Meric held up a hand, still out of breath from his flight.
Behind Meric, Sy-wen slid down the beast’s neck and climbed off her mount. The mer’ai woman rubbed the dragon’s snout and leaned her forehead against his scales, clearly sharing some inner thought with the great beast. Elena noted the sad smile on Sy-wen as she lifted her hand away.
Scale, bone, and wing whirled in on themselves until a naked man stood on the parapet ledge. Kast. Elena glanced away as Sy-wen helped him down and passed a bundle of clothes to him.
Meric finally seemed to have caught his breath. Still kneeling, he slipped a bag from his shoulder and opened it. He pulled free a lute. The rich umber and gold of the polished wood almost glowed in the starlight. Elena knew the instrument. A twinge of sorrow lanced her heart.
It was Nee’lahn’s lute.
“What’s wrong, elv’in?” Er’ril said gruffly.
Meric climbed to his feet and only acknowledg
ed Er’ril with a scowl. “I have news,” he said to Elena. “A message from . . . from . . . Oh, Sweet Mother, this is going to sound mad.”
Elena reached and touched Meric’s hand. “From whom?”
Meric met her gaze with his bright blue eyes. “From Nee’lahn.”
Elena’s hand fell from Meric’s. She could not suppress a gasp of shock.
“That’s impossible,” Er’ril said.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Meric glanced around at the others.
By now, Sy-wen and Kast had joined them. Kast’s graveled voice spoke slowly. “The elv’in does not lie. We all heard it: a voice behind the strings of the lute.”
“What are you talking about?” Er’ril asked, frowning deeply.
Meric related what had happened aboard the Pale Stallion. “I know it was her voice,” he finished. “She commands me to bring the lute to the Western Reaches. Something is threatening the forest.”
“But she’s dead.”
“Maybe . . . maybe not,” Meric said. “Nee’lahn is nyphai. She is a creature of root and loam, even less human than I.”
Er’ril opened his mouth to argue, but Elena stopped him with a raised arm. She stepped nearer Meric. “Alive or not, what threat did Nee’lahn sense?” Elena recalled the urgent message from the zo’ol shaman. Danger in the Western Reaches. Weirgates.
Meric shook his head, glancing away. “I’m not sure. A threat to the forest.” He shrugged. “The last of her message did not even make any sense, but she was so urgent.” Meric raised his eyes. “ ‘Break the gates or all will be lost.’ ”
Shocked, Elena turned to Er’ril. Neither spoke, but each knew the other’s thoughts. Weirgates. A second warning in less than a day. “We cannot ignore this,” Elena whispered to him.
Er’ril nodded his chin slightly, but he left the decision to her.
Meric spoke up. “I’d like your permission to take one of the elv’in ships and search out Nee’lahn or her spirit. Return the lute to her.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Elena glanced to Er’ril, but spoke to Meric. “This is not the first word of warning we’ve heard coming out from the west.” Elena touched Er’ril on the shoulder. “Tell Meric about the zo’ol shaman’s warning.”
Nodding, Er’ril rapidly related the dire message from Lord Tyrus.
When he was done, Elena continued. “Mycelle and her party are bound for Castle Mryl. If you should go, I would ask that you take the zo’ol tribesman with you. His ability to farspeak may aid your search. I suspect the two warnings are, in fact, one. There is a Weirgate out there, threatening us all. It must be destroyed.”
“We’re overlooking something,” Er’ril said.
All eyes turned to him.
“What?” Elena asked.
“Nee’lahn warned us to break all the Gates, not just the one. All of them: Wyvern, Basilisk, Griffin, and Manticore. Earlier today, someone else warned me to do the same. The four Weirgates are the portal to the Weir, the font of the Black Heart’s power. If we destroy the Gates, we destroy his power.”
Elena clutched the Blood Diary in her hands. Was that the answer she had been seeking? Could that be their next step in their assault upon the Gul’gotha? Kast stepped forward and asked the question plaguing her. “But where do we find these others?”
“I don’t know,” Er’ril said. “Shorkan took the wyvern back to the Gul’gotha at Blackhall, but the others could be anywhere.”
“But why the Western Reaches? Why put a Weirgate way out there?” Elena wondered aloud. She faced Er’ril. “Did you discover any answer in the castle’s library?”
Er’ril shook his head with a scowl. “Brother Ryn and the other scholars will continue to search the library’s books.”
Elena crossed to the center of the parapet. She lifted the Blood Diary. “Here is another book that may hold an answer.” She nodded toward the rising moon. By now, its silver circle had climbed high in the night sky. “It is time we seek another’s guidance.”
Before anyone could object or her heart could falter, Elena opened the book. A wash of scintillation wafted out from the open tome, silvery fireflies on the wind. A whisper of crystal chimes followed, blown quickly away by the evening’s chill breeze.
