Marek didn’t make them wait. He opened the leather pouch on his belt, the one that once held his mother’s pink pearl that now rested on my chest on a necklace fashioned by Hawthorne’s silversmith.
Taking out the Wind Crystal, he handed it to the king.
Each of them stared at the artifact in King Galfrid’s hand.
The king looked up to Marek and me. “Thank you. I am forever indebted to you.”
“I cannot believe you did it. We want to hear everything,” Mev said, moving toward the Crystal. “I didn’t expect it to be so small.”
“Small things can be great too,” her father said, wrapping his fingers around the Crystal and looking upward. With a wave of his empty hand, we watched as the stars in the “sky” disappeared. Dark turned to light and clouds rolled in as if a storm were approaching. With a clap of thunder, they turned grey as distant lightning flashed through the sky before the “storm” suddenly disappeared, replaced by sunlight. Though we could hear birds chirping, I didn’t see them. And just as suddenly as it all began, the “sky” once again darkened, stars appearing, twinkling as they had in the beginning.
Everyone, including Mev, stared at the king but he was looking at me.
“You did wonder about the ceiling, did you not?”
“But… I asked… you weren’t there.”
The king smiled.
“Aetherian whispers,” Marek said beside me. “Are there not those just as skilled who might hear us?” he asked.
“No,” the king replied. “You have your silencing mist, and we have our ways as well.”
There was an Aetherian equivalent to the silencing mist? I’d never heard of that before.
“I was told the Celestial Hall’s magic was ancient and irreplicable,” Mev said to her father.
“Both are true,” he said. “Without this”—the king held up his closed fist, indicating the Crystal—“it would not be possible.”
“Bummer. That means you can’t teach me to do that?”
“I cannot. This only works for the most powerful in Aetheria. Though your skills have come a long way, daughter.”
“Thanks,” she said, clearly proud.
“But we’ve much to discuss now.” He turned his attention to Kael. The final artifact. The Stone of Mor’Vallis which currently sat in Kael’s father’s crown.
But before either could continue, something occurred to me.
“Your research,” I blurted. “We reached the Depths before receiving any word from you,” I explained to Mev and Kael. “Quite by accident.” I began to tell them what had happened as Marek chimed in. When we were done with the story, I circled back to my initial question. “What did you find? About the Depths?”
Mev and Kael exchanged a look of apprehension that made the hairs on my neck stand straight.
“We found references in an ancient text,” Kael said, “which seemed to coincide with the journal and our earlier discovery. One that spoke of dark magic and a sacrifice needing to be made with the use of any of the clan’s most powerful artifacts. Listening to you now, I believe the Crystal’s presence intensified the unnatural magic that already existed there, though we’re unsure who or how it originated. As you suggested, it did not belong in those waters and made it especially dangerous, even more so than it once was.”
“We did send a message,” Mev whispered.
I swallowed, seeing her expression. Mev looked to her father, who sighed so heavily, it could only mean one thing.
They had been resigned to our failure.
“What was the message?” Marek asked.
Part of me didn’t want to know.
“Not to risk it. That it was our belief,” Mev said solemnly, “that while the Crystal could be taken, the true cost of reopening the Gate had yet to be paid.”
* * *