Elena held her breath and glanced into the book. Instead of white pages of parchment, she found a window open on a starry sky, as if she held a mirror in her hands, reflecting the heavens above. But it was not the skies of her world in the book. Through the portal, vaporous clouds, painted in rainbow hues, flowed between densely packed stars. Strange ice-ringed moons circled past the window, cold and dispassionate. Elena sensed the Void within the book. She felt she could easily fall within these pages and lose herself forever.
But this path was not hers. From the Void, a wispy form of light and crackling energy flowed up through the covers of the Diary to swell into the night.
The faces of those gathered on the roof followed the sight, lit from above by the glow. Overhead, the apparition spread limbs of woven light, arms and legs of carved moonstone. It stretched as if waking from a long slumber. As the figure slowly spun, the ghostly form gained substance, taking on a familiar shape. The visitor studied the ripe moon in Elena’s sky, then settled to the stones of the tower roof.
Elena knew the shape of this spirit. It was as warm and familiar to her as her own palm: the stern countenance; the thin lips set hard with duty; the small, upturned nose; even the braided hair tucked under a bonnet to keep stray strands from the flame of the baking hearths. Elena noticed the ghostly figure even wore an old, frayed apron.
“Aunt Fila?”
The eyes of the figure turned toward her, and Elena instantly knew this resemblance was a ruse. Distant stars shone behind those cold eyes, and ancient suns burned to cinder in its gaze. It was as if the Void in the book had been given form and substance. The visage was not Aunt Fila, but something foreign that wore her shape, something that had never walked under a normal sky.
“Cho?” Elena whispered, naming the spirit inside, a creature of magick and power, light and energy: the being who had granted Elena her gift of blood magicks.
The figure ignored Elena and swept its gaze over those gathered atop the tower roof. No one else spoke, but neither did they retreat.
This show of strength helped Elena find her tongue. “The moon is again full. I ask that you share your wisdom with us. We seek guidance.”
The cold eyes again settled on Elena. “I speak now.” Behind the simple words, the Void could be heard in echoes of ice and timelessness. The figure lifted its arms to study its moonstone limbs, head cocking slightly. “I have shared with the one named Fila, the one who is the Spirit Bridge to your world. She has taught me of your lands.”
Elena stood straighter. “Then you know our need. A great evil has taken hold here. We seek a way to stop it, so we might seek Chi without interference.”
“Chi . . .” For a moment, the coldness of the figure seemed to melt slightly. The voice grew a trace warmer. “I feel him all around me.”
Elena bowed her head. She did not fully understand the relationship between Chi and Cho. They were opposite, yet paired: brother and sister, wife and husband. But the bond was not exactly a familial one either. It was broader than that. Almost something natural, like the sun and the moon.
Elena raised her face. “We still search for clues to the whereabouts of your . . . of your . . .” Elena could not complete her statement. What was Chi?
The spirit must have read Elena’s mind. The warmth still hovered at the edges of the Void. “Brother . . . Call him my brother.” Their gazes met. Elena felt the momentary flash of sadness in the other’s eyes. Though this entity moved between stars and lived unlike any creature that walked the lands, this hurt was too familiar: mourning and loss. The emotions took Elena back to her own, on the streets of Winterfell when her brother Joach had been stolen away. Though Elena did not understand this spirit, she knew this pain because it had once been
her own.
“We have many scholars and wise men searching for the whereabouts of your brother,” Elena consoled. “We will find him, but this world is choked by an evil that keeps us chained and hiding. Once free of this evil, we will be free to search for—”
“No!” The ice returned to both form and words. “This evil is of no importance! You will find Chi.”
“We’re trying, but—”
“No! I can feel my brother’s pain. It eats at me, calls to me.” A coldness spread out from the moonstone figure. The stones of the parapet cracked with frost. “Chi must be found! Now!”
The cracks in the stone spread like spiderwebs from the toes of the spirit. Elena sensed Er’ril draw near to her, ready to whisk her to safety, but she held her ground.
“I know your pain, Cho,” she said calmly. “But what you ask is not easy. We have no idea where to begin even searching. And if we run blindly, the evil of this land will try to thwart our every step. It cannot be ignored.” Elena stared into the Void that was the spirit’s eyes. She did not balk from the sight.
The spiderweb of cracks reached toward Elena. “We are trying our best,” Elena continued quietly, unmoving. The frigid magick flowed from the figure and reached toward Elena’s toes. At her feet, granite stones shattered with ice.
Still, Elena stood, back straight. “It is all we can do.”
Across the damaged stone roof, the figure’s shoulders fell. Silence descended like a physical weight upon the rooftop. When words were spoken again, they were free of frost. “But he cries out for me,” Cho whispered. From eyes that opened upon the Void, tears now flowed, as human as any. “His pain is worse than if it had been my own.”
Elena slowly worked across the terrain of broken stone until she stood beside Cho. “A pain shared can lighten a heart.” Elena lifted a ruby hand and touched the edge of the figure. She was surprised to find substance there. She reached up and touched the face that was both so familiar yet at the same time so foreign. “We are here for you. You have given us the power to fight and free our lands. We owe you our lives and our freedom. We will not fail you.”